We've been given intelligence and the ability to manipulate our own genetic code for a reason and for us not to take advantage of this would be sheer folly. When we can do so much for ourselves and the world, why is it that so many people seem willing to wallow in their own crapulance?
In order for us to acheive our manifest destiny in the far future, we need to continually improve both ourselves and our abilities. We're coming to a real watershed now, a point where we can radically change the mode of our existance and ensure that we don't go the way of the dinosaurs. Anyone arguing against genetic engineering is arguing against both progress and humanity, and is a danger to all of us.
Thankfully it is only in countries where irrationality is prevalent that these anti-genetic engineering sentiments are prevaling. Whilst America may have it's problems with corporate ethics, the one thing that can be said for the free market is that it encourages innovation, and when it comes to technologies like this, we need that innovation for the future of the race.
So it's a matter of balancing short-term and long-term gain. Which should be more important is obvious, but the issue isn't as clear cut as Jon would have you think.
Yes, but most people aren't rational. If somebody thinks of it and convinces somebody else that it could have happened, then it is upon everybody to try and prove otherwise. That's how this sort of thing happens.
That's not very scientific is it? "People believe it, and that is simply the way it is." is hardly the kind of attitude that is going to stop the masses from turning into a superstitious tabble more interested in astrology than astronomy, when they can tell the difference.
You answered your own question. 'Close to a star', in terms of the amount of radiation a celestial body receives isn't exactly withing spitting distance.
But the energy of the radiation falls off as the square of the radius, which means that after a fairly short distance, celestially speaking of course, the radiation is too ineffective to acheive much. And interstellar distances are vast compared to the distance between the Earth and the Sun.
In addition, the radiation is spread out over a larger and larger volume as it travels away from it's origin, making it even more unlikely that any space-going target will be affected.
How would UV destroy organic matter inside a meteorite but not on the surface of the earth?
As the atmosphere settled down and thickened the Earth became more and more resistant to ultraviolet radiation, thus allowing organic matter to form.
One would also think that any life that could survive the unrestrained UV barrage it would experience in space could also do so once blanketed by the atmosphere of earth.
And which UV rays would these be? Since UV comes from the sun, there aren't any out in space, or at least none strong enough to harm organisms. It would only be once they got close to a star that they would be killed off by lethal radiation.
The type of reasoning employed by such otherwise respected "scientists" such as Fred Hoyle in proposing that the origin of life was not on the Earth, but was instead in outer space, is fundamentally flawed and should not be taken seriously.
What they always seem to forget is that in those days the Earth's atmosphere was a lot different than it was today, and that the ozone layer did not exist. Hence, the Earth's surface and "atmosphere", such as it was, was a place where dangerous UV radiation had free range, and UV radiation at these levels is inimical to the presence of organic matter.
Any organic matter entering Earth's atmosphere at that time would have been destroyed by the UV radiation, and meteorites would have been sterile when they hit the Earth. I've yet to see a single theory that takes this into account, and I think that an extra-terrestrial genesis is just another piece of pseudo-science that will become a note in scientific history books in years to come.
At the end of the day we don't need to invoke mysterious agents from the stars to explain the start of life on Earth. We already have both religious and scientific explanaitions that satisfy all rational criteria for the origin of life.
The fact is that the IT industry is nothing special when it comes to white-collar work - you'll find stressed and harried individuals in any office. But it's still a hell of a lot nicer environment than working in some factory or sweatshop is like a large proportion of people do.
The fact is that sure, working in an office under battery farm conditions isn't exactly going to be good for your stress levels and comfort, but it's still an improvement on what you could have expected even twenty years ago. People back then would have been amazed at some of the things that people are complaining about today, and they'd have a point.
Whilst we may bitch and moan about where we work, remember that a) most of the world works in conditions we wouldn't keep a dog in, and b) most of the rest of our country's work in conditions we wouldn't work in. Really, despite all the whining, we've got it good.
