(N.B.: I'm *assuming* that this book is just asserting the Everett-Graham-Wheeler multi-world interpretation. If this is wrong, then please tell me so.
But the thing is, here the proper word is neither theory nor hypothesis, but rather interpretation.
Quantum theory has several different interpretations. These various interpretation agree on what the math says, and on what the known experiments say, and (usually) about what any experiment that has been designed would show. They all make the same predictions in these areas. So what people are arguing about is how to translate from the math into English.
It's completely silly to call any one of the interpretations wrong, without also calling all of the others wrong. (N.B.: There may someday be an experiment that would allow us to choose between the interpretation, but only if they are all wrong, and one of them can be extended to be more correct in a way incompatible with the others.)
Unhh... but that's true of every single interpretation of quantum mechanics. The multiworld hypothesis is just as reasonable as the Copenhagen interpretation is just as reasonable as...
There's a bunch of results that put fairly tight constraints about which theories are reasonable, but they don't uniquely identify which one is correct. When you've got 5-7 different theories that make exactly the same prediction everywhere you can check, then to favor any one of them over the others is unreasonable. And it might just be something that you haven't thought of yet.
So this guy is the devotee of the multiworld (Everett-Graham-Wheeler) hypothesis, and the other guy (I'm guessing) is a devotee of the Copenhagen interpretation (Niels Bohr, etc.). Neither can be shown to be wrong. Just because the Copenahagen interpretation came first historically doesn't make it any better. In fact, I'd argue that without evidence one should go with the mathematics, and not collapse the state function. (MultiWorld.) But you can't even use Occam's Razor to choose between them. They just make different simplifying assumptions when translating the math into English. They don't disagree on what the math says. And it can't be translated without simplifying assumptions.
Actually, I'm pretty sure one could get around that problem. Just divide the line into cells, and figure an automated way to move from one cell to another. (Doesn't even sound difficult, actually.) Then only cells that were either in use, or the proximal destination of a cargo on an adjacent cell, would need to be active.
This means more complex controls, but I don't think that's a significant problem anymore. Then you just want the cells to be small enough that the ropes could get up to speed when cargo entered an adjacent cell before it got to the transfer point. So there would be benefits to cells that were fairly small, but not excessively so. (The transfer machinery itself would be likely to break-down occasionally.)
I can see a development of this being used for long distance transport. But you'd want to start small and build up. You'd also want to develop your switching capability, so the lines could easily fork and join. But I bet they'd be noisy and visually obtrusive. Lots of NIMBY problems. Which means you need to avoid residential areas.
(Actually, I'm not at all sure that this is preferable to Bellamy tubes, which ran on compressed air. Though again, there are different tradeoffs. It might well be better in a manufacturing area for moving heavy cargo.)
Recalling history, before silicon was used in transistors, what they called pure silicon had sufficient contaminants that transistors usually couldn't be made from it. They had to improve the purity by about a factor of 10 before it was good enough for single transistor chips.
I wonder just how pure molybdenum needs to be to be considered pure? I'd guess, just based on history, that the purity will need to be a *lot* higher to use in in integrated circuits. So the price estimate is probably extremely low.
OTOH, how much will be needed? I also suspect that materials cost will not be an extremely significant part of the chip costs. As now, most of the costs will be development and handling costs. (Including, e.g., the costs of a "lithographic" printer that can handle this particular production cycle that the chip requires.)
So. This process will use grams where the other common uses use pounds. But the grams will be quite expensive/gram. And that still won't be the expensive part.
Major topic: NetBeans always insisted the the Ruby usage was for Rails, so I never found it at all useful.
Parent: Mixing tabs and spaces is a solved problem. Solved quite awhile back. (The code won't compile.)
As for the other point... that's still a problem. Generally I pull it out and make it a separate function, which is probably usually the right thing to do anyway..
I *am* still annoyed by Python and white-space, but then I'm annoyed by Go and insisting that opening braces be on the same line as the loop statement. (Difference: I use Python. Go I don't, but largely because their documentation is still so inadequate...probably because it's still in beta.)
