Microsoft isn't the one responsible for that. Symantec and McAfee both spend a lot of money paying computer manufacturers to pre-load trial versions their software. The average (translation: stupid) user will assume that, since it came with the computer, it is somehow an actual necessary part of the computer, and pay for the full service. Both companies end up with more money.
Also, Microsoft includes an extra set of license checks with MSE - it's supposedly quite difficult to get it working on pirated copies of Windows. So it serves as an incentive for people to buy their OS (rather than pirate). Thus how MS sees it as a profit-making product.
I'm pretty sure I have been eating mostly GM foods, probably for the past 20 years of my life. With plenty of preservatives, added sugar, caffeine, sodium and every other nasty chemical ever put in food. Never had any diet-related health problems. Healthy blood sugar, healthy immune system, body mass actually slightly under normal but not unhealthily so. Unless GM foods somehow caused my nearsightedness, I think we can safely call that myth busted.
Also, I believe I have seen that movie. I am aware of the almost comically evil nature of Monsanto. They're third in line on my list of people to line against the wall when the revolution happens (after the professional lobbyists and the MAFIAA). However, "evil corporation" does not imply "unsafe food". The FDA isn't that dickless. Point me at one instance of someone dying from GM food (specifically because the food was GM, mind you, not because it was spoiled or something) and I can point you at ten people who died from normal food, and a thousand more who died from the lack of any food.
PS: Was marking me a foe really necessary? All that did was make you look like an absolutist - "I AM UNEQUIVOCALLY RIGHT, AND ANYONE WHO DISAGREES IS MY ENEMY!"
I was making a point by exaggeration - IF a couple thousand species was enough to make the planet operate flawlessly, then why not? Do we gain anything by having four different types of temperate saltwater bass? Do we gain anything by having three different types of disc-winged bat?
My point was that biodiversity is not something to strive towards in and of itself. It is not a goal, but a step on the road to the goal. The goal is a stable and beneficial ecosystem, and biodiversity helps to achieve that. However, I believe that once a certain level of biodiversity is achieved, there is no additional benefit to the ecosystem - the stability plateaus after a certain level of diversity. I may be wrong on this (I have no evidence to support my opinion), but I have also seen no evidence to the contrary.
No, I'm proposing the exact opposite. GM foods are inevitable - we literally could not feed our current population without them. Unless you propose killing off 2 billion people (that's 3.33 hectohitlers, by the way), you're going to have to accept GM foods. So the question then becomes "do we have one GM food company, or one hundred? Do we have one variant of each crop, or a thousand?". Or, to use a computer analogy, "do we want everybody using Windows (one company, only a few variations which are all vulnerable to the same attacks), or do we want everybody using Linux (hundreds of companies, thousands of distros, each different enough that they won't all be affected by the same attack)?".
I was mocking that exact thing, how you can call anything terrorism. Bullying? That's "child terrorism". Reckless driving? That's "commission of terrorism with a vehicle". Begging on the street? "Economic terrorism".
I'm actually kind of disappointed that it was rated "+5 Insightful". I was expecting "+5 Funny". I did, however, nab my first first post, so I'm still happy with it.
Sure he does! You buy them at Wal-Mart, in the form of frozen french fries. Microwave for 45 seconds. Pour on the ketchup. Eat at computer while arguing on/. What more do you need to know about potatoes, other than that you can make a wimpy battery out of them for a lame science fair project?
Biodiversity is not a worthy goal in and of itself. If everything else worked right, I'd have no problems with reducing total species on the planet to the low thousands. If a species does not actually contribute anything, why save it?
However, I realize the problems with that view, namely that low diversity makes it extremely easy for diseases to wipe out the entire thing. However, I don't see how "genetically modified" necessarily implies "destroys biodiversity". In fact, I could see it overall increasing it (provided we fix certain broken pieces of IP law). If, instead of one company making all the new GM foods, you had dozens, you would end up with several competing GM foods, which are less likely to be vulnerable to the same diseases. Further, if each company segmented their products (ie. you had different "versions" of each company's food), you could increase biodiversity even more. For example, assume the Basic version of Uberfood's GM Corn provided resistance to common diseases and increased growth, while the Resistance edition added low-water survivability and resistance to several uncommon blights, and the Ultra edition provided additional growth increase and resistance to some special pesticide. If some disease finds a vulnerability in the pesticide resistance, you only lose 1/3 of those crops. While potentially making more money for the companies in the process, as you would either lower the price on the Basic (allowing economically disadvantaged farmers to grow them) or increase the price on the others (getting more money from the economically advantaged).