But what happens if you are in perfect health, and you take a genetic test and they turn up some high risk factor? Then you can never again get health insurance, or if you can, it will be very expensive and have clauses excluding any disease related to your risk.
But very few people will have the genes which put them in high risk groups. These genes are generally recessive and so it won't express itself in you because you don't have the correct combinations to cause the disease to become active. Only a small percentage of the population will be adversely affected.
If you actually read the article, then what you find is that there is a definite advantage for consumers in allowing this kind of test. Remember folks, it's not mandatory, and you'll still be able to get insurance without having a DNA test, so it's not any kind of Big Brother conspiracy.
The fact is that if you've had a DNA test and there's no problem then you will be getting an advantage - companies will be more likely to insure you at a much cheaper rate. And seeing as anything that brings down those premiums is good, I don't really see how this can be construed as a negative move on behalf of the UK government.
As long as it's voluntary, then we all win - you can either take the test and get cheaper premiums, or you can not take the test and satisfy your urge for privacy. It's a win-win situation.
Whilst I'm sure that this processor offers a lot of horsepower, the face that it will be so difficult to program is already making it look like next year's big failure. It's never easy to break into the processor market which is saturated at all levels by established products from well-known companies, and making a chip that requires new programming techniques is hardly going to make this a cost-effective solution for 99% of hardware vendors.
Our fancy bombers didn't do shit against the Vietnamese BECAUSE they didn't depend on infrastructure. We're prepared for a battle against another industrial state, where bombers do a great job of destroying manufacturing capability.
Yeah, unfortunately all you'd need to do is start bombing Starbucks and McDonalds and any resistance in America would crumble... You're not exactly a race of people used to living in primitive conditions are you?
If you live in or near the West Bank in Israel, you'd better be prepared to defend yourself and your family with something more than "rational debate" right now.
And if they hadn't have had guns then they wouldn't be shooting each other quite so efficiently would they? Seems to me that this is a fairly large flaw in your argument...
LOL. "free". Nice double-speak there... apparently your idea of freedom is similiar to Stalin's?
Aren't you Americans the ones always whining about how you have to "fight for your freedoms"? There's a great example of doublespeak there, and one that causes more deaths than mine, that's for sure.
And I think that people like you who are childish enough to equate a gun-free society with Stalin's Russia are proof enough that there is something deficient in pro-gun "logic".
Too bad England is turning into a bunch of commies like the rest of Europe. And you guys used to be such bastards... whatever happened to the colonial shitheads we once loved.
Ah yes, an attack on England for being, what, a nation of "commies". Would you, in your obviously vast wisdom and foreign knowledge, feel free to back that claim up? No, probably not, because you seem to be fairly typical of the sort of American who has no idea, or wish to know, about anything beyond the borders of their home country.
Ah well, someone will probably shoot you soon enough.
Guns are gaurenteed by the US Constitution because they are the last line of defense against a tyrannistic government.
A tyrannistic government with B2 bombers, Apache helicopters and the most advanced army in the world? I think you are kidding yourselfs when it comes to the martial prowess of even millions of civilians in the face of coordinated oppression. And if the army is on your side, then you wouldn't have needed the guns anyway, would you?
Anyway, your government seems to be managing quite well to take away your rights at the moment without people crying out about tyranny and oppression. Let's see, you've lost the Fourth, the Fifth, the Eigth and the Tenth Amendments that I can think of off of the top of my head. So why aren't you marching to Washington to start shooting Congressmen?
Sorry, but a gun is the tool of a man too stupid to get what he wants by a means other than violence. After all, isn't America supposed to be a democracy? Oh wait, supposed to be.
Hold on to your guns, people, because when people like flatpack here get into office, you're going to need them.
Yet again, the guns equals freedom argument rears its ugly head, and yet it is still a strawman argument which adds nothing to rational debate by civilised people. Of course the Anonymous Coward here may indeed have his own private army consisting of tanks, ground troops, support services and a well-trained air force, but somehow I doubt it.
Face it gun lovers, your guns are an anachronism and an irrelevancy in the face of the Government you have. If they don't like what you're saying (and I can see why) then all the guns you have won't be able to stop them. So how do your guns make you free?
