If you want to look to defeating aging, you should look to http://www.geron.com , since they are the holders of the patent on human telomerase encoding.
Does anyone else have problems with the morality of
the fact that one can hold patents on these sorts of things, including afaik, gene sequences?
the fact that a for-profit corporations are holding patents on key scientific aspects of the biology of life?
Does anybody know of an 'open source' movement in fields other than CompSci? How do we go about starting one?
-- People who say "the best thing since sliced bread" have never lived without indoor plumbing.
Yup. At my company in the UK, we all got a memo last week stating that the company intended to comply with the new EU Working Time Regulations, that we had to track our hours, and were not allowed to work more than 48 hours a week. But this is averaged over a 17 week period, including days off and vacations; so when there is a short-lived push to get the next release of the software out the coders work overtime, and then simply go home early next week or next month. There is an "opt out" clause, though, and I can see some companies pressuring employees to sign an "opt out" form, or making it a condition of employment...
Set-top boxes and interactive capabilities are all well and good, but what content are we going to be accessing using these *oh-so-wonderful* new technologies? Microsoft learned back with the MSN fiasco (Microsoft Network - it was supposed to rival the Internet... uh, it didn't) that they can't do content worth a damn...
Rogers doesn't (afaik) create any content, they're just a carrier. I doubt the CRTC will relax it's Canadian Content legislation, even for Billy; so does this mean a big shiny new "Microsoft TV Productions" office tower for Toronto?
I used to read Wired religiously, even when I was a starving student and the cover price seriously ate into my beer money. Then two years ago I moved to Europe, and the European version wasn't up to scratch, so I started only buying Wired in NA airports on my way to/from 'home'.
About a year ago (shortly after the sale which I was oblivious to, not being a regular reader any more) I bought a copy of Wired and was annoyed to find 3 articles about mobile phones and nothing substancial anywhere. So I asked the first geek friend I ran into "Is it just me or is Wired now crap?" and he said, "Wired is now crap. Read Slashdot instead." Been here ever since.
The idea of virtual property - elevated by the staggering success of eBay - has all kinds of implications. If cyber-property is seen as having intrinsic value, measurable worth than can be traded, valued, and sold, then get ready for even more billions of dollars to start flying around the Net and the Web.
Of course cyber-property will have intrinsic value for some people. The same way that a certain logo or designer's name on a piece or clothing has intrinsic value, for some people. The products (the sorts of things that are available to buy, sell, and trade) may change, but the people don't.
"... the advantage of getting what we
need, and that of getting what we wish for. Three-fourths of the [economic] demands existing in the world are romantic; founded on visions, idealisms, hopes, and affections; and the regulation of the purse is, in its essance, regulation of the imagination and the heart. - John Ruskin, Unto This Last [essays on Political Economy], 1862.
I never did understand why people seem so keen to censor sex in the media while allowing graphic brutality - but that's a different matter.
It's not entirely a different matter. In Europe the tolerance for sex and violence is pretty much the reverse of what it is in North America. Frontal nudity (both sexes) is shown regularly on television (mostly, though not always after the 9:30 pm watershed - in the uk anyway), but the cop shows, for instance, are much less violent. It has to do with what your culture values and what your culture decides it will tolerate...
Slashdot Mirror
Yup. At my company in the UK, we all got a memo last week stating that the company intended to comply with the new EU Working Time Regulations, that we had to track our hours, and were not allowed to work more than 48 hours a week. But this is averaged over a 17 week period, including days off and vacations; so when there is a short-lived push to get the next release of the software out the coders work overtime, and then simply go home early next week or next month. There is an "opt out" clause, though, and I can see some companies pressuring employees to sign an "opt out" form, or making it a condition of employment...
Rogers doesn't (afaik) create any content, they're just a carrier. I doubt the CRTC will relax it's Canadian Content legislation, even for Billy; so does this mean a big shiny new "Microsoft TV Productions" office tower for Toronto?
About a year ago (shortly after the sale which I was oblivious to, not being a regular reader any more) I bought a copy of Wired and was annoyed to find 3 articles about mobile phones and nothing substancial anywhere. So I asked the first geek friend I ran into "Is it just me or is Wired now crap?" and he said, "Wired is now crap. Read Slashdot instead." Been here ever since.
Cheers.
Of course cyber-property will have intrinsic value for some people. The same way that a certain logo or designer's name on a piece or clothing has intrinsic value, for some people. The products (the sorts of things that are available to buy, sell, and trade) may change, but the people don't.
I never did understand why people seem so keen to censor sex in the media while allowing graphic brutality - but that's a different matter.
It's not entirely a different matter. In Europe the tolerance for sex and violence is pretty much the reverse of what it is in North America. Frontal nudity (both sexes) is shown regularly on television (mostly, though not always after the
9:30 pm watershed - in the uk anyway), but the cop shows, for instance, are much less violent. It has to do with what your culture values and what your culture decides it will tolerate...