In this case the democracy has thus far decided (although not clearly in one direction or the other) that the moral cost of stem cell research is not worth the scientific gain.
And in doing so, they have provided incentive for obtaining stem cells from elsewhere. Using adult stem cells harvested from the same person who will receive them has obvious advantage, not the least of which is the immune system factor. Score one for democracy.
Bush lost the popular vote. Only an antiquated system allowed Bush and the government to disregard that.
If you're referring to the fiasco in FL, I can see where you are coming from. However, if you're referring to the electorates being antiquated, you need to remember that the president is elected by States and not by the popular vote. That would be a precondition of many States participation in the union. It would be perfectly legal (but morally questionable) for a state to write a special law assigning electorates to a particular candidate. In fact, Florida was contemplating doing this very thing to avoid losing their representation. It's also possible for an electorate to, on his/her own, vote counter to the ballot. But I'm fairly certain that in this day and age such an act would probably prevent them from ever being allowed back in their home state again.
What you *can* certainly question is the assignment of electorates and of course the whole screwed up FL ballot issue.
The real question is, will campaign finance reform prevent this kind of thing in the future? Or will big megacorps just find another way of buying off their favorite politicians? Any speculation?
If my younger sister is more inclined to purchase Office XP than I was to copy the Office 97 CD from the IT dept, it's because she can get it for 10 bucks at the bookstore. I didn't have that option.
And that proves it. Office XP is only worth $10 to students.:) Actually, it probably not too far from the truth what with OpenOffice.org out there. Few students would need more than what is offered in OpenOffice. Also remember that it's to Microsoft's advantage to make it easy for students to obtain their products. If I had used Office in college, that's what I would have wanted to use when I graduated.
As you mentioned, decreased risk of something "going wrong."
Not having to take extreme caution about who finds out that you have the software.
Not getting "bit" by some of the more clever registration / licensing schemes that are designed to catch pirates.
Some prayer of support if there *is* a problem with the software.
Not that most of these benefits didn't exist before, but if you emphasize them and figure out how to balance your prices against what college student's would be willing to pay you may generate a lot of interest in actually purchasing your products.
On Windows, I get about 100 Kbytes/second on the new system and on the old.
Have you applied all of these tweaks or these and maybe these? I had similar problems with my cable modem. I was getting about 1.8 Mbps with my Win2K machine and 4.5 Mbps with my Linux boxes. Adding the appropriate registry tweaks gave me about equivalent performance with the W2K machine. Note that not all of these tweaks are good for all types of network access, so depending on your usage patterns, your mileage may vary.
Ten year suply of viagra for some of us thats only 10 tablets:-)
LOL -- I'm not sure how to take this. Are you sayin that your sex drive is good enough without it, or are you saying that you only need a good sex drive about once a year? Sorry, couldn't resist.:-)
Anyway, I suppose you could save the stuff for a hundred years or so when you really need it.
Now, make a crawler that actually buys random stuff occasionally, and you're on to something. It would be interesting to see what you got, too.
Now that would be REALLY interested. You could call that the "I feel lucky" mode. Imagine your surprise when a 10 year supply of Viagra arrived at your door. Hmmm. I think I'd opt for a truckload of "All Your Base Are Belong to Us" T-shirts.
OK, so that makes it great for things like space travel (ala "Star Trek") that require lots of energy with very low mass. But I guess the trick here would be to find a way to STORE anti-hydrogen (or any kind of antimatter) that doesn't require constant usage of large amounts of energy -- some sort of inert form, right? Any possibilities of this? I mean, we wouldn't want the beasty to leak out and contact real matter while people are standing around, would we?
The amount of energy released is VERY large. mc^2, in fact.
Any idea as to how this compares to the energy required to CREATE and HOLD the anti-hydrogen atom in the first place? Would this be a viable energy source? (create anti-hydrogen, hold, combine with hydrogen, harness resulting energy) Would this provide significantly more energy than burning hydrogen gas or the like? (Physics is not my forte).
Pardon my stupidity on the subject, but what exactly does an ANTI-hydrogen atom do?
It sits there and looks cute. According to the article, if you put it into a boxing ring with a normal atom, they would fight, annihilate each other, and maybe produce enough energy to warm your cup of coffee a tad. I'm surprised though. I was expecting the energy released from such a collision to be pretty large.
I also read somewhere years ago that there was speculation that antimatter of this sort may possess anti-gravity. I don't know how true this is, as I haven't followed particle physics very closely.
From Microsoft's site: "The Computational Clustering Technical Preview (CCTP) toolkit is used for creating and evaluating computational clusters built on the Windows® 2000 operating system."
Obviously, they are now attempting to compete with projects like Beowulf. It's probably all part of the M$ aggressive stance on Linux (and other competitors). The real question is, has anybody downloaded this kit and played with it. It's just a technology preview, so how mature is it in comparison to Beowulf or other clustering technologies?
But to think that business-y people will manage us
You know, one of the best managers I ever had was "businessy." She had almost no computer knowledge whatsoever, aside from the ability to use e-mail and office applications. But here's the difference: She KNEW she was lacking in that area and relied on the opinions of her employees. When one of us told her that something couldn't be accomplished as the company wanted it, she took the time to ask questions and explore where the problem was. Then she would help us to consider ways of dealing with or eliminating the problem. Sometimes, that worked. When it didn't, she would tell the VP the truth -- it couldn't be done in the time requested. Up until that time, I always griped about how stupid managers were. She really opened my eyes.