Perhaps you could engage in some oh-so freedom increasing assassination, picking off political targets you don't like? I mean, there's an obvious way of making people more free isn't there? Nothing makes people feel more free than the constant threat of armed violence, obviously.
You people need to grow up and realise that you don't live in a frontier world any more. The only things that your pointless advocacy of penis-extension weaponry serves is the high rate of violent death in America. America won't be truly free until the last gun nut is forced to give up their toys.
Where there are at least sensible laws against this kind of thing. Unfortunately in America where your very soul is up for sale on the "free" market, this can and will go ahead in the name of customer demographics and targetted advertising.
This is just another example of how freedom and the free market are totally incompatible. When you have a free market every aspect of your life is for sale, and without your permission or knowledge. And sane policies protecting people are voted down since they would interfere with the holy mission of "wealth creation" that America knows and loves.
I get the feeling that for once, this article comes from the heart. If anyone has received a lot of flame, it's Jon Katz and his "insightful" (in the/. sense of course) brand of libberish nonsense we all love to hate.
Sorry Jon, but your assertion that flaming inhibits free speech is ludicrous, since flaming is in itself a form of speech, and one that people normally cannot "get away" with in real life due to the overly developed sensibilities of people with far too much emotional baggage. By removing the possibility of hysterical and/or violent responses, the net has in fact increased the freedom of speech by allowing people to say what they really mean rather than mouthing polite platitudes whilst seething inside.
And as for flaming discouraging rational conversation, some of the best arguments I've seen has been the result of flamewars online, or indeed have been the flamewars themselves. Passionate arguments are always the best for getting to the bottom of things, why else do you think public debates have always been so popular and successful? Argument is a necessary tool of the rational mind, and a heated argument is far more likely to reveal the truth than a load of politcally correct group-speak.
Face it, you just don't like being flamed. Either deal with it, or get over it, just stop whining about it.
Established companies trying to protect their market position against newcomers isn't anything new in our system; it's been that way here for over 200 years (probably closer to 300). In that time our system has become #1, and I would submit that it's 'because of' and not 'in spite of' the way it works.
Yes it has, so far. Unfortunately the time has come when the American Government has decided that the Constitution is an unfortunate oversight on the part of the Founders, who really meant to say that Big Government was what we should all have. And what does Big Government like? That's right folks, Big Corporations who give Big Donations.
There are a series of laws dealing with monopolistic behavior and improper means of competion. The laws (properly used) allow new companies to prosper--but only if they earn it with good concepts and management.
And the key phrase there is "properly used" I think. The American Government has shown precious few attempts at enforcing these laws in the face of corporate $$$ - the Microsoft case was nothing more than a sop for the masses who, for once, could see that they were being shafted. You won't see Time-Warner being taken to court by the DOJ, that's for sure.
Of course in the kind of capitalist marketplace that you find in America, home of the startup, you pretty much have to expect that the failure rate of starting companies is going to be sky-high, especially when coupled with a market such as the "net generation" in which customer loyalty is at an all time low.
Classic economic studies show that when free market principles are taken to their extreme then the differential rate of success of new companies will fall to near zero, and the startup phenomenon has proven this to be as true in practice as it is in theory. When the market is completely unfettered, only companies with an extremely small risk quotients can succeed in entering the marketplace.
I hate to say it, but despite its past successes in promoting wealth and productivity, laissez-faire capitalism in America is now beginning to stifle the market and remove the potential for innovative newcomers to gain market share. The amount of capital liquidity is down as more and more companies settle into their post-expansion phase in which they attempt to stifle any up-and-coming competition rather than generate new sources of revenue.
Maybe it's time for some help for the little guy before the market stagnates and a country with a more balanced system of economic policy becomes the world's #1.
Well this review is really is going to be a factor in the purchase of my next card when it admits that it has been "weighted" in favour of certain types of applications. Is it really too much to expect to be given reviews in terms of raw perforamce? Considering the amount of journalistic integrity seen so far on the net, probably.