I think that Ruby is a much nicer -language- than Python, but it doesn't seem to be able to localize errors as well. Sometimes I get to the end of the program "compilation" and am told "There's an error right after the end". This generally means that somewhere back in the program there's a block that isn't properly terminated, or a string that isn't properly closed, or some such. But that can take a LONG time to find. (I frequently write code where some pieces can't be tested until other pieces are wirtten...and it's a recursive loop, so it doesn't matter where you start, you've got to write all the pieces before you can test any of it. Of course, I could just write stubs, but then I might not remember to finish some of them.)
With C/C++ I don't like the pointer syntax. And C++ templates are confusing. (I've never been a C++ specialist. I use lots of different languages.) But neither C nor C++ handle unicode acceptably. (I need to handle unicode strings which are almost always ASCII, so utf-8 is the highly preferred form.)
Vala is a language that shows lots of promise, but is seems to be developing slowly. D is the language that I'd really choose, if it weren't for the library problem. (Which Vala gets around by generating intermediate C code.)
So for now I'm using Python. And keeping my eye on Vala and Python.
IIRC, the thrust expected from a solar sail near earth's orbit is about half from solar wind and half from photons. Of course, the solar wind is quite changeable. Also, while one can tack against the photons, one cannot tack against the solar wind, because the particles embed themselves in the sail rather than being reflected.
I don't know what the conditions would be near the heliopause. It could well be that the sail would impact the solar wind slowing the vessel (whether on the way in or out).
Ethanol is not even nearly as good a fuel as gasoline. The only real advantage is that we can make it NOW. That's an advantage, but the process is so inefficient that it isn't much of an advantage.
I strongly prefer schemes like the one that takes liquid sewage and ferments it into diesel oil. I believe that's working now too, but they need to get the efficiencies up and the prices down. (And, yes, this method *could* use kudzu slurry as a feedstock. But you've got to deliver the kudzu and chop it up or ferment it.)
OTOH, the above approaches don't come near to replacing oil imports. At least not yet. If this scheme works, then it *would* replace oil imports. But I'm not convinced as to their efficiencies and prices. (That's OK. I'm not one of their target investors.)
As to their not proceeding to a pilot plant according to their original schedule...lots of people have had financing plans collapse over the past year. This doesn't imply that they don't have a good technology. They might or might not, and one can't tell.
If salt water and brackish water work, then that eliminates one of the limiting factors that I saw. Of course, maintenance of equipment immersed in salty water will be a lot more expensive, but at least it's a solved problem. I can't imagine that it will be an open-air pool. You aren't going to want to deal with *THAT* kind of contamination. And there will probably be a requirement that the air be scrubbed on the way in. Perhaps UV sterilization would be good enough, bubbled through the pond, and removed via a one-way valve. (Probably a simple flap-valve would suffice.) I wonder whether the panes in the cover should be glass or plastic? Plastic needs to be replaced more often, but glass is heavier, and opaque to some UV. (But so is water, so that's likely not a problem.)
This isn't going to be a lake, it's going to be an industrial plant. Probably a cleaner one than most refineries, but still an industrial plant.
Cap and trade is an awesomely bad idea whose only function is to allow companies to pretend to be cleaning up while not actually doing so.
A carbon tax would be a lot simpler. A lot easier to enforce. And have (potentially!!) a lot fewer loopholes. Naturally Cap and Trade is what is being offered.
I don't have any problem with the forecast presuming they're using atmospheric air. The problem might be the speed at which things happen. Low CO2 partial pressure might well translate into slow production. Which would, itself, increase the costs.
It *might* be necessary, as a measure of self defense. I doubt it. The Cuba policy has been a mistake for decades, if it was ever reasonable. Which I also doubt. We act so often to drive small countries that would prefer to be on friendly terms with us into the hands of our enemies that I tend to think it's a deliberate policy. A badly self-destructive one, but one that encourages lots of small wars where munitions are sold by certain companies to both sides. And where presidents can look like military leaders at minimal risk. So it's got benefits for a few parties, but for the country it's a net loss. It's not only unnecessarily expensive, it turns potential allies into enemies.
And, yes, once they're enemies, we need to defend against them. And so big defense budgets get passed. (Frequently lots bigger than the military itself requested.) And certain companies bid on those contracts and gain more wealth.
