Are you dense? The problem (universally) with the filter software is that it blocks non-porno sites. I have no problem with blocking porn from chillins but that's pretty much it. No filter software is good enough to deal with this (it would help if porn sites were required to use a.sex suffix on their sites, then it would be a simple and painless thing to block it). Also there is the politics of the software filter developers to deal with. It is not their place (nor anyone else's place) to decide that reproductive information, physiology, and politics of one type or another is not acceptable for viewing by chillins, or worse, teens.
Sorry, but birth control is legal and fully A-OK in the West and all have the right to access that information. Sorry, but political thought, both favored by the GOP or not is acceptable and fully A-OK in a free country. Neither the GOP, nor cliques of parents, nor filter developers have the right to determine what political speech is OK and what is off-limits. None of them get to determine that fully legal information on contraception or human physiology is off-limits. You only get to go so far in brainwashing your kids to be conservative, insular, biggoted robotons. They do have a right to real, correct, diverse information...especially as they get into their teens onward. One size fits all filtering means that nothing of any value (except a bunch of church-sanctioned/GOP-sanctioned nonsense is available for viewing).
No. If you want to ensure that kiddies aren't looking at "inappropriate" material, you place the children's terminals (separate from adult access terminals) with the screens facing a librarian/monitor. The kids will browse freely but know that any nekkid chicks onscreen will be visable to the librarian and anyone else (a parent) that might be chancing to look. This social pressure would work pretty well and still let adults access anything they want to as is their right.
This would also sidestep the bullcrap about censoring/filtering birthcontrol information, sex information (birthcontrol, health issues), political sites, etc. All absolutely valid information and sites that anyone (ANYONE) should be able to access, period. The government doesn't get to rule abortion information sites, birthcontrol sites, sexual education sites, political sites, as "unacceptable". To do this is inherently anti-freedom, anti-everything the USA (and the Western World) is supposed to stand for.
Since filters are ruled A-OK by the Republican-packed court, then librarians and school admins should be required to immediately correct incorrectly blocked websites as they are encountered (birthcontrol, sex-ed, political sites) without comment or resistance. They ONLY get to block porn (sex ed isn't porn and they KNOW it).
When Doom II was new, I often thought that it would be really cool for someone to make it into "real-life". By this, I mean acquire a large warehouse and, optimally, use some land around it for outdoor sets) build sets with the look/theme of Doom. There would need to be players supplied by the business (in-game players as well as support personnel) who would play the role of some of the creatures - good costumes, not Disneyland cheese. The sets should be dark, mazelike, flickering lights, nooks, crannies...and instead of just running around playing capture the flag or having a free-for-all, there should be goals to meet (levels). Weapons should be paintball-based (so you KNOW when you're hit and you get decent spatter). Players could go through in small groups/teams.
Ultimately however, I believe the task of actually trying to approximate the game and flow from the single-player game wouldn't really be doable as I describe. It is far easier to setup a free-for-all deathmatch or capture the flag game (and cheaper too: no employees playing characters/creatures). The complexity for single player/group player is too high and involved to allow it to be economical...and the throughput would be low by necessity to allow each player/group to experience the "world" in an isolated way. What would be more fun, walking through a dark mirror maze alone or with a friend or two, with the maze all to yourself/selves, or going through as merely a part of a crowded flow. The experience is important enough that it should be isolated to individuals/small teams as much as possible.
I just don't think it can be done...except by rich people who would set it up for their personal use and for use with a few friends. For a consumer/general public thing, I think it would fail or there would be a waiting list to get in too long to make it worthwhile.
Not true. You don't have to target civilians to be labelled a terrorist by the current regime in D. C. All you have to do is say something against Bush's policies, government activities, or practice civil or non-civil disobedience against some evil corporation. Bingo, not a single civilian causualty but you are now a terrorist, or just as bad, a terrorist supporter.
Ah, I see. You are a hard-right, religious crazy bible thumper, woman hater. You like Hatch and dislike Matheson, then the aforementioned is a given. Hatch, like most republicans, is bent and focused on trying to force religious tenets and restrictions into laws where they have no business being. He's just as bad as Rep Hansen, Rep Fatso-whatisname who who purchased his seat, and all members of the Eagle Forum.
Salt Lake City is the most moderate/liberal city in the state (besides Park City), peopled primarily by moderates and liberals (thank gawd). OF COURSE they should be represented by a like-minded Rep. It would be incorrect to gerrymander the Salt Lake district to force a Republican to represent them when they hold few views in common with that group of clowns.