Then again, this isn't really suprising from a website that somehow manages to fit more banner ads onto each page (and there are for some reason, a lot of pages) than there is actual content. With the amount of corporate whoring they're managing to acheive in their page layouts, is it any wonder that their reviews feature skewed statistics which practically invalidate their purpose? It also makes you wonder where else corporate $$$ comes into the equation in these kinds of reviews.
I'd much rather that we saw more reviews from sources that don't appear to be pandering for cash from commercial sources. Whenever you see a banner ad, you can't trust the information you're being given. Hmm, now what site does that bring to mind?
What I would like to know is whether these satellites could be used to make sure that countries like America are unable to spy on other countries with impunity. Countries could launch dozens of these nanosatellites, and use them as kinetic missiles against spy platforms or other more dubious ventures such as Star Wars satellites.
This way, even the poorest of countries could afford to ensure their security from the prying eyes of expansionist countries intent on prying every secret possible from their so-called allies. I think this would make a valuable contribution to both privacy and democracy, and would be a worthwhile use of $$$.
Errm, people able to pick characteristics at the genetic level is a hell of a lot different from what we have now. Your phenotype has a hell of a lot more influence on your life than your name or whether you're circumcised does.
Even if we all decide it's morally wrong, and congress decides it's morally wrong, so long as the technology is available, there will be a black market. Think abortion.
But a black market can be shut down, and doesn't provide the same kind of saturation cover that a legal market would. Whilst the opportunity might be there for a few couples, it wouldn't result in the same kind of loss of genetic diversity we would otherwise see.
And what the hell is so wrong with selecting a child that will be smarter, better looking, and healthy?
It'll be like fashion - a small number of individuals and media outlets determining what is "in" at the moment, and people will base their desires for their children on that. If you look at the names that are given to kids you see the same thing - certain names become briefly popular whilst someone with that name is famous, and then it dies out again.
It'll be a nation of celebrity clones endorsed by glossy magazines. Is this really what you want?
As a firm believer in ethical science I can appreciate the life-saving opportunity presented by this technique whilst at the same time be concerned about the possible directions it is leading in. This treatment is on the borderline between "good" and "bad" science in that it requires the selection of a particular embryo based on a set of desired characteristics.
Sure, in this case the criteria were simple; that the child's tissue would match that of his sister. Nothing to worry about surely? No, but where does this lead on to? The selection of embryos for other characteristics? If it is alright to select for medical reasons, who is to say that it isn't alright to select for other reasons - intelligence, appearance, resistance to diseases...?
After all, these can all be "justified" by claiming they improve the quality of life of the unborn child.
There is a fine line between doing this for medical reasons and doing it for personal reasons. We need to make sure that this line is never crossed for the sake of the gene pool if nothing else - diversity is both good and required. But ethically, this is a step away from letting parents get rid of embryos that don't match up to their perfect child, and that is, in my book, murder justified by science without ethics.
Sure the rollout of Mac OS X is going to be as much about hype and image as it is going to be about the product, but that's no different from any other product being launched into a competitive market today. The only strange phenomenon would be if there was no hype about it, no fans endlessly discussing the minutiae and no "What A New Koncept!" technology to be pushed as the next best thing.
As the article says, it's the same in other market areas, especially in the music and film industries. I don't see that it's a bad thing, it's really sort of inevitable given the lack of differentiation amongst many of these products or services. Whenever you have a class of products or services that differ in only minor ways, you're going to get an overdose of hype and branding, and Apple are all too aware of that.
Underneath the hype it's just another operating system, and not vastly revolutionary at that. Sure, for a Mac OS it's revolutionary, but BSD has been around for a while, and whilst the GUI is something different, it's not a radical departure from current paradigms. But if you can put the right spin on it, it can begin to look like something that has never been seen before. And Apple, when they get it right, are damn good at this.