The key learning is: Know thine own limits. You'll be much more successful in anything you do as long as you know your weaknesses.
Ecological impact of the disabled flies won't be that big
Yeah, but I hope they have done a REALLY good job of studying what the ecological impact of eradicating the flies will be. If they are part of the food chain, or if they are a deterrant to any other type of even more annoying animal / insect / plant, then this could be a really really big mistake. I honestly don't know anything about how the Tsetse fly fits into ecology. I just hope that the experts truly know "everything."
because the sterile (unable to reproduce flies = no offspring) might cross breed
Life will find a way.... What's the guarantee that ALL of them will be sterile. Sure, radiation might render 99.9% of them sterile, but what about that.1% that are not sterile and have some rather interesting manipulations in their 'seed'?
It's nice of you to stick it out and wait for Joe's Trucking and Plumbing to be allowed to make Xbox controllers without paying licensing,
Hey, I think they would be uniquely qualified to design the appropriate controller for that new "Waterworks" game. Why should they have to pay licensing for that?:)
DeCSS is not for getting around copy protection either.
I agree with everything you said, except that although DeCSS was not intended to get around copy protection, the "evil empires" used the argument that it CAN be used to defeat the DVD encoding, and therefore violated the DMCA. I definitely wouldn't bet my money on M$ not finding a way to use DMCA against anyone that gets around their controller control (pun intended). It's not what the DMCA was intended for, but big companies will try to stretch it for this kind of purpose.
They produce more energy than they consume? I find this hard to believe.
Aww, give him a break. You know what he meant. He meant that the output energy is greater than the amount of direct energy put in. Never mind the fact that most of the output energy is obtained by consuming materials with stored energy.
If making an adapter is a DMCA violation, then any of you people out there using computers that spoof the MAC address on the ethernet card in order to connect to your high-speed internet service that only allows a specific MAC address are going to be in violation too....
But I don't think this situation is using technology to get around copy protection....
Playstation made it so you couldn't play japanese playstation games.
This is a different animal. It appears that they are now making it so that you have to buy your controller hardware either from M$, or from a M$ approved vendor. This would be equivalent to Playstation not allowing you to play games made by anybody else.
Of course, maybe I'm wrong and encoding the correct USB setting will not be a secret, thus allowing even generic controller brands to offer a US-compatible version.
Look, nobody could argue that MS has monopoly power in the gaming console market. Therefore, antotrust law doesn't even enter into it.
Agreed. In fact, a move like this might drive off potential buyers who are educated about this little fact. I certainly won't buy one now. Not if I can only buy my controllers from Microsoft (or MS approved company paying royalties).
Seriously...what will prevent monopolies from forming if these laws are stricken?
Nothing. But remember, the monopoly itself isn't bad. It's the abuse of it that's the problem. Of course it's pretty clear these days that getting rid of an abusive monopoly is also a problem.
they knew what it would take to get it past customs and did as such: item="gift", value="under $30 USD".
You'd think by now that Customs would be wise to this practice and randomly check these packages. If they find one, they could then make it a policy to inspect EVERY package coming from the same shipper. I'm surprised that hasn't happened. Is it illegal?
: In *HOLLAND* it'd be legal to offer drink/sex to a 15 year old.
Ah, yes. That makes a big difference. As I recall from my time living in Europe, there were MANY things legal in the Netherlands that weren't legal elsewhere.
not everyone in the world finds this type of behaviour worthy of beatings and/or rape as punishment
I think most of the folks in the US don't want to see beatings or rape as the method of punishment. They just want to see the person locked up for a good long time so they can think about what they did. The rape and beating usually seems to be a side effect of that. The prison system really needs to find a way to control that aspect. However, I must say that if I were the criminal and I was given a choice between a prison sentence or a public flogging that would leave no permanent injury (key element there), I think I'd choose the flogging. You get it over with much quicker.
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And in doing so, they have provided incentive for obtaining stem cells from elsewhere. Using adult stem cells harvested from the same person who will receive them has obvious advantage, not the least of which is the immune system factor. Score one for democracy.
If you're referring to the fiasco in FL, I can see where you are coming from. However, if you're referring to the electorates being antiquated, you need to remember that the president is elected by States and not by the popular vote. That would be a precondition of many States participation in the union. It would be perfectly legal (but morally questionable) for a state to write a special law assigning electorates to a particular candidate. In fact, Florida was contemplating doing this very thing to avoid losing their representation. It's also possible for an electorate to, on his/her own, vote counter to the ballot. But I'm fairly certain that in this day and age such an act would probably prevent them from ever being allowed back in their home state again.
What you *can* certainly question is the assignment of electorates and of course the whole screwed up FL ballot issue.
The real question is, will campaign finance reform prevent this kind of thing in the future? Or will big megacorps just find another way of buying off their favorite politicians? Any speculation?
And that proves it. Office XP is only worth $10 to students. :) Actually, it probably not too far from the truth what with OpenOffice.org out there. Few students would need more than what is offered in OpenOffice. Also remember that it's to Microsoft's advantage to make it easy for students to obtain their products. If I had used Office in college, that's what I would have wanted to use when I graduated.
- As you mentioned, decreased risk of something "going wrong."
- Not having to take extreme caution about who finds out that you have the software