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User: ineffablepwnage

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  1. Re:Monsanto is knowingly not protecting its patent on Supreme Court Rules For Monsanto In Patent Case · · Score: 1

    They genes came from another public plant that anyone can own

    The genes came from a bacteria called Agrobacterium tumefaciens

    They don’t own the genes; and no court has the authority to give the sole right to use the genes to anyone entity. The genes are publicly owed when in the original plant or any other plant that nature choses.

    The genes aren't in a plant that 'nature chose', and genes are patentable "if they are sufficiently "isolated" from their naturally occurring states", i.e. manipulated to be expressed in an organism they aren't naturally found in, as was done with round-up ready soybeans.

    Not that I like Monsanto, but they are within the law as currently written to patent their round up ready plants.

  2. Re:Steambox on New Console Always-Online Requirements and You · · Score: 1

    I have a very shitty connection, and it goes out all the time. If I've already got steam booted up, it's alright. If the connection goes out and THEN I try to boot steam, it won't work. So if you're one of those people who doesn't leave programs running in the background when you're not using them, steam's offline mode doesn't work.

  3. Re:Go ahead on North Korea Declares a State of War · · Score: 1

    And they most definitely don't want to get involved in a land war in Asia.

  4. Re:Fascinating stuff on Spy Drones Used To Hunt Down Christopher Dorner · · Score: 2

    In his manifesto, Dorner states that there were several people on the board investigating the claim that were biased, an old partner, an old supervisor, etc. When he disputed this and asked for unbiased judges, he was ignored. I don't know whether this is true or not, but it is a believable claim.

  5. Re:Not surprising at all on Professors Rejecting Classroom Technology · · Score: 1

    That's the wrong way to use technology in teaching. I've had several classes where the profs managed to use technology in a way that enhances the learning process instead of hindering it. My biochem class had lectures the old school way that you described, they gave assigned reading out of the book/supplementary materials that they provided and the prof would just go through his lectures making notes/drawing diagrams/etc. The difference was they did the notes on a tablet that was projected for everyone to see, and the lectures were recorded, voice, notes, student questions and all (camtasia is awesome). Surprisingly, they still had a very high attendance rate, and most people went to class and just listened to what was being said and thinking about it instead of focusing on writing down every little piece of info that was said, and took notes off of the recordings later. Some of my other classes were taught by a couple profs who were collaborating with an education researcher on how to improve modern teaching. Everyone had a cheap little $5 remote that that was tied to a receiver that the profs had, and they would ask questions every 5-10 minutes in class to see how well the students were grasping the concepts and if they needed to go over anything again (even at a college level, there were still plenty of people who either thought they understood something when they didn't, or were just too shy to stop class to ask the prof to go over it again). Again, their lectures were pretty old school. They had a slideshow with the basic concepts they were going over, but did most of their teaching on a blackboard with chalk. I had other classes where the profs did pretty much what you described, and had a slideshow that they just read off. Those were the classes that I only went to for the test. So to implement helpful technology, the profs don't have to change their teaching methods. They can add technology to their tried-and-true methods that help the students instead of just making a huge hassle for everyone involved with little benefit.

  6. Re:Texas would like to think of it as a hypothesis on Texas School Board Searching For Alternatives To Evolutionary Theory · · Score: 1

    "because whatever else abortion and gay marriage are, they are most certainly not multi-generational survival traits" http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/06/080617204459.htm Proof you're wrong, at least on the gay part.

  7. Re:Racism is a cause, on Racism In Online Ad Targeting · · Score: 1

    I'm not worried about google mining my data at all, since before they implemented their latest way to look at what they think about your demographics (http://t.co/hSxzJaPf), you could get in and look at a more detailed breakdown of what they were using to target ads to you. They thought I was a 60+ year old divorced christian man, with a job in IT and interests in paleontology, astrology (NOT astronomy), and looking new wife. The only things they got right were that I am a man and think dinosaurs are cool (but not to the extent that they thought). At the time, I was 20, in college for microbiology, atheist, and in a relationship. What I think is hilarious is I TOLD them I was 20 and in school, and they still ignored it. Most of the ads I saw were for dating sites for old christian women.

  8. Re:Yeah, fuck off. on School Board Considers Copyright Ownership of Student and Teacher Works · · Score: 2

    Semi-off topic: Could it still be considered a copyright violation? They are using someone else's work for monetary gain (I'm assuming they make some money off of their service), so shouldn't people created the works be able to object to that, or is there something in copyright law that allows the plagiarism screening services to do that?

  9. Re:Happened to me; easily reversed on AT&T: Don't Want a Data Plan for That Smartphone? Too Bad. · · Score: 2

    Once the smartphone revolution started to happen, AT&T started trying to screw me over on data. I had one of the free bricks that they give you when you're not willing to spend any money on a phone, and was on a family plan. I kept getting data charges from them, despite never using data, or even being able to, although a call would get the charges reversed. One month I just left my phone plugged in, but never used it. At the end of the month, guess what happened? Got charged for using data. AT&T just adds on whatever charges that most people incur and hope that people don't notice it, or the people DO use it and just think they've been caught.