N.B.: When I said "certain companies" I meant companies that operate in fields producing certain materials. It isn't the same companies in all occasions. Don't think so much of a weapons cartel, as of a large group of companies operating in a certain area who each have the potential to earn lots of easy money if they win the bid. Even without an agreement they have common interests.
Well, if that fixes the problem, then I don't see anything wrong with that. If the problem is a capacitive linkage, then it might well fix the problem.
At my university, symbolic logic was taught in the math department. There was also an "Into to symbolic logic" taught in philosophy. But they didn't even get as far as the Peano axioms, much lest second order logic.
OTOH, in the math class we needed to reconstruct Gödel's incompleteness theorem...and the lectures went on into omega incompleteness.
So, for me at least, logic *is* a part of math. (Even if most of the computer classes were oriented around numerical analysis. Well, this *was* back in the 1960's or 70's.)
I think that the elliptic cryptograms should still be valid. Unfortunately, nobody uses them because they are harder to deal with, and besides, the factoring approach got there first and seemed good enough.
(Mind you, I don't know *anything* about elliptic encryption, but at the time RSA was being first proposed as a standard, someone was claiming that elliptic encryption was what should be used, because IF P=NP, then encryption dependent on prime factorization was vulnerable.)
If Mickey Mouse got 40% of the vote, you'd never know. They don't count votes for unrecognized candidates. We never did find out how many people voted for Pat Paulson. All that happened was they strengthened rules against TV personalities campaigning for president. (And they started running more actors as candidates.)
FWIW, I do vote every time. It's more or less a habit. But I sure agree with those who say it doesn't change anything. I'd go further and say that it is specifically tailored to not change anything at higher than the local level. (It may be significant in who your representative is, but it's only significant in who your senator is if you live in an exceptionally small state. Rhode Island, perhaps, or Vermont. Some place that doesn't have more representatives than senators.
I presume that's a joke, as we don't have nearly enough information to conclude that. However to be a good joke it would need to be clearly implausible. Unfortunately, the ethical history of MS doesn't make that part of the motivation implausible at all.
OTOH, interpreting it as a joke, the complex conspiracy required among groups that don't usually work together makes it rather unlikely. And the evidence that cell phone radiation causes cancer in a reasonably short time frame is extremely sparse. It exists, but it's not terribly convincing.
Still, I wouldn't put it past them. Unfortunately, if they have a cancer cure, they haven't yet demonstrated it.
(Hint: This is a critique of the joke. By taking it seriously. I *was* a bit shocked at how plausibly it worked up.)
If they won't identify the problem application, then MS is the one who should be blamed. It doesn't really matter what the excuse, if they won't either fix it or explain how you can fix it, it's their fault.
Doesn't matter if it's a third party application. MS is the only one who knows which third party application, and they won't tell. So it's their fault. They may, or may not, have instigated the problem. We can't tell. And saying "I didn't do it!" isn't much of a defense. We aren't a court of criminal law. (Even there it looks as if MS would be an accessory both before, during, and after the crime.)
While I'll acknowledge that what you say is true WRT harmless, they *thought* they did real world testing. They went out in the parking lot. But to keep it secret they didn't go far. And they were right next to a cell phone tower. Oops!
Still, they should fix the problem and acknowledge their error. But this is much different from evil. They definitely didn't intend to create the problem. (If they're still selling that model, then *THAT* would count as evil.)
Making a mistake and then refusing to fix it because it would be expensive and embarrassing isn't evil. It also sure isn't good. In fact it's closer to evil than to good. But if the motivations for the original actions weren't evil, then the actions weren't evil. Evil required malicious intent. This has frequently been demonstrated WRT MS, but *very* rarely WRT Apple. And then not directed at their customers, but rather at their competitors or their developers.
So the end users tend to defend Apple. Everybody makes mistakes. It's no surprise that Apple should. It is, of course, troubling that they refuse to admit them, but everyone also knows that it feels troubling to admit to a mistake, especially in an area where one is supposed to be an expert. And extra especially if it's an expensive mistake. (Again, this sure isn't good, but it's also not evil.)
Yeah, but the next step is finding a cheaper substitute for palladium. That might be a bit tricky. (Not the cheap part. Most things are cheaper. The substitute part.)