Well right off the bat, forget Fox. Fox is the state-run news source. They wouldn't say a word against a conservative politician for any reason. To Fox, a conservative politician simply cannot do wrong, or if they do wrong, it is ok if the end is "good" (ie, the end justifies the means bullcrap of the current D.C. Regime).
As for the others, they have to smell ratings in it to report it. If it leads to any negative letters (or MIGHT lead to negative letters) then they wont report it. Ratings, you know. $$$ you know.
This is a job for NPR and the BBC, the only independent and gutsy news orgs left, so it seems.
Off-topic but... The Republicans kiss corporate ass because it is what they worship (money) and it provides them money. They need the money to get elected/stay elected.
The Democrats kiss trial lawyer ass because they do a good thing (protect the little guy from abuse by big guys) with poor side-effects and the lawyers provide them money. They need the money to get elected/stay elected.
Remove the money from politics and this ass-kissing would drop several notches because no one would be beholden to anyone in order to get elected. Hence, support public funding of campaigns, each candidate given equal access/monies to do with as they will. The best ideas (or the one who can best express midlin ideas) wins instead of the most monied.
Some of this skirting the Constitution/Bill of Rights by Republicans is based on their love of privatizing everything under the sun. The GOVERNMENT is required to stay within the limits of the Constitution/Bill of Rights but private companies do not. Thus, the Republicans see a way (so they think) around those pesky protections by handing enforcement or prosecution over to private corporations under the (mistaken) notion that they can do virtually whatever they want.
Windoze would be all over it and incorporate the system into the OS. Linux would not have this self-destruct crap inside it. Linux users would be safe (and presumably *BSD users) while Windoze users would be ripe for getting screwed.
In all cases, all it would require is a firewall to prevent access from the evil code. The signal would have to be sent over the net and it would be identifiable, and it would likely have to hit a specific port. Just say no to that port or signal...and keep an extra bios chip around (they're available) if you goof and get screwed. Replace the hozed bios, rinse, and continue your normal activities unhindered but wiser on how to block the govt/Hatch-sanctioned criminals.
Someone would need to set up a script to send the signal to all senator and congresscritter computers to destroy them and give them a little taste of consequences of their stupidity (assuming such nonsense got passed into law).
By Gregory Benford. In either "Great Sky River" or "Tides of Light" Benford (physicist and astronomer at UC, Irvine), can't recall which, there is an organism that does this...only its ends actually come much farther down into the atmosphere than NASA's proposal. This organism was even used by the main character in the story to hitch a ride into space.
Ridiculous! One of the MAIN reasons it was a no-no aside from the R-rating, was the NUDITY! As if concentration camp nudity without ANY sexual connotation at all would somehow pollute the minds of LDS members and give them "impure thoughts". They also covered Rodens "The Kiss" statue when it was displayed at BYU because it (shocking!) showed a man and a woman in a REAL kiss and not some chaste peck(er) on the cheek, boring, no good kiss.
They are a twisted bunch out there. Michael Angelo's David and the artwork on the Cistine Chapel (nudity, you know) is also considered pornographic by LDSers and those controlling it.
So what else is new? In the OS/2 days, there was an internal segment of IBM that loved OS/2 and promoted OS/2 while at the same time another segment of IBM was doing almost everything in their power to destroy OS/2. Schizophrenia at IBM is not unheard of.
Oh poopiedoops. A froo-froo gene like luciferase or GFP (Green Flourescent Protein) will not convey an advantage (more likely a disadvantage as it would make them visable to predators). This is innocuous and harmless to the fish.
So-called "frankenfood" is also mostly alarmist nonsense. SOME forms of GM food are a good thing(tm). For instance, if you could increase the nutritional value of a crop plant, that is good. It is likely to be somewhat costly to the plant when compared to non-altered wildtype (it takes energy to produce extra nutrients that evolution didn't set you up with). Food designed to be used for vaccination would also be good and not provide any advantage (but a cost) for the plant for similar reasons. On the other hand, creating drought-resistant plants, salt-resistant plants, or chemical agent resistant plants is NOT a likely good thing as in the evolutionary environment of a farm, this would provide a distinct evolutionary advantage to the plants, even those that pick up the trait by incidental species transfer of DNA (happens a lot...agrobacteria is one way to pass DNA around, as are certain plant viruses).