Uh, it's kinda important to test GM foods in realistic conditions, especially when testing "how will this grow in realistic conditions?". I'm sure they took plenty of sensible precautions, like "test it as thoroughly as possible in the lab to make sure it's not dangerous", and "keep it separate and distant from actual crops to prevent genetic transfer". Plus, unless they changed science without telling me, experimental products aren't sold as food after the experiment is over. These particular plants were never going to be eaten.
Plus, what does "Monsanto being evil money-grabbing bastards" have to do with foods not being safe (which seems to be your unstated concern - ignore if I'm picking up on the wrong subtext)? The only two GM foods I can find with actual safety concerns (both triggered allergic reactions) had those problems detected well before even field-study, and were subsequently stopped. I agree that Monsanto is an absolutely evil corporation that should be first against the wall when the revolution comes, but not because they're making and selling unsafe food.
Sure there are! Like... no.... maybe not them... no...definitely not...well...
Aha! Somalia! Absolutely no censorship, if only because there's no real government to enforce it. And they apparently have pretty good comms, compared to most of that continent. I'll just pack some self-defense gear (is it possible to buy a Mk 19 on the civilian market?), and telecommute to work. Hell, the way outsourcing is going...
Check the dates. DNF was opened for pre-orders back in 2001 (before being delayed, and delayed more, and delayed longer than any game in history). Some people kept those pre-orders.
It's news because some of these pre-orders are nearly a decade old. TF2 was announced, un-announced, went through it's own epic development hell, was released, had over a hundred patches released, all in the time between some of these preorders being made and the game finally coming out.
Not only that, but some of those pre-orders may be for ports that no longer exist - can you transfer a Saturn edition pre-order into an XBox360 preorder? A PS1 preorder into a PS3 preorder?
I thought it was Sony that bragged that they never sold a console at a loss. It makes sense for them, since both the PS2 and PS3 sold a lot as just DVD/BD players to early adopters of those formats, due to actually being cheaper than dedicated players at that time.
Although I can believe Nintendo doing that too. Microsoft is the only one I can imagine selling their console at a loss - hell, the entire original XBox never made a profit for them, it was just a way to break into the market.
In a takeoff or landing accident, you don't have time to look things up in the manual. An all-engines-out accident at 40,000 ft, you've got nearly a full minute, going straight down. Gliding, potentially a full hour. And that's in what's very close to a worst-case scenario. In a more common accident, such as a malfunction in one engine, you could theoretically continue without fixing it (redundant systems), but you still want to try to fix it, or at least make sure it's not a symptom of something else. So if, say, one engine's fuel pump stops, you can have the pilot continue flying the plane while the copilot looks it up on his iPad, tries a few things to fix it in-flight, and if all fails, makes sure that it isn't a sign of something else going wrong.
Plus, I imagine the manuals are used frequently on the ground. A pre-flight checklist might be on there, or even just maintenance procedures.
HW is a good way to sell the console to game developers, though. A lot of big 3rd-parties jumped ship with the Wii, simply because it couldn't keep up. Similarly, you can get developers to make good exclusives if you have a uniquely powerful console.
And then, once you have the game developers, you get the games that sell the console to the players.
The military, at least, has reasons. Current US military training emphasizes the importance of battlefield information - terms like "information-centric warfare" are often bandied about. Essentially, they believe that the side with the better information and ability to exploit it will be victorious. (You see the same in business, now, with all sorts of customer information and statistics being used). Thus they also emphasize denying that information to your enemies. Thus, they have a "corporate culture" of never giving out information, ever, and greatly overestimating how much damage leaked info can cause. It's not a totally rational reason, but there is a reason for the military to be paranoid about leaks.
The government probably just doesn't want people knowing what they actually do. Must preserve the facade of democracy at the federal level, after all. (The state/local governments are relatively good, except in big cities, but the federal government is terrible about it).
How about we get a culture where things don't have to be leaked? Almost everyone who leaks something is doing so to attract public attention to a problem those responsible refuse to solve. If you institute a culture of "if someone brings a serious problem to your attention, you fix it, regardless of what it does to your bottom line or to your dignity", then leaking never needs to happen.
PS: Yes, I saw some of the bizarrely paranoid things they suggest self-censorship for. That's just their culture of paranoia kicking in.
Slashdot Mirror
Pretty sure the bonus for including Norton isn't nearly enough to offset the price of Windows.
Microsoft isn't the one responsible for that. Symantec and McAfee both spend a lot of money paying computer manufacturers to pre-load trial versions their software. The average (translation: stupid) user will assume that, since it came with the computer, it is somehow an actual necessary part of the computer, and pay for the full service. Both companies end up with more money.