But passenger pigeons went extinct because they wouldn't breed except in *large* flocks. So re-creating them as a stable species might be quite difficult.
Dodos, OTOH, should be easy if you could get the DNA. But what would be the host mother? No current pigeon could lay that size egg. Perhaps turkeys or geese might work, but they are long divergent species, so though it might work mechanically, I'm not at all convinced about the biochemistry.
Dodo's, however, were supposed to be delicious. Unfortunately, I believe that they bred a lot more slowly than chickens or turkeys. But you could call them "Giant Squab!", and sell them for quite a lot. (I don't think they'd need much more protection than chickens, but with their slower rate of reproduction they'd need to be sold at a large premium to be economically sensible.)
But I doubt that it could happen. There probably isn't any good enough DNA. (Maybe someone should ask Craig Venter to do an artistic recreation?)
Actually "Should we really do it?" *IS* a question that needs to be asked more often. And considered more carefully. I do agree that for golden rice the answer is yes, and also for high lysine corn, but those, you'll notice, are not commercial endeavors. And I really question a lot of stuff that Monsanto churns out. They seem like "bad idea" writ large.
OTOH, the "terminator gene" does help prevent the modified genes from escaping into the general population. But *help* is the word. It may stop pollination, but it doesn't stop gene fragments carried by insects. (A rare mode, but one that has been definitely demonstrated.) But it's real purpose is clearly to prevent farmers from harvesting seed and replanting it.
One problem this kind of species WOULD have is a restricted gene pool. Maybe anyone hoping for success had better hope that they can crossbreed with elephants, or getting a breeding population started is likely to be quite difficult.
I don't know if you bothered to notice, but it didn't *start* with a mammoth, it started with a sheep. (Actually, it started with a rat or mouse, unless you count the work done on yeast cells and E. Coli.)
This is a totally silly place to start getting scared. I'm not convinced that it would make any sense at any point, but picking this one is really silly.
You didn't get people reacting this way when Craig Venter created a virus with a totally novel genetic code, and that would be a much more reasonable place to become scared. This is just dramatic.
Slashdot Mirror
(N.B.: I'm *assuming* that this book is just asserting the Everett-Graham-Wheeler multi-world interpretation. If this is wrong, then please tell me so.
But the thing is, here the proper word is neither theory nor hypothesis, but rather interpretation.
Quantum theory has several different interpretations. These various interpretation agree on what the math says, and on what the known experiments say, and (usually) about what any experiment that has been designed would show. They all make the same predictions in these areas. So what people are arguing about is how to translate from the math into English.
It's completely silly to call any one of the interpretations wrong, without also calling all of the others wrong.
(N.B.: There may someday be an experiment that would allow us to choose between the interpretation, but only if they are all wrong, and one of them can be extended to be more correct in a way incompatible with the others.)
Unhh... but that's true of every single interpretation of quantum mechanics. The multiworld hypothesis is just as reasonable as the Copenhagen interpretation is just as reasonable as ...
There's a bunch of results that put fairly tight constraints about which theories are reasonable, but they don't uniquely identify which one is correct. When you've got 5-7 different theories that make exactly the same prediction everywhere you can check, then to favor any one of them over the others is unreasonable. And it might just be something that you haven't thought of yet.
So this guy is the devotee of the multiworld (Everett-Graham-Wheeler) hypothesis, and the other guy (I'm guessing) is a devotee of the Copenhagen interpretation (Niels Bohr, etc.). Neither can be shown to be wrong. Just because the Copenahagen interpretation came first historically doesn't make it any better. In fact, I'd argue that without evidence one should go with the mathematics, and not collapse the state function. (MultiWorld.) But you can't even use Occam's Razor to choose between them. They just make different simplifying assumptions when translating the math into English. They don't disagree on what the math says. And it can't be translated without simplifying assumptions.
Actually, I'm pretty sure one could get around that problem. Just divide the line into cells, and figure an automated way to move from one cell to another. (Doesn't even sound difficult, actually.) Then only cells that were either in use, or the proximal destination of a cargo on an adjacent cell, would need to be active.
This means more complex controls, but I don't think that's a significant problem anymore. Then you just want the cells to be small enough that the ropes could get up to speed when cargo entered an adjacent cell before it got to the transfer point. So there would be benefits to cells that were fairly small, but not excessively so. (The transfer machinery itself would be likely to break-down occasionally.)