Under NORMAL circumstances (left to the wild ways of evolution), resistance to herbacide would not be of any real use and would actually be a biological burden to be selected against. But in our day with chemicals being used, it is an advantage. Thus it would be as advantageous to the desired plant as it is to the "weed" that picked up the gene by horizontal gene transfer. Bad news and ultimately self-defeating.
Thus, Greens and other knee-jerk anti-GM food people need to learn a bit and start making logical and reasonable distinctions. Altering crops for improved nutritional value or for specific use in immunization is A-OK and not harmful (What, a weed might actually pick up some extra nutritional value? Good! A new crop plant! But it wont because it is burdensome to carry). On the other hand, altering crops to produce pesticides or be herbicide resistant is a recipe for disaster.
One genetic engineering project I was involved with for a while was an attempt to improve the fungal resistance of sugarbeets. The means was to transfer chitinase into sugarbeets from fungi, an enzyme that degrades chitin, the cell-wall material in fungi (among other things). In fungi, the chitinase gene is tightly regulated and needed for proper cell growth and division. Placed into a crop plant, the hope was that if a fungal disease tried to attack the crop, the chitinase in the plant would cause the fungi to lyse (break open) and die. There are different ways this could work: have the gene turned on all the time so there is always a low level of chitinase (alien to a plant) all the time or you could tie it to a gene promotor associated with the plants stress response system so that it turns on only when the plant is under direct attack by fungi. Spiffy idea and good. Weeds are not generally devastated by fungal disease anyway so a transfer would be harmless. Besides, since there are viruses and bacteria that can transfer DNA between species of plants, and fungi can infiltrate and attack various plants, it is not unlikely that there are already wild plants out there that contain various genes from viruses, bacteria and fungi anyway already. There is nothing magic going on here.
An alternative project along the same vein was to alter yeast to overproduce chitinase on demand. The idea here was that you would spray your crop with a solution containing the modified yeast and then induce chitinase overproduction. The yeast would burst and dump their cell contents into the soil in the immediate vicinity. For some unknown period of time, active chitinase in the soil would (or so it was hoped) provide a barrier to fungi, preventing attack on the plants. I doubt this project would have worked out very well for a number of reasons but at this point I don't know the status of either project as I no longer work in that lab.
It is not automatic that any GM of crops MUST be a bad thing. Use some critical thinking before judging.
It didn't come "free" with the computer. You frickin' paid for it just like the PC supplier/builder paid for it (and passed the costs on to you). If you go for any tech support you pay for windoze there too as M$ is HORRIBLE in this regard. Pay for practically everything even when there is a problem that is THEIR fault.
If you are doing real work (science) you are not using windoze. It is handy to be able to fire up a windoze app from time to time when you absolutely must without having to reboot - plus you give your system the stability of linux while still running a safe, harmless windoze within a safe sandbox. It can do stupid windoze crap and not wreck your running system.
What is really pointless is to reboot just to run some windoze app for a few minutes before getting back to your productive os.
It is not pointless. I use linux at work (university research) all the time. I also have vmware installed so that on rare ocassions I can fire up windoze and use some doofy app there that wont run in wine. I don't have to stop everything else I am doing that is more important just to use windoze for a few minutes. I just fire up windoze in linux, it is more stable as a result of being controlled by linux, and all is right with the world.
It is far worse to have to reboot to the other OS for a few minutes than to simply fire it up under linux just lik any other app.
I used to upgrade relatively often as the performance of parts increased significantly from month to month. Quick upgrade from 386 to 486 to pentium to celeron to AMD. After that last one, to a fast Athlon, then a faster Athlon, I just quit noticing any real benefit. Sure, my kernels would build faster but even with that I have slowed down as linux kernels have just gotten plain excellent.
I jumped up to 512MB Ram and got a big HDD and am set for quite a while, it would seem. No big performance gains from anything anymore so there is just no real need to go with the latest and greatest (and most expensive). A few years ago there would be a noticable performance gain from such upgrades but now... I have HDD space to burn, my memory is more than enough to handle my loads, my processor is overkill for virtually anything I ever do. The only thing I foresee changing in the near(ish) future is the video card and the only reason I will do that is to enjoy Doom III and Half-Life 2. I would say that the only thing in a PC that benefits anymore from relatively constant and repetitive upgrades is the video card. The return on everything else (the actual perceived bang) seems to be asymptotic.