  10. Re:One other Option on Does US Owe the World an Education At Its Expense? · · Score: 1

    This summary might be the worst I've ever seen on /. The summary cut off Obama's quote right before it got to what he was actually saying, and replaced it with another quote that was the complete opposite of the point he was trying to get across. In the link to Obama's speech, he says he wants international students to keep coming here and we should try to keep them here once they're done with their education by making immigration a viable option, rather than deporting them as soon as they are done. The summary makes it sound like Obama was saying that we need to cut back on international students, while it's the exact opposite.

  11. Re:Was it EA..... on Feedback On Simcity Gets User Banned From EA Forums · · Score: 1

    Every closed beta I've been involved with has been 'closed' because it was open to limited numbers of people, not because there was some non-disclosure clause in the EULA. Most of them WANTED you to talk about it in public forums, since that's free advertising and when reviews talk about all the problems in the beta, the devs point to those and say 'hey, we fixed all that, any other complaints that aren't actually fixed?'

  12. Re:Two questions on Smart Guns To Stop Mass Killings · · Score: 1

    Lets be serious, the FAQ on how to remove the safety mechanism would probably be out before that model of weapon was even officially announced.

  13. Re:bollocks on 'Gorilla Arm' Will Keep Touch Screens From Taking Over · · Score: 1

    Example: An older person with not so fine-motor control. Rather than move the darn mouse, just click with your finger!

    That's when you adjust the mouse sensitivity. That will do a lot more to help a person with poor fine-motor control on a smaller screen than a touch interface will. You can set it so that you have to move your mouse 2 feet to get it across the screen, while a 10 inch tablet/laptop hybrid with small icons restricts you to those 10 inches.

  14. Re:videogames are like #3 or lower on that list on School Shooting Prompts Legislation To Study Violent Video Games · · Score: 1

    If people have to argue about whether he used an assault rifle or handguns, then people being upset about assault rifles is irrelevant since he could have done the same damage with just the handguns. It's just a distraction from the real issues, whatever you believe them to be.

  15. Re:"Free" market fail on Least-Cost Routing Threatens Rural Phone Call Completion · · Score: 1

    Most people who live in rural areas would gladly pay more for almost any service that's up to par, whether it's phone, internet, or cell coverage. The problem is it isn't available. I live not too far out of a decent sized city (for a rural area), and there's no cell coverage or internet available at my house (apart from unreliable dial up, which these days doesn't really count since doing anything on the internet besides browsing text sites requires a faster connection). The issue isn't subsidizing rural areas to cover the cost, it's the companies who have been granted special privileges to provide service to everyone aren't providing service to everyone.

  16. Re:No silly on Gameplay: the Missing Ingredient In Most Games · · Score: 1

    Look up Dark Souls. There's minimal story, compared to other RPGs you don't get gamebreaking stuff as you level you just get stuff that lets you fight differently (people have beat it without leveling up at all), and someone who has all the best items in the game can go to the first area and die pretty quickly. It goes back to the old school gaming where you don't have autosaves every 5 feet and there is an actual penalty for dying. I get bored with most games after 5-10 hours and only games that have actual good gameplay manage to keep my attention, and I've probably sunk 130+ hours into dark souls in a couple months. tl;dr dark souls has the best old-school gameplay out of any modern game.

  17. Re:Ever notice the drug commercials... on The New School Nurse Is Nurse Ratched · · Score: 1

    but the bar for bringing a new form of an old drug to market is much lower than approval for a new drug

    That's not the reason. Sure, they don't have to go through early R&D, and they know that they have a drug that has an effect, so they save a lot of money there but that isn't the purpose. They do that as a method of extending the patent on a drug and maintaining their monopoly. If they can prove that some new method of delivery or combination with some adjuvant helps treat a symptom, then they basically get a free patent extension, albeit in a narrower field, but they still get to sell their drug at brand name prices instead of generic. Companies have actually not marketed a drug/got it tested for a specific purpose, even though they knew it worked, specifically so they could patent it later for that off-label treatment and get their billion-dollar patent extension.

  18. Re:What's the value here? on US Election's Only VP Debate Tonight: Weigh In With Your Reactions · · Score: 1

    The VP may not be a reason to vote for someone, but it sure as hell can be a good reason not to (see: Palin)

  19. Re:Two cheeks of the same ass on Study Shows Tech Execs Slightly Prefer Romney Over Obama · · Score: 1

    I don't know about you, but I get some wendy's and drink a 7 up while watching a Ron Paul documentary on CBS, and brush with aquafresh afterwards.