Also, Microsoft includes an extra set of license checks with MSE - it's supposedly quite difficult to get it working on pirated copies of Windows. So it serves as an incentive for people to buy their OS (rather than pirate). Thus how MS sees it as a profit-making product.
I'm pretty sure I have been eating mostly GM foods, probably for the past 20 years of my life. With plenty of preservatives, added sugar, caffeine, sodium and every other nasty chemical ever put in food. Never had any diet-related health problems. Healthy blood sugar, healthy immune system, body mass actually slightly under normal but not unhealthily so. Unless GM foods somehow caused my nearsightedness, I think we can safely call that myth busted.
Also, I believe I have seen that movie. I am aware of the almost comically evil nature of Monsanto. They're third in line on my list of people to line against the wall when the revolution happens (after the professional lobbyists and the MAFIAA). However, "evil corporation" does not imply "unsafe food". The FDA isn't that dickless. Point me at one instance of someone dying from GM food (specifically because the food was GM, mind you, not because it was spoiled or something) and I can point you at ten people who died from normal food, and a thousand more who died from the lack of any food.
PS: Was marking me a foe really necessary? All that did was make you look like an absolutist - "I AM UNEQUIVOCALLY RIGHT, AND ANYONE WHO DISAGREES IS MY ENEMY!"
I was making a point by exaggeration - IF a couple thousand species was enough to make the planet operate flawlessly, then why not? Do we gain anything by having four different types of temperate saltwater bass? Do we gain anything by having three different types of disc-winged bat?
My point was that biodiversity is not something to strive towards in and of itself. It is not a goal, but a step on the road to the goal. The goal is a stable and beneficial ecosystem, and biodiversity helps to achieve that. However, I believe that once a certain level of biodiversity is achieved, there is no additional benefit to the ecosystem - the stability plateaus after a certain level of diversity. I may be wrong on this (I have no evidence to support my opinion), but I have also seen no evidence to the contrary.
No, I'm proposing the exact opposite. GM foods are inevitable - we literally could not feed our current population without them. Unless you propose killing off 2 billion people (that's 3.33 hectohitlers, by the way), you're going to have to accept GM foods. So the question then becomes "do we have one GM food company, or one hundred? Do we have one variant of each crop, or a thousand?". Or, to use a computer analogy, "do we want everybody using Windows (one company, only a few variations which are all vulnerable to the same attacks), or do we want everybody using Linux (hundreds of companies, thousands of distros, each different enough that they won't all be affected by the same attack)?".
"___ terrorism" is the new "cyber-___".
Whoops, forgot my tags.
I was mocking that exact thing, how you can call anything terrorism. Bullying? That's "child terrorism". Reckless driving? That's "commission of terrorism with a vehicle". Begging on the street? "Economic terrorism".
I'm actually kind of disappointed that it was rated "+5 Insightful". I was expecting "+5 Funny". I did, however, nab my first first post, so I'm still happy with it.
Sure he does! You buy them at Wal-Mart, in the form of frozen french fries. Microwave for 45 seconds. Pour on the ketchup. Eat at computer while arguing on /. What more do you need to know about potatoes, other than that you can make a wimpy battery out of them for a lame science fair project?
Biodiversity is not a worthy goal in and of itself. If everything else worked right, I'd have no problems with reducing total species on the planet to the low thousands. If a species does not actually contribute anything, why save it?
However, I realize the problems with that view, namely that low diversity makes it extremely easy for diseases to wipe out the entire thing. However, I don't see how "genetically modified" necessarily implies "destroys biodiversity". In fact, I could see it overall increasing it (provided we fix certain broken pieces of IP law). If, instead of one company making all the new GM foods, you had dozens, you would end up with several competing GM foods, which are less likely to be vulnerable to the same diseases. Further, if each company segmented their products (ie. you had different "versions" of each company's food), you could increase biodiversity even more. For example, assume the Basic version of Uberfood's GM Corn provided resistance to common diseases and increased growth, while the Resistance edition added low-water survivability and resistance to several uncommon blights, and the Ultra edition provided additional growth increase and resistance to some special pesticide. If some disease finds a vulnerability in the pesticide resistance, you only lose 1/3 of those crops. While potentially making more money for the companies in the process, as you would either lower the price on the Basic (allowing economically disadvantaged farmers to grow them) or increase the price on the others (getting more money from the economically advantaged).
You're not good at picking up on sarcasm, are you?