When I first heard of XML and documents, etc, I thought it was something like HTML, that is, if you write in standard HTML, then any compliant browser would see it just fine. I thought that if a document were to be XML, then any XML-compliant wordprocessor would see it/render it just fine. Then I learned what you mentioned about it not being a data specification...and it was totally lost on me why XML is of any value whatsoever. XML does nothing worthwhile the way HTML did/does. It does nothing worthwhile the way RTF or simple ASCII format does. It is actually just computer guys tossing off and coming up with something to do...writing a useless spec for no real reason. It doesn't make the end user's life easier, it doesn't make it easier to open documents (as you indicate).
My whole original point including XML with HTML, etc, was that there was a standard put forth that was the same for everyone, that anyone could use (forget for a moment that XML doesn't do anything useful, not REALLY). In a proper implementation of this whole idea, communication protocols and document specs would have to be submitted for approval and adoption by a standards body. It would be openly published and any and all could use it with the knowledge that any and all really could interoperate and trade documents back and forth regardless of OS and wordprocessor or browser one used (and so forth). If one chose to use a non-published spec (M$ with *.doc) then they would be free to do so but they would pay a small penalty for breaking interoperability.
It doesn't matter who or what decides on the standard. So long as it is an open standard that anyone can follow and therefore know that their document or system will properly communicate with anyone else, regardless of platform. The market would still end up selecting the most favored standard but since it is openly published for any and all to follow, without restriction, no problem.
XML was decided upon as a format not by Open Office, nor M$, but by a separate standards body. Same with HTML. The standards were published so anyone was free to implement them and (the intention) know that it would be available to open/view/use by anyone else without problem.
The word *.doc format would be fine, so long as M$ fully published its specs so that anyone else could write to or open that format. The power of word doesn't come from the *.doc format, fer shits sake, it comes from the usefulness of the suite - carried on the back of monopoly leveraging, of course. No one uses word because that *.doc format is just so damn compelling. ANY format would be fine. Just require open publishing of the spec, this automatically makes it available as an open standard.
Well spoken, however...even though the LDS Church, per se, may not directly control politics in Utah, it does, nonetheless, run the show. Most of the intolerable laws in Utah are a direct expression of LDS politicians translating their religious beliefs directly into public policy (generally restrictions). The whole idea of "free agency" is lost to them, practicing their faith while practicing governance simultaneously. THAT is the problem with Utah.
When you can get politicians in Utah to actually grasp that there are a LOT of people that are not LDS living there, and in no way feel the need to restrict themselves based on mormon teaching, and that those same politicians must also, therefore, represent them as well, then they would relinquish their religious bias and pass laws that are the most favorable and least restrictive to the most possible people.
.
Fundi Christian politicians are equally guilty of this crap too but no state except Utah is so heavily biased in favor of any particular religion that so thoroughly pervades or insinuates itself into every aspect of the lives of the populace. Public policy CANNOT and MUST NOT follow along religious doctrine lines. This is inherently unrepresentative, inherently disenfranchising, inherently unConstitutional (in practice and spirit), and inherently anti-freedom.
Sure you can force M$ to stick to standards. If they can't compete on quality, then they lose, they don't get to compete on lockout due to some bizarro and otherwise pointless perversion of a standard. Why is that hard to grasp or see? If they cannot compete on quality, then they deserve to eat sh*t. Breaking (communication) standards simply to lock out competitors and is not quality, it is leveraging their monopoly to try to lock in users INSPITE of quality.
US laws are irrelevant. If M$ wants to sell/make money in S. Africa, assuming this good idea becomes law, then they are free to do so as long as they don't arbitrarily violate basic, broadly agreed upon standards - defined by standards bodies. All they have to do is follow the spec or fully publish any change they seek to make so others can fully interoperate. No lock-in allowed (nor lock-out).
What is open? Are you serious? There is a simple and well-layed out spec for HTML, XML, TCP/IP, etc, etc. Use them to spec and don't allow perversions that intentionally break intercommunication/interoperability. Or, if there is a compelling reason to break the nice standard, require that the addition/alteration be openly published so that the standard remains open and interoperability continues after the "improvement".
It is legal. Your idea of legal doesn't apply universally. No doubt, in South Africa and many other countries, this is totally legal. It should be done in the US too (and Europe) as a way to force M$ to comply with standards rather than break standards.
Slashdot Mirror
Are you dense? The problem (universally) with the filter software is that it blocks non-porno sites. I have no problem with blocking porn from chillins but that's pretty much it. No filter software is good enough to deal with this (it would help if porn sites were required to use a .sex suffix on their sites, then it would be a simple and painless thing to block it). Also there is the politics of the software filter developers to deal with. It is not their place (nor anyone else's place) to decide that reproductive information, physiology, and politics of one type or another is not acceptable for viewing by chillins, or worse, teens.