Slashdot Mirror
We've been given intelligence and the ability to manipulate our own genetic code for a reason and for us not to take advantage of this would be sheer folly. When we can do so much for ourselves and the world, why is it that so many people seem willing to wallow in their own crapulance?
In order for us to acheive our manifest destiny in the far future, we need to continually improve both ourselves and our abilities. We're coming to a real watershed now, a point where we can radically change the mode of our existance and ensure that we don't go the way of the dinosaurs. Anyone arguing against genetic engineering is arguing against both progress and humanity, and is a danger to all of us.
Thankfully it is only in countries where irrationality is prevalent that these anti-genetic engineering sentiments are prevaling. Whilst America may have it's problems with corporate ethics, the one thing that can be said for the free market is that it encourages innovation, and when it comes to technologies like this, we need that innovation for the future of the race.
So it's a matter of balancing short-term and long-term gain. Which should be more important is obvious, but the issue isn't as clear cut as Jon would have you think.
Yes, but most people aren't rational. If somebody thinks of it and convinces somebody else that it could have happened, then it is upon everybody to try and prove otherwise. That's how this sort of thing happens.
That's not very scientific is it? "People believe it, and that is simply the way it is." is hardly the kind of attitude that is going to stop the masses from turning into a superstitious tabble more interested in astrology than astronomy, when they can tell the difference.
Oh wait, I've just described America.
You answered your own question. 'Close to a star', in terms of the amount of radiation a celestial body receives isn't exactly withing spitting distance.
But the energy of the radiation falls off as the square of the radius, which means that after a fairly short distance, celestially speaking of course, the radiation is too ineffective to acheive much. And interstellar distances are vast compared to the distance between the Earth and the Sun.
In addition, the radiation is spread out over a larger and larger volume as it travels away from it's origin, making it even more unlikely that any space-going target will be affected.
How would UV destroy organic matter inside a meteorite but not on the surface of the earth?
As the atmosphere settled down and thickened the Earth became more and more resistant to ultraviolet radiation, thus allowing organic matter to form.
One would also think that any life that could survive the unrestrained UV barrage it would experience in space could also do so once blanketed by the atmosphere of earth.
And which UV rays would these be? Since UV comes from the sun, there aren't any out in space, or at least none strong enough to harm organisms. It would only be once they got close to a star that they would be killed off by lethal radiation.
The type of reasoning employed by such otherwise respected "scientists" such as Fred Hoyle in proposing that the origin of life was not on the Earth, but was instead in outer space, is fundamentally flawed and should not be taken seriously.
What they always seem to forget is that in those days the Earth's atmosphere was a lot different than it was today, and that the ozone layer did not exist. Hence, the Earth's surface and "atmosphere", such as it was, was a place where dangerous UV radiation had free range, and UV radiation at these levels is inimical to the presence of organic matter.
Any organic matter entering Earth's atmosphere at that time would have been destroyed by the UV radiation, and meteorites would have been sterile when they hit the Earth. I've yet to see a single theory that takes this into account, and I think that an extra-terrestrial genesis is just another piece of pseudo-science that will become a note in scientific history books in years to come.
At the end of the day we don't need to invoke mysterious agents from the stars to explain the start of life on Earth. We already have both religious and scientific explanaitions that satisfy all rational criteria for the origin of life.
The fact is that the IT industry is nothing special when it comes to white-collar work - you'll find stressed and harried individuals in any office. But it's still a hell of a lot nicer environment than working in some factory or sweatshop is like a large proportion of people do.
The fact is that sure, working in an office under battery farm conditions isn't exactly going to be good for your stress levels and comfort, but it's still an improvement on what you could have expected even twenty years ago. People back then would have been amazed at some of the things that people are complaining about today, and they'd have a point.
Whilst we may bitch and moan about where we work, remember that a) most of the world works in conditions we wouldn't keep a dog in, and b) most of the rest of our country's work in conditions we wouldn't work in. Really, despite all the whining, we've got it good.
But what happens if you are in perfect health, and you take a genetic test and they turn up some high risk factor? Then you can never again get health insurance, or if you can, it will be very expensive and have clauses excluding any disease related to your risk.
