+1 insightful, I'm out of mod points.
I'm afraid that you're correct, the multinats being able to buy and control the media is scary too. It used to be that a brave reporter and paper could blow something wide open, now it gets quietly burried unless it can get out through wikileaks and the like. April O'Neil where are you now?
Actually most modern appliances do convert AC to DC to run the circuits within, some use DC motors too, my dishwasher and washing machine are totally DC shortly inside the rear casing.
I'm amazed that anyone is surprised at all. If you have a selection pressure (the BT corn), then eventually (and not that long, insects breed fast) one mutation will arise that allows the insect to eat it, breed and pass on the resistant genes. Soon the new genotype is the dominant one, and the corn is lunch. They'll need to use toxic sprays to wipe out these populations and then stop using BT crops constantly, if you break us the cycle, the BT eaters will have no advantage and possibly be at a disadvantage compared to the other insects, and the population will not be composed of resistant members. The organic movement has been saying that this would happen since they first announced the new GM corn. BT is best used as a spray in combination with other management strategies. Idiots.
The amazing thing is that they want to sue neighbouring farmers if the GM genes cross the boundary (when they said it wouldn't) and they are surprised when organic farmers sue them back if they lose their accreditation due to the contamination. Talk about wanting it all ways!
For heaven's sake, sometimes I think that the reason we have so many problems around the world today is what appears to be an incredibly cynical, doomsday view of everything.
And ironically life has never been better. We've conquered major diseases.
Immunisation is still effective (when used, lots of FUD about it), but our anti-microbials are seriously becoming less effective, and the "easy to find" antibiotics are mostly mined out. We'll have to work much harder on new ones and try 'phage technology and God knows what else to have effective drugs for bacteria quite soon. We may soon see untreatable ghonnarea, TB, phumonia etc, even in the first world. And yet we still allow "growth promoters" in animal feed and care which are anitbiotics with different names, leading to highly resistant bugs in out food animals. Yay!
Childhood death is rare: how many people in your family died young? In mine none, but in my great-grandma's, 14 out of 16 died as children. Go back farther, during the black death as much as 60% of the population of Europe died in two years. That is something no AGW scenario dreams of, and yet it happened.
In the worst case, we won't die out, we will go back to how things were before.
Except we've mined with very advanced techniques and farmed our soils intensively, we cannot go back to say the 19th century level sustainably as the old techniques and materials just can't cut it. We need to act now and not wait until it's too late, but we will. Until it happens in the EU/Canada/USA/Australia, the media and big multinats will not care or be forced to act.
For God's sake, how hard can it be to install a RCD in the things, as soon as the current goes somewhere it shouldn't, it's shutdown and the dumb user the standing there until the garage guy comes out to help after seeing an error on his panel.
If the Japanese whalers started launching SAMs (unlikely to hit high-flying drones anyway, the missiles were designed to hit planes, look how much trouble the so-called anti-missile missile Patriots had) the Australian Navy would quickly send a couple of guided missile frigates and/or destroyers down to follow them to ensure maritime safety. A big fat naval ship pumping out high powered RADAR and deliberately noisy radio traffic would be very easy to find for the anti-whaling vessels. I used to work with the ADF (Australian DEfence Force) and the proportions are more like 98% against the whalers than 90%. The navy boys are just waiting for an excuse to be all over the Japs.
I'd mod you up if I could. Your post makes sense, in the past we were nearly always short of food. In the west now, we eat too much and I would welcome a treatment that would predispose me to keeping more muscle and helping me burn fat.
Yes! I hate noisy tabs/ads, I usually use noscript, but if I've allowed a site, sometimes a noisy ad will start. I wonder if there's an extension to have sound-making tabs light up with a coloured speaker icon!
This made me instantly think of "The windup girl" a novel about Thailand and Malaysia in the future after sea level rise and plagues of crop killing diseases. The Malays cleaned up Malaysia and got rid of the Chinese and Indians.
http://www.amazon.com/Windup-Girl-Paolo-Bacigalupi/dp/1597801577
Actually, in Australia at least, Teachers have to be licensed by professional bodies in each state after completing their four year degree. The professional body requires at least an interview and proof of qualification, and possibly an exam if you are re-certifying after a break from teaching.
These patents are so much crap! God I hope this gets shot down quickly. I'm in Australia at the moment, but with the free trade agreements, if this gets up, it'll have global effects. It's time the legal system saw these for what they are and stomps them down. I wish they had to pay punitive damages for wasting the courts time with this sort of rubbish.
But the huge problem for Australian bookstores is that the prices they (have?) to charge are way more than overseas, a book might be $7.99 in the US and $19.95 or $25.95 here. Come on, our dollar is worth ~US1.07, and we're closer to China than most places, so the extra cost is not shipping, it is a smaller market, but it's still ~21 million people, not small. I will not pay a 300-400% markup on books and software even with freight, and now you can download it, so that's gone. I feel sorry for the local shops, but they'll have to realise that it is a global economy and that they'll have to compete.
The student is female and Australian.
The Australian press will drop everything else the moment they find a story which they think may be of interest to the rest of the world.
Australians have a deeply ingrained inferiority complex,
Somewhat still true, but fading...
compounded by a desperate yearning to be American
Hardly
(something which comes from being ashamed and embarrassed about being Australian).
Not at all true any more.
So they will do anything they can to bring themselves to the world's attention, or, better still, the attention of the USA.
It's why they try so hard to infiltrate outfits such as Slashdot: http://slashdot.org/index2.pl?fhfilter=australia
Slashdot Mirror
+1 insightful, I'm out of mod points. I'm afraid that you're correct, the multinats being able to buy and control the media is scary too. It used to be that a brave reporter and paper could blow something wide open, now it gets quietly burried unless it can get out through wikileaks and the like. April O'Neil where are you now?