Sorry, but birth control is legal and fully A-OK in the West and all have the right to access that information. Sorry, but political thought, both favored by the GOP or not is acceptable and fully A-OK in a free country. Neither the GOP, nor cliques of parents, nor filter developers have the right to determine what political speech is OK and what is off-limits. None of them get to determine that fully legal information on contraception or human physiology is off-limits. You only get to go so far in brainwashing your kids to be conservative, insular, biggoted robotons. They do have a right to real, correct, diverse information...especially as they get into their teens onward. One size fits all filtering means that nothing of any value (except a bunch of church-sanctioned/GOP-sanctioned nonsense is available for viewing).
No. If you want to ensure that kiddies aren't looking at "inappropriate" material, you place the children's terminals (separate from adult access terminals) with the screens facing a librarian/monitor. The kids will browse freely but know that any nekkid chicks onscreen will be visable to the librarian and anyone else (a parent) that might be chancing to look. This social pressure would work pretty well and still let adults access anything they want to as is their right.
This would also sidestep the bullcrap about censoring/filtering birthcontrol information, sex information (birthcontrol, health issues), political sites, etc. All absolutely valid information and sites that anyone (ANYONE) should be able to access, period. The government doesn't get to rule abortion information sites, birthcontrol sites, sexual education sites, political sites, as "unacceptable". To do this is inherently anti-freedom, anti-everything the USA (and the Western World) is supposed to stand for.
Since filters are ruled A-OK by the Republican-packed court, then librarians and school admins should be required to immediately correct incorrectly blocked websites as they are encountered (birthcontrol, sex-ed, political sites) without comment or resistance. They ONLY get to block porn (sex ed isn't porn and they KNOW it).
When Doom II was new, I often thought that it would be really cool for someone to make it into "real-life". By this, I mean acquire a large warehouse and, optimally, use some land around it for outdoor sets) build sets with the look/theme of Doom. There would need to be players supplied by the business (in-game players as well as support personnel) who would play the role of some of the creatures - good costumes, not Disneyland cheese. The sets should be dark, mazelike, flickering lights, nooks, crannies...and instead of just running around playing capture the flag or having a free-for-all, there should be goals to meet (levels). Weapons should be paintball-based (so you KNOW when you're hit and you get decent spatter). Players could go through in small groups/teams.
Ultimately however, I believe the task of actually trying to approximate the game and flow from the single-player game wouldn't really be doable as I describe. It is far easier to setup a free-for-all deathmatch or capture the flag game (and cheaper too: no employees playing characters/creatures). The complexity for single player/group player is too high and involved to allow it to be economical...and the throughput would be low by necessity to allow each player/group to experience the "world" in an isolated way. What would be more fun, walking through a dark mirror maze alone or with a friend or two, with the maze all to yourself/selves, or going through as merely a part of a crowded flow. The experience is important enough that it should be isolated to individuals/small teams as much as possible.
I just don't think it can be done...except by rich people who would set it up for their personal use and for use with a few friends. For a consumer/general public thing, I think it would fail or there would be a waiting list to get in too long to make it worthwhile.
I misread you (and replied with intent to inflame what I thought was a Utard conservative). My mistake.
The Rep big-fat-guy-who-bought-his-seat...I remember his name now: Chris (Loose)Cannon. Same cloth as Hansen. Utah is loaded with such tripe.
Not true. You don't have to target civilians to be labelled a terrorist by the current regime in D. C. All you have to do is say something against Bush's policies, government activities, or practice civil or non-civil disobedience against some evil corporation. Bingo, not a single civilian causualty but you are now a terrorist, or just as bad, a terrorist supporter.
It's a wash in that case. Having a Backdoor Boys song on the system rendered it useless anyway. Better that the system be put out of its misery.
Ah, I see. You are a hard-right, religious crazy bible thumper, woman hater. You like Hatch and dislike Matheson, then the aforementioned is a given. Hatch, like most republicans, is bent and focused on trying to force religious tenets and restrictions into laws where they have no business being. He's just as bad as Rep Hansen, Rep Fatso-whatisname who who purchased his seat, and all members of the Eagle Forum.