But very few people will have the genes which put them in high risk groups. These genes are generally recessive and so it won't express itself in you because you don't have the correct combinations to cause the disease to become active. Only a small percentage of the population will be adversely affected.
If you actually read the article, then what you find is that there is a definite advantage for consumers in allowing this kind of test. Remember folks, it's not mandatory, and you'll still be able to get insurance without having a DNA test, so it's not any kind of Big Brother conspiracy.
The fact is that if you've had a DNA test and there's no problem then you will be getting an advantage - companies will be more likely to insure you at a much cheaper rate. And seeing as anything that brings down those premiums is good, I don't really see how this can be construed as a negative move on behalf of the UK government.
As long as it's voluntary, then we all win - you can either take the test and get cheaper premiums, or you can not take the test and satisfy your urge for privacy. It's a win-win situation.
Of course you can link to it, try using http://slashdot.org/articles/00/08/22/154223.shtml #14 as your HREF.
Whilst I'm sure that this processor offers a lot of horsepower, the face that it will be so difficult to program is already making it look like next year's big failure. It's never easy to break into the processor market which is saturated at all levels by established products from well-known companies, and making a chip that requires new programming techniques is hardly going to make this a cost-effective solution for 99% of hardware vendors.
Our fancy bombers didn't do shit against the Vietnamese BECAUSE they didn't depend on infrastructure. We're prepared for a battle against another industrial state, where bombers do a great job of destroying manufacturing capability.
Yeah, unfortunately all you'd need to do is start bombing Starbucks and McDonalds and any resistance in America would crumble... You're not exactly a race of people used to living in primitive conditions are you?
If you live in or near the West Bank in Israel, you'd better be prepared to defend yourself and your family with something more than "rational debate" right now.
And if they hadn't have had guns then they wouldn't be shooting each other quite so efficiently would they? Seems to me that this is a fairly large flaw in your argument...
LOL. "free". Nice double-speak there... apparently your idea of freedom is similiar to Stalin's?
Aren't you Americans the ones always whining about how you have to "fight for your freedoms"? There's a great example of doublespeak there, and one that causes more deaths than mine, that's for sure.
And I think that people like you who are childish enough to equate a gun-free society with Stalin's Russia are proof enough that there is something deficient in pro-gun "logic".
Too bad England is turning into a bunch of commies like the rest of Europe. And you guys used to be such bastards... whatever happened to the colonial shitheads we once loved.
Ah yes, an attack on England for being, what, a nation of "commies". Would you, in your obviously vast wisdom and foreign knowledge, feel free to back that claim up? No, probably not, because you seem to be fairly typical of the sort of American who has no idea, or wish to know, about anything beyond the borders of their home country.
Ah well, someone will probably shoot you soon enough.
Guns are gaurenteed by the US Constitution because they are the last line of defense against a tyrannistic government.
A tyrannistic government with B2 bombers, Apache helicopters and the most advanced army in the world? I think you are kidding yourselfs when it comes to the martial prowess of even millions of civilians in the face of coordinated oppression. And if the army is on your side, then you wouldn't have needed the guns anyway, would you?
Anyway, your government seems to be managing quite well to take away your rights at the moment without people crying out about tyranny and oppression. Let's see, you've lost the Fourth, the Fifth, the Eigth and the Tenth Amendments that I can think of off of the top of my head. So why aren't you marching to Washington to start shooting Congressmen?
Sorry, but a gun is the tool of a man too stupid to get what he wants by a means other than violence. After all, isn't America supposed to be a democracy? Oh wait, supposed to be.
Hold on to your guns, people, because when people like flatpack here get into office, you're going to need them.
Yet again, the guns equals freedom argument rears its ugly head, and yet it is still a strawman argument which adds nothing to rational debate by civilised people. Of course the Anonymous Coward here may indeed have his own private army consisting of tanks, ground troops, support services and a well-trained air force, but somehow I doubt it.