I can see a development of this being used for long distance transport. But you'd want to start small and build up. You'd also want to develop your switching capability, so the lines could easily fork and join. But I bet they'd be noisy and visually obtrusive. Lots of NIMBY problems. Which means you need to avoid residential areas.
(Actually, I'm not at all sure that this is preferable to Bellamy tubes, which ran on compressed air. Though again, there are different tradeoffs. It might well be better in a manufacturing area for moving heavy cargo.)
Recalling history, before silicon was used in transistors, what they called pure silicon had sufficient contaminants that transistors usually couldn't be made from it. They had to improve the purity by about a factor of 10 before it was good enough for single transistor chips.
I wonder just how pure molybdenum needs to be to be considered pure? I'd guess, just based on history, that the purity will need to be a *lot* higher to use in in integrated circuits. So the price estimate is probably extremely low.
OTOH, how much will be needed? I also suspect that materials cost will not be an extremely significant part of the chip costs. As now, most of the costs will be development and handling costs. (Including, e.g., the costs of a "lithographic" printer that can handle this particular production cycle that the chip requires.)
So. This process will use grams where the other common uses use pounds. But the grams will be quite expensive/gram. And that still won't be the expensive part.
Major topic:
NetBeans always insisted the the Ruby usage was for Rails, so I never found it at all useful.
Parent:
Mixing tabs and spaces is a solved problem. Solved quite awhile back. (The code won't compile.)
As for the other point... that's still a problem. Generally I pull it out and make it a separate function, which is probably usually the right thing to do anyway..
I *am* still annoyed by Python and white-space, but then I'm annoyed by Go and insisting that opening braces be on the same line as the loop statement. (Difference: I use Python. Go I don't, but largely because their documentation is still so inadequate...probably because it's still in beta.)
I think that Ruby is a much nicer -language- than Python, but it doesn't seem to be able to localize errors as well. Sometimes I get to the end of the program "compilation" and am told "There's an error right after the end". This generally means that somewhere back in the program there's a block that isn't properly terminated, or a string that isn't properly closed, or some such. But that can take a LONG time to find. (I frequently write code where some pieces can't be tested until other pieces are wirtten...and it's a recursive loop, so it doesn't matter where you start, you've got to write all the pieces before you can test any of it. Of course, I could just write stubs, but then I might not remember to finish some of them.)
With C/C++ I don't like the pointer syntax. And C++ templates are confusing. (I've never been a C++ specialist. I use lots of different languages.) But neither C nor C++ handle unicode acceptably. (I need to handle unicode strings which are almost always ASCII, so utf-8 is the highly preferred form.)
Vala is a language that shows lots of promise, but is seems to be developing slowly. D is the language that I'd really choose, if it weren't for the library problem. (Which Vala gets around by generating intermediate C code.)
So for now I'm using Python. And keeping my eye on Vala and Python.
IIRC, the thrust expected from a solar sail near earth's orbit is about half from solar wind and half from photons. Of course, the solar wind is quite changeable. Also, while one can tack against the photons, one cannot tack against the solar wind, because the particles embed themselves in the sail rather than being reflected.
I don't know what the conditions would be near the heliopause. It could well be that the sail would impact the solar wind slowing the vessel (whether on the way in or out).
Ethanol is not even nearly as good a fuel as gasoline. The only real advantage is that we can make it NOW. That's an advantage, but the process is so inefficient that it isn't much of an advantage.
I strongly prefer schemes like the one that takes liquid sewage and ferments it into diesel oil. I believe that's working now too, but they need to get the efficiencies up and the prices down. (And, yes, this method *could* use kudzu slurry as a feedstock. But you've got to deliver the kudzu and chop it up or ferment it.)
OTOH, the above approaches don't come near to replacing oil imports. At least not yet. If this scheme works, then it *would* replace oil imports. But I'm not convinced as to their efficiencies and prices. (That's OK. I'm not one of their target investors.)
As to their not proceeding to a pilot plant according to their original schedule...lots of people have had financing plans collapse over the past year. This doesn't imply that they don't have a good technology. They might or might not, and one can't tell.