Salt Lake City is the most moderate/liberal city in the state (besides Park City), peopled primarily by moderates and liberals (thank gawd). OF COURSE they should be represented by a like-minded Rep. It would be incorrect to gerrymander the Salt Lake district to force a Republican to represent them when they hold few views in common with that group of clowns.
Well right off the bat, forget Fox. Fox is the state-run news source. They wouldn't say a word against a conservative politician for any reason. To Fox, a conservative politician simply cannot do wrong, or if they do wrong, it is ok if the end is "good" (ie, the end justifies the means bullcrap of the current D.C. Regime).
As for the others, they have to smell ratings in it to report it. If it leads to any negative letters (or MIGHT lead to negative letters) then they wont report it. Ratings, you know. $$$ you know.
This is a job for NPR and the BBC, the only independent and gutsy news orgs left, so it seems.
Off-topic but... The Republicans kiss corporate ass because it is what they worship (money) and it provides them money. They need the money to get elected/stay elected.
The Democrats kiss trial lawyer ass because they do a good thing (protect the little guy from abuse by big guys) with poor side-effects and the lawyers provide them money. They need the money to get elected/stay elected.
Remove the money from politics and this ass-kissing would drop several notches because no one would be beholden to anyone in order to get elected. Hence, support public funding of campaigns, each candidate given equal access/monies to do with as they will. The best ideas (or the one who can best express midlin ideas) wins instead of the most monied.
Some of this skirting the Constitution/Bill of Rights by Republicans is based on their love of privatizing everything under the sun. The GOVERNMENT is required to stay within the limits of the Constitution/Bill of Rights but private companies do not. Thus, the Republicans see a way (so they think) around those pesky protections by handing enforcement or prosecution over to private corporations under the (mistaken) notion that they can do virtually whatever they want.
Windoze would be all over it and incorporate the system into the OS. Linux would not have this self-destruct crap inside it. Linux users would be safe (and presumably *BSD users) while Windoze users would be ripe for getting screwed.
In all cases, all it would require is a firewall to prevent access from the evil code. The signal would have to be sent over the net and it would be identifiable, and it would likely have to hit a specific port. Just say no to that port or signal...and keep an extra bios chip around (they're available) if you goof and get screwed. Replace the hozed bios, rinse, and continue your normal activities unhindered but wiser on how to block the govt/Hatch-sanctioned criminals.
Someone would need to set up a script to send the signal to all senator and congresscritter computers to destroy them and give them a little taste of consequences of their stupidity (assuming such nonsense got passed into law).
By Gregory Benford. In either "Great Sky River" or "Tides of Light" Benford (physicist and astronomer at UC, Irvine), can't recall which, there is an organism that does this...only its ends actually come much farther down into the atmosphere than NASA's proposal. This organism was even used by the main character in the story to hitch a ride into space.
Ridiculous! One of the MAIN reasons it was a no-no aside from the R-rating, was the NUDITY! As if concentration camp nudity without ANY sexual connotation at all would somehow pollute the minds of LDS members and give them "impure thoughts". They also covered Rodens "The Kiss" statue when it was displayed at BYU because it (shocking!) showed a man and a woman in a REAL kiss and not some chaste peck(er) on the cheek, boring, no good kiss.
They are a twisted bunch out there. Michael Angelo's David and the artwork on the Cistine Chapel (nudity, you know) is also considered pornographic by LDSers and those controlling it.
So what else is new? In the OS/2 days, there was an internal segment of IBM that loved OS/2 and promoted OS/2 while at the same time another segment of IBM was doing almost everything in their power to destroy OS/2. Schizophrenia at IBM is not unheard of.
Oh poopiedoops. A froo-froo gene like luciferase or GFP (Green Flourescent Protein) will not convey an advantage (more likely a disadvantage as it would make them visable to predators). This is innocuous and harmless to the fish.
So-called "frankenfood" is also mostly alarmist nonsense. SOME forms of GM food are a good thing(tm). For instance, if you could increase the nutritional value of a crop plant, that is good. It is likely to be somewhat costly to the plant when compared to non-altered wildtype (it takes energy to produce extra nutrients that evolution didn't set you up with). Food designed to be used for vaccination would also be good and not provide any advantage (but a cost) for the plant for similar reasons. On the other hand, creating drought-resistant plants, salt-resistant plants, or chemical agent resistant plants is NOT a likely good thing as in the evolutionary environment of a farm, this would provide a distinct evolutionary advantage to the plants, even those that pick up the trait by incidental species transfer of DNA (happens a lot...agrobacteria is one way to pass DNA around, as are certain plant viruses).