Face it gun lovers, your guns are an anachronism and an irrelevancy in the face of the Government you have. If they don't like what you're saying (and I can see why) then all the guns you have won't be able to stop them. So how do your guns make you free?
Perhaps you could engage in some oh-so freedom increasing assassination, picking off political targets you don't like? I mean, there's an obvious way of making people more free isn't there? Nothing makes people feel more free than the constant threat of armed violence, obviously.
You people need to grow up and realise that you don't live in a frontier world any more. The only things that your pointless advocacy of penis-extension weaponry serves is the high rate of violent death in America. America won't be truly free until the last gun nut is forced to give up their toys.
Where there are at least sensible laws against this kind of thing. Unfortunately in America where your very soul is up for sale on the "free" market, this can and will go ahead in the name of customer demographics and targetted advertising.
This is just another example of how freedom and the free market are totally incompatible. When you have a free market every aspect of your life is for sale, and without your permission or knowledge. And sane policies protecting people are voted down since they would interfere with the holy mission of "wealth creation" that America knows and loves.
I get the feeling that for once, this article comes from the heart. If anyone has received a lot of flame, it's Jon Katz and his "insightful" (in the /. sense of course) brand of libberish nonsense we all love to hate.
Sorry Jon, but your assertion that flaming inhibits free speech is ludicrous, since flaming is in itself a form of speech, and one that people normally cannot "get away" with in real life due to the overly developed sensibilities of people with far too much emotional baggage. By removing the possibility of hysterical and/or violent responses, the net has in fact increased the freedom of speech by allowing people to say what they really mean rather than mouthing polite platitudes whilst seething inside.
And as for flaming discouraging rational conversation, some of the best arguments I've seen has been the result of flamewars online, or indeed have been the flamewars themselves. Passionate arguments are always the best for getting to the bottom of things, why else do you think public debates have always been so popular and successful? Argument is a necessary tool of the rational mind, and a heated argument is far more likely to reveal the truth than a load of politcally correct group-speak.
Face it, you just don't like being flamed. Either deal with it, or get over it, just stop whining about it.
Established companies trying to protect their market position against newcomers isn't anything new in our system; it's been that way here for over 200 years (probably closer to 300). In that time our system has become #1, and I would submit that it's 'because of' and not 'in spite of' the way it works.
Yes it has, so far. Unfortunately the time has come when the American Government has decided that the Constitution is an unfortunate oversight on the part of the Founders, who really meant to say that Big Government was what we should all have. And what does Big Government like? That's right folks, Big Corporations who give Big Donations.
There are a series of laws dealing with monopolistic behavior and improper means of competion. The laws (properly used) allow new companies to prosper--but only if they earn it with good concepts and management.
And the key phrase there is "properly used" I think. The American Government has shown precious few attempts at enforcing these laws in the face of corporate $$$ - the Microsoft case was nothing more than a sop for the masses who, for once, could see that they were being shafted. You won't see Time-Warner being taken to court by the DOJ, that's for sure.
Of course in the kind of capitalist marketplace that you find in America, home of the startup, you pretty much have to expect that the failure rate of starting companies is going to be sky-high, especially when coupled with a market such as the "net generation" in which customer loyalty is at an all time low.
Classic economic studies show that when free market principles are taken to their extreme then the differential rate of success of new companies will fall to near zero, and the startup phenomenon has proven this to be as true in practice as it is in theory. When the market is completely unfettered, only companies with an extremely small risk quotients can succeed in entering the marketplace.
I hate to say it, but despite its past successes in promoting wealth and productivity, laissez-faire capitalism in America is now beginning to stifle the market and remove the potential for innovative newcomers to gain market share. The amount of capital liquidity is down as more and more companies settle into their post-expansion phase in which they attempt to stifle any up-and-coming competition rather than generate new sources of revenue.
Maybe it's time for some help for the little guy before the market stagnates and a country with a more balanced system of economic policy becomes the world's #1.