Uh, it's kinda important to test GM foods in realistic conditions, especially when testing "how will this grow in realistic conditions?". I'm sure they took plenty of sensible precautions, like "test it as thoroughly as possible in the lab to make sure it's not dangerous", and "keep it separate and distant from actual crops to prevent genetic transfer". Plus, unless they changed science without telling me, experimental products aren't sold as food after the experiment is over. These particular plants were never going to be eaten.
Plus, what does "Monsanto being evil money-grabbing bastards" have to do with foods not being safe (which seems to be your unstated concern - ignore if I'm picking up on the wrong subtext)? The only two GM foods I can find with actual safety concerns (both triggered allergic reactions) had those problems detected well before even field-study, and were subsequently stopped. I agree that Monsanto is an absolutely evil corporation that should be first against the wall when the revolution comes, but not because they're making and selling unsafe food.
That sounds like terrorism to me. "Stop making GM plants, or we'll fuck your shit up."
Sure there are! Like... no.... maybe not them... no...definitely not...well...
Aha! Somalia! Absolutely no censorship, if only because there's no real government to enforce it. And they apparently have pretty good comms, compared to most of that continent. I'll just pack some self-defense gear (is it possible to buy a Mk 19 on the civilian market?), and telecommute to work. Hell, the way outsourcing is going...
I wasn't talking about a local revolution...
Add Thailand to the list of countries that are unsafe to visit until the revolution.
The King has returned! Now come the days of the King!
Check the dates. DNF was opened for pre-orders back in 2001 (before being delayed, and delayed more, and delayed longer than any game in history). Some people kept those pre-orders.
It's news because some of these pre-orders are nearly a decade old. TF2 was announced, un-announced, went through it's own epic development hell, was released, had over a hundred patches released, all in the time between some of these preorders being made and the game finally coming out.
Not only that, but some of those pre-orders may be for ports that no longer exist - can you transfer a Saturn edition pre-order into an XBox360 preorder? A PS1 preorder into a PS3 preorder?
I'm a fan of the classic "take them out back and shoot them" approach. A tall tree and a short rope would be fine as well.
No guillotines, though. Too hard to spell.
I thought it was Sony that bragged that they never sold a console at a loss. It makes sense for them, since both the PS2 and PS3 sold a lot as just DVD/BD players to early adopters of those formats, due to actually being cheaper than dedicated players at that time.
Although I can believe Nintendo doing that too. Microsoft is the only one I can imagine selling their console at a loss - hell, the entire original XBox never made a profit for them, it was just a way to break into the market.
In a takeoff or landing accident, you don't have time to look things up in the manual. An all-engines-out accident at 40,000 ft, you've got nearly a full minute, going straight down. Gliding, potentially a full hour. And that's in what's very close to a worst-case scenario. In a more common accident, such as a malfunction in one engine, you could theoretically continue without fixing it (redundant systems), but you still want to try to fix it, or at least make sure it's not a symptom of something else. So if, say, one engine's fuel pump stops, you can have the pilot continue flying the plane while the copilot looks it up on his iPad, tries a few things to fix it in-flight, and if all fails, makes sure that it isn't a sign of something else going wrong.
Plus, I imagine the manuals are used frequently on the ground. A pre-flight checklist might be on there, or even just maintenance procedures.
HW is a good way to sell the console to game developers, though. A lot of big 3rd-parties jumped ship with the Wii, simply because it couldn't keep up. Similarly, you can get developers to make good exclusives if you have a uniquely powerful console.
And then, once you have the game developers, you get the games that sell the console to the players.
The military, at least, has reasons. Current US military training emphasizes the importance of battlefield information - terms like "information-centric warfare" are often bandied about. Essentially, they believe that the side with the better information and ability to exploit it will be victorious. (You see the same in business, now, with all sorts of customer information and statistics being used). Thus they also emphasize denying that information to your enemies. Thus, they have a "corporate culture" of never giving out information, ever, and greatly overestimating how much damage leaked info can cause. It's not a totally rational reason, but there is a reason for the military to be paranoid about leaks.
The government probably just doesn't want people knowing what they actually do. Must preserve the facade of democracy at the federal level, after all. (The state/local governments are relatively good, except in big cities, but the federal government is terrible about it).
How about we get a culture where things don't have to be leaked? Almost everyone who leaks something is doing so to attract public attention to a problem those responsible refuse to solve. If you institute a culture of "if someone brings a serious problem to your attention, you fix it, regardless of what it does to your bottom line or to your dignity", then leaking never needs to happen.
PS: Yes, I saw some of the bizarrely paranoid things they suggest self-censorship for. That's just their culture of paranoia kicking in.