Under NORMAL circumstances (left to the wild ways of evolution), resistance to herbacide would not be of any real use and would actually be a biological burden to be selected against. But in our day with chemicals being used, it is an advantage. Thus it would be as advantageous to the desired plant as it is to the "weed" that picked up the gene by horizontal gene transfer. Bad news and ultimately self-defeating.
Thus, Greens and other knee-jerk anti-GM food people need to learn a bit and start making logical and reasonable distinctions. Altering crops for improved nutritional value or for specific use in immunization is A-OK and not harmful (What, a weed might actually pick up some extra nutritional value? Good! A new crop plant! But it wont because it is burdensome to carry). On the other hand, altering crops to produce pesticides or be herbicide resistant is a recipe for disaster.
One genetic engineering project I was involved with for a while was an attempt to improve the fungal resistance of sugarbeets. The means was to transfer chitinase into sugarbeets from fungi, an enzyme that degrades chitin, the cell-wall material in fungi (among other things). In fungi, the chitinase gene is tightly regulated and needed for proper cell growth and division. Placed into a crop plant, the hope was that if a fungal disease tried to attack the crop, the chitinase in the plant would cause the fungi to lyse (break open) and die. There are different ways this could work: have the gene turned on all the time so there is always a low level of chitinase (alien to a plant) all the time or you could tie it to a gene promotor associated with the plants stress response system so that it turns on only when the plant is under direct attack by fungi. Spiffy idea and good. Weeds are not generally devastated by fungal disease anyway so a transfer would be harmless. Besides, since there are viruses and bacteria that can transfer DNA between species of plants, and fungi can infiltrate and attack various plants, it is not unlikely that there are already wild plants out there that contain various genes from viruses, bacteria and fungi anyway already. There is nothing magic going on here.
An alternative project along the same vein was to alter yeast to overproduce chitinase on demand. The idea here was that you would spray your crop with a solution containing the modified yeast and then induce chitinase overproduction. The yeast would burst and dump their cell contents into the soil in the immediate vicinity. For some unknown period of time, active chitinase in the soil would (or so it was hoped) provide a barrier to fungi, preventing attack on the plants. I doubt this project would have worked out very well for a number of reasons but at this point I don't know the status of either project as I no longer work in that lab.
It is not automatic that any GM of crops MUST be a bad thing. Use some critical thinking before judging.
It didn't come "free" with the computer. You frickin' paid for it just like the PC supplier/builder paid for it (and passed the costs on to you). If you go for any tech support you pay for windoze there too as M$ is HORRIBLE in this regard. Pay for practically everything even when there is a problem that is THEIR fault.
If you are doing real work (science) you are not using windoze. It is handy to be able to fire up a windoze app from time to time when you absolutely must without having to reboot - plus you give your system the stability of linux while still running a safe, harmless windoze within a safe sandbox. It can do stupid windoze crap and not wreck your running system.
What is really pointless is to reboot just to run some windoze app for a few minutes before getting back to your productive os.
It is not pointless. I use linux at work (university research) all the time. I also have vmware installed so that on rare ocassions I can fire up windoze and use some doofy app there that wont run in wine. I don't have to stop everything else I am doing that is more important just to use windoze for a few minutes. I just fire up windoze in linux, it is more stable as a result of being controlled by linux, and all is right with the world.
It is far worse to have to reboot to the other OS for a few minutes than to simply fire it up under linux just lik any other app.
A thing of beauty. I warn you, I may steal that for use as a sig (I will give you credit, however).
I used to upgrade relatively often as the performance of parts increased significantly from month to month. Quick upgrade from 386 to 486 to pentium to celeron to AMD. After that last one, to a fast Athlon, then a faster Athlon, I just quit noticing any real benefit. Sure, my kernels would build faster but even with that I have slowed down as linux kernels have just gotten plain excellent.
I jumped up to 512MB Ram and got a big HDD and am set for quite a while, it would seem. No big performance gains from anything anymore so there is just no real need to go with the latest and greatest (and most expensive). A few years ago there would be a noticable performance gain from such upgrades but now... I have HDD space to burn, my memory is more than enough to handle my loads, my processor is overkill for virtually anything I ever do. The only thing I foresee changing in the near(ish) future is the video card and the only reason I will do that is to enjoy Doom III and Half-Life 2. I would say that the only thing in a PC that benefits anymore from relatively constant and repetitive upgrades is the video card. The return on everything else (the actual perceived bang) seems to be asymptotic.
When I first heard of XML and documents, etc, I thought it was something like HTML, that is, if you write in standard HTML, then any compliant browser would see it just fine. I thought that if a document were to be XML, then any XML-compliant wordprocessor would see it/render it just fine. Then I learned what you mentioned about it not being a data specification...and it was totally lost on me why XML is of any value whatsoever. XML does nothing worthwhile the way HTML did/does. It does nothing worthwhile the way RTF or simple ASCII format does. It is actually just computer guys tossing off and coming up with something to do...writing a useless spec for no real reason. It doesn't make the end user's life easier, it doesn't make it easier to open documents (as you indicate).
My whole original point including XML with HTML, etc, was that there was a standard put forth that was the same for everyone, that anyone could use (forget for a moment that XML doesn't do anything useful, not REALLY). In a proper implementation of this whole idea, communication protocols and document specs would have to be submitted for approval and adoption by a standards body. It would be openly published and any and all could use it with the knowledge that any and all really could interoperate and trade documents back and forth regardless of OS and wordprocessor or browser one used (and so forth). If one chose to use a non-published spec (M$ with *.doc) then they would be free to do so but they would pay a small penalty for breaking interoperability.
It doesn't matter who or what decides on the standard. So long as it is an open standard that anyone can follow and therefore know that their document or system will properly communicate with anyone else, regardless of platform. The market would still end up selecting the most favored standard but since it is openly published for any and all to follow, without restriction, no problem.
XML was decided upon as a format not by Open Office, nor M$, but by a separate standards body. Same with HTML. The standards were published so anyone was free to implement them and (the intention) know that it would be available to open/view/use by anyone else without problem.
The word *.doc format would be fine, so long as M$ fully published its specs so that anyone else could write to or open that format. The power of word doesn't come from the *.doc format, fer shits sake, it comes from the usefulness of the suite - carried on the back of monopoly leveraging, of course. No one uses word because that *.doc format is just so damn compelling. ANY format would be fine. Just require open publishing of the spec, this automatically makes it available as an open standard.
Well spoken, however...even though the LDS Church, per se, may not directly control politics in Utah, it does, nonetheless, run the show. Most of the intolerable laws in Utah are a direct expression of LDS politicians translating their religious beliefs directly into public policy (generally restrictions). The whole idea of "free agency" is lost to them, practicing their faith while practicing governance simultaneously. THAT is the problem with Utah.
When you can get politicians in Utah to actually grasp that there are a LOT of people that are not LDS living there, and in no way feel the need to restrict themselves based on mormon teaching, and that those same politicians must also, therefore, represent them as well, then they would relinquish their religious bias and pass laws that are the most favorable and least restrictive to the most possible people.
.Fundi Christian politicians are equally guilty of this crap too but no state except Utah is so heavily biased in favor of any particular religion that so thoroughly pervades or insinuates itself into every aspect of the lives of the populace. Public policy CANNOT and MUST NOT follow along religious doctrine lines. This is inherently unrepresentative, inherently disenfranchising, inherently unConstitutional (in practice and spirit), and inherently anti-freedom.
Sure you can force M$ to stick to standards. If they can't compete on quality, then they lose, they don't get to compete on lockout due to some bizarro and otherwise pointless perversion of a standard. Why is that hard to grasp or see? If they cannot compete on quality, then they deserve to eat sh*t. Breaking (communication) standards simply to lock out competitors and is not quality, it is leveraging their monopoly to try to lock in users INSPITE of quality.
US laws are irrelevant. If M$ wants to sell/make money in S. Africa, assuming this good idea becomes law, then they are free to do so as long as they don't arbitrarily violate basic, broadly agreed upon standards - defined by standards bodies. All they have to do is follow the spec or fully publish any change they seek to make so others can fully interoperate. No lock-in allowed (nor lock-out).
What is open? Are you serious? There is a simple and well-layed out spec for HTML, XML, TCP/IP, etc, etc. Use them to spec and don't allow perversions that intentionally break intercommunication/interoperability. Or, if there is a compelling reason to break the nice standard, require that the addition/alteration be openly published so that the standard remains open and interoperability continues after the "improvement".
It's really not that hard.
It is legal. Your idea of legal doesn't apply universally. No doubt, in South Africa and many other countries, this is totally legal. It should be done in the US too (and Europe) as a way to force M$ to comply with standards rather than break standards.