If salt water and brackish water work, then that eliminates one of the limiting factors that I saw. Of course, maintenance of equipment immersed in salty water will be a lot more expensive, but at least it's a solved problem. I can't imagine that it will be an open-air pool. You aren't going to want to deal with *THAT* kind of contamination. And there will probably be a requirement that the air be scrubbed on the way in. Perhaps UV sterilization would be good enough, bubbled through the pond, and removed via a one-way valve. (Probably a simple flap-valve would suffice.) I wonder whether the panes in the cover should be glass or plastic? Plastic needs to be replaced more often, but glass is heavier, and opaque to some UV. (But so is water, so that's likely not a problem.)
This isn't going to be a lake, it's going to be an industrial plant. Probably a cleaner one than most refineries, but still an industrial plant.
Cap and trade is an awesomely bad idea whose only function is to allow companies to pretend to be cleaning up while not actually doing so.
A carbon tax would be a lot simpler. A lot easier to enforce. And have (potentially!!) a lot fewer loopholes. Naturally Cap and Trade is what is being offered.
I don't have any problem with the forecast presuming they're using atmospheric air. The problem might be the speed at which things happen. Low CO2 partial pressure might well translate into slow production. Which would, itself, increase the costs.
And you think that's good???
It *might* be necessary, as a measure of self defense. I doubt it. The Cuba policy has been a mistake for decades, if it was ever reasonable. Which I also doubt. We act so often to drive small countries that would prefer to be on friendly terms with us into the hands of our enemies that I tend to think it's a deliberate policy. A badly self-destructive one, but one that encourages lots of small wars where munitions are sold by certain companies to both sides. And where presidents can look like military leaders at minimal risk. So it's got benefits for a few parties, but for the country it's a net loss. It's not only unnecessarily expensive, it turns potential allies into enemies.
And, yes, once they're enemies, we need to defend against them. And so big defense budgets get passed. (Frequently lots bigger than the military itself requested.) And certain companies bid on those contracts and gain more wealth.
N.B.: When I said "certain companies" I meant companies that operate in fields producing certain materials. It isn't the same companies in all occasions. Don't think so much of a weapons cartel, as of a large group of companies operating in a certain area who each have the potential to earn lots of easy money if they win the bid. Even without an agreement they have common interests.
Well, if that fixes the problem, then I don't see anything wrong with that. If the problem is a capacitive linkage, then it might well fix the problem.
At my university, symbolic logic was taught in the math department. There was also an "Into to symbolic logic" taught in philosophy. But they didn't even get as far as the Peano axioms, much lest second order logic.
OTOH, in the math class we needed to reconstruct Gödel's incompleteness theorem...and the lectures went on into omega incompleteness.
So, for me at least, logic *is* a part of math. (Even if most of the computer classes were oriented around numerical analysis. Well, this *was* back in the 1960's or 70's.)
I think that the elliptic cryptograms should still be valid. Unfortunately, nobody uses them because they are harder to deal with, and besides, the factoring approach got there first and seemed good enough.
(Mind you, I don't know *anything* about elliptic encryption, but at the time RSA was being first proposed as a standard, someone was claiming that elliptic encryption was what should be used, because IF P=NP, then encryption dependent on prime factorization was vulnerable.)
If Mickey Mouse got 40% of the vote, you'd never know. They don't count votes for unrecognized candidates. We never did find out how many people voted for Pat Paulson. All that happened was they strengthened rules against TV personalities campaigning for president. (And they started running more actors as candidates.)
FWIW, I do vote every time. It's more or less a habit. But I sure agree with those who say it doesn't change anything. I'd go further and say that it is specifically tailored to not change anything at higher than the local level. (It may be significant in who your representative is, but it's only significant in who your senator is if you live in an exceptionally small state. Rhode Island, perhaps, or Vermont. Some place that doesn't have more representatives than senators.
I presume that's a joke, as we don't have nearly enough information to conclude that. However to be a good joke it would need to be clearly implausible. Unfortunately, the ethical history of MS doesn't make that part of the motivation implausible at all.
OTOH, interpreting it as a joke, the complex conspiracy required among groups that don't usually work together makes it rather unlikely. And the evidence that cell phone radiation causes cancer in a reasonably short time frame is extremely sparse. It exists, but it's not terribly convincing.