You forgot the swarms of bloodthirsty lawyers they blacken the sky with until they win even if they are legally wrong, bigger budget = legal victory.
Actually most modern appliances do convert AC to DC to run the circuits within, some use DC motors too, my dishwasher and washing machine are totally DC shortly inside the rear casing.
I'm amazed that anyone is surprised at all. If you have a selection pressure (the BT corn), then eventually (and not that long, insects breed fast) one mutation will arise that allows the insect to eat it, breed and pass on the resistant genes. Soon the new genotype is the dominant one, and the corn is lunch. They'll need to use toxic sprays to wipe out these populations and then stop using BT crops constantly, if you break us the cycle, the BT eaters will have no advantage and possibly be at a disadvantage compared to the other insects, and the population will not be composed of resistant members. The organic movement has been saying that this would happen since they first announced the new GM corn. BT is best used as a spray in combination with other management strategies. Idiots. The amazing thing is that they want to sue neighbouring farmers if the GM genes cross the boundary (when they said it wouldn't) and they are surprised when organic farmers sue them back if they lose their accreditation due to the contamination. Talk about wanting it all ways!
For heaven's sake, sometimes I think that the reason we have so many problems around the world today is what appears to be an incredibly cynical, doomsday view of everything.
And ironically life has never been better. We've conquered major diseases. Immunisation is still effective (when used, lots of FUD about it), but our anti-microbials are seriously becoming less effective, and the "easy to find" antibiotics are mostly mined out. We'll have to work much harder on new ones and try 'phage technology and God knows what else to have effective drugs for bacteria quite soon. We may soon see untreatable ghonnarea, TB, phumonia etc, even in the first world. And yet we still allow "growth promoters" in animal feed and care which are anitbiotics with different names, leading to highly resistant bugs in out food animals. Yay! Childhood death is rare: how many people in your family died young? In mine none, but in my great-grandma's, 14 out of 16 died as children. Go back farther, during the black death as much as 60% of the population of Europe died in two years. That is something no AGW scenario dreams of, and yet it happened. In the worst case, we won't die out, we will go back to how things were before.
Except we've mined with very advanced techniques and farmed our soils intensively, we cannot go back to say the 19th century level sustainably as the old techniques and materials just can't cut it. We need to act now and not wait until it's too late, but we will. Until it happens in the EU/Canada/USA/Australia, the media and big multinats will not care or be forced to act.
For God's sake, how hard can it be to install a RCD in the things, as soon as the current goes somewhere it shouldn't, it's shutdown and the dumb user the standing there until the garage guy comes out to help after seeing an error on his panel.
If the Japanese whalers started launching SAMs (unlikely to hit high-flying drones anyway, the missiles were designed to hit planes, look how much trouble the so-called anti-missile missile Patriots had) the Australian Navy would quickly send a couple of guided missile frigates and/or destroyers down to follow them to ensure maritime safety. A big fat naval ship pumping out high powered RADAR and deliberately noisy radio traffic would be very easy to find for the anti-whaling vessels. I used to work with the ADF (Australian DEfence Force) and the proportions are more like 98% against the whalers than 90%. The navy boys are just waiting for an excuse to be all over the Japs.
I'd mod you up if I could. Your post makes sense, in the past we were nearly always short of food. In the west now, we eat too much and I would welcome a treatment that would predispose me to keeping more muscle and helping me burn fat.
TFA states that they have increased endurance, so it seems that they do not have the same problem as the people you are thinking of.
Cheers! I'll try it out.
Yes! I hate noisy tabs/ads, I usually use noscript, but if I've allowed a site, sometimes a noisy ad will start. I wonder if there's an extension to have sound-making tabs light up with a coloured speaker icon!
This made me instantly think of "The windup girl" a novel about Thailand and Malaysia in the future after sea level rise and plagues of crop killing diseases. The Malays cleaned up Malaysia and got rid of the Chinese and Indians. http://www.amazon.com/Windup-Girl-Paolo-Bacigalupi/dp/1597801577
Actually, in Australia at least, Teachers have to be licensed by professional bodies in each state after completing their four year degree. The professional body requires at least an interview and proof of qualification, and possibly an exam if you are re-certifying after a break from teaching.
These patents are so much crap! God I hope this gets shot down quickly. I'm in Australia at the moment, but with the free trade agreements, if this gets up, it'll have global effects. It's time the legal system saw these for what they are and stomps them down. I wish they had to pay punitive damages for wasting the courts time with this sort of rubbish.
But the huge problem for Australian bookstores is that the prices they (have?) to charge are way more than overseas, a book might be $7.99 in the US and $19.95 or $25.95 here. Come on, our dollar is worth ~US1.07, and we're closer to China than most places, so the extra cost is not shipping, it is a smaller market, but it's still ~21 million people, not small. I will not pay a 300-400% markup on books and software even with freight, and now you can download it, so that's gone. I feel sorry for the local shops, but they'll have to realise that it is a global economy and that they'll have to compete.
The student is female and Australian. The Australian press will drop everything else the moment they find a story which they think may be of interest to the rest of the world. Australians have a deeply ingrained inferiority complex, Somewhat still true, but fading... compounded by a desperate yearning to be American Hardly (something which comes from being ashamed and embarrassed about being Australian). Not at all true any more. So they will do anything they can to bring themselves to the world's attention, or, better still, the attention of the USA. It's why they try so hard to infiltrate outfits such as Slashdot: http://slashdot.org/index2.pl?fhfilter=australia