Well this review is really is going to be a factor in the purchase of my next card when it admits that it has been "weighted" in favour of certain types of applications. Is it really too much to expect to be given reviews in terms of raw perforamce? Considering the amount of journalistic integrity seen so far on the net, probably.
Then again, this isn't really suprising from a website that somehow manages to fit more banner ads onto each page (and there are for some reason, a lot of pages) than there is actual content. With the amount of corporate whoring they're managing to acheive in their page layouts, is it any wonder that their reviews feature skewed statistics which practically invalidate their purpose? It also makes you wonder where else corporate $$$ comes into the equation in these kinds of reviews.
I'd much rather that we saw more reviews from sources that don't appear to be pandering for cash from commercial sources. Whenever you see a banner ad, you can't trust the information you're being given. Hmm, now what site does that bring to mind?
What I would like to know is whether these satellites could be used to make sure that countries like America are unable to spy on other countries with impunity. Countries could launch dozens of these nanosatellites, and use them as kinetic missiles against spy platforms or other more dubious ventures such as Star Wars satellites.
This way, even the poorest of countries could afford to ensure their security from the prying eyes of expansionist countries intent on prying every secret possible from their so-called allies. I think this would make a valuable contribution to both privacy and democracy, and would be a worthwhile use of $$$.
And how is this different from what we have now?
Errm, people able to pick characteristics at the genetic level is a hell of a lot different from what we have now. Your phenotype has a hell of a lot more influence on your life than your name or whether you're circumcised does.
Even if we all decide it's morally wrong, and congress decides it's morally wrong, so long as the technology is available, there will be a black market. Think abortion.
But a black market can be shut down, and doesn't provide the same kind of saturation cover that a legal market would. Whilst the opportunity might be there for a few couples, it wouldn't result in the same kind of loss of genetic diversity we would otherwise see.
And what the hell is so wrong with selecting a child that will be smarter, better looking, and healthy?
It'll be like fashion - a small number of individuals and media outlets determining what is "in" at the moment, and people will base their desires for their children on that. If you look at the names that are given to kids you see the same thing - certain names become briefly popular whilst someone with that name is famous, and then it dies out again.
It'll be a nation of celebrity clones endorsed by glossy magazines. Is this really what you want?
As a firm believer in ethical science I can appreciate the life-saving opportunity presented by this technique whilst at the same time be concerned about the possible directions it is leading in. This treatment is on the borderline between "good" and "bad" science in that it requires the selection of a particular embryo based on a set of desired characteristics.
Sure, in this case the criteria were simple; that the child's tissue would match that of his sister. Nothing to worry about surely? No, but where does this lead on to? The selection of embryos for other characteristics? If it is alright to select for medical reasons, who is to say that it isn't alright to select for other reasons - intelligence, appearance, resistance to diseases...?
After all, these can all be "justified" by claiming they improve the quality of life of the unborn child.
There is a fine line between doing this for medical reasons and doing it for personal reasons. We need to make sure that this line is never crossed for the sake of the gene pool if nothing else - diversity is both good and required. But ethically, this is a step away from letting parents get rid of embryos that don't match up to their perfect child, and that is, in my book, murder justified by science without ethics.
Sure the rollout of Mac OS X is going to be as much about hype and image as it is going to be about the product, but that's no different from any other product being launched into a competitive market today. The only strange phenomenon would be if there was no hype about it, no fans endlessly discussing the minutiae and no "What A New Koncept!" technology to be pushed as the next best thing.
As the article says, it's the same in other market areas, especially in the music and film industries. I don't see that it's a bad thing, it's really sort of inevitable given the lack of differentiation amongst many of these products or services. Whenever you have a class of products or services that differ in only minor ways, you're going to get an overdose of hype and branding, and Apple are all too aware of that.
Underneath the hype it's just another operating system, and not vastly revolutionary at that. Sure, for a Mac OS it's revolutionary, but BSD has been around for a while, and whilst the GUI is something different, it's not a radical departure from current paradigms. But if you can put the right spin on it, it can begin to look like something that has never been seen before. And Apple, when they get it right, are damn good at this.