Still, I wouldn't put it past them. Unfortunately, if they have a cancer cure, they haven't yet demonstrated it.
(Hint: This is a critique of the joke. By taking it seriously. I *was* a bit shocked at how plausibly it worked up.)
If they won't identify the problem application, then MS is the one who should be blamed. It doesn't really matter what the excuse, if they won't either fix it or explain how you can fix it, it's their fault.
Doesn't matter if it's a third party application. MS is the only one who knows which third party application, and they won't tell. So it's their fault. They may, or may not, have instigated the problem. We can't tell. And saying "I didn't do it!" isn't much of a defense. We aren't a court of criminal law. (Even there it looks as if MS would be an accessory both before, during, and after the crime.)
While I'll acknowledge that what you say is true WRT harmless, they *thought* they did real world testing. They went out in the parking lot. But to keep it secret they didn't go far. And they were right next to a cell phone tower. Oops!
Still, they should fix the problem and acknowledge their error. But this is much different from evil. They definitely didn't intend to create the problem. (If they're still selling that model, then *THAT* would count as evil.)
Making a mistake and then refusing to fix it because it would be expensive and embarrassing isn't evil. It also sure isn't good. In fact it's closer to evil than to good. But if the motivations for the original actions weren't evil, then the actions weren't evil. Evil required malicious intent. This has frequently been demonstrated WRT MS, but *very* rarely WRT Apple. And then not directed at their customers, but rather at their competitors or their developers.
So the end users tend to defend Apple. Everybody makes mistakes. It's no surprise that Apple should. It is, of course, troubling that they refuse to admit them, but everyone also knows that it feels troubling to admit to a mistake, especially in an area where one is supposed to be an expert. And extra especially if it's an expensive mistake. (Again, this sure isn't good, but it's also not evil.)
Yeah, but the next step is finding a cheaper substitute for palladium. That might be a bit tricky. (Not the cheap part. Most things are cheaper. The substitute part.)
But passenger pigeons went extinct because they wouldn't breed except in *large* flocks. So re-creating them as a stable species might be quite difficult.
Dodos, OTOH, should be easy if you could get the DNA. But what would be the host mother? No current pigeon could lay that size egg. Perhaps turkeys or geese might work, but they are long divergent species, so though it might work mechanically, I'm not at all convinced about the biochemistry.
Dodo's, however, were supposed to be delicious. Unfortunately, I believe that they bred a lot more slowly than chickens or turkeys. But you could call them "Giant Squab!", and sell them for quite a lot. (I don't think they'd need much more protection than chickens, but with their slower rate of reproduction they'd need to be sold at a large premium to be economically sensible.)
But I doubt that it could happen. There probably isn't any good enough DNA. (Maybe someone should ask Craig Venter to do an artistic recreation?)
Actually "Should we really do it?" *IS* a question that needs to be asked more often. And considered more carefully. I do agree that for golden rice the answer is yes, and also for high lysine corn, but those, you'll notice, are not commercial endeavors. And I really question a lot of stuff that Monsanto churns out. They seem like "bad idea" writ large.
OTOH, the "terminator gene" does help prevent the modified genes from escaping into the general population. But *help* is the word. It may stop pollination, but it doesn't stop gene fragments carried by insects. (A rare mode, but one that has been definitely demonstrated.) But it's real purpose is clearly to prevent farmers from harvesting seed and replanting it.
One problem this kind of species WOULD have is a restricted gene pool. Maybe anyone hoping for success had better hope that they can crossbreed with elephants, or getting a breeding population started is likely to be quite difficult.
I don't know if you bothered to notice, but it didn't *start* with a mammoth, it started with a sheep. (Actually, it started with a rat or mouse, unless you count the work done on yeast cells and E. Coli.)
This is a totally silly place to start getting scared. I'm not convinced that it would make any sense at any point, but picking this one is really silly.
You didn't get people reacting this way when Craig Venter created a virus with a totally novel genetic code, and that would be a much more reasonable place to become scared. This is just dramatic.
I used to be able to say "Us Tauri don't believe in astrology", but now, apparently, I'm an Ares.
Every time I start to remember how good they were once upon a time they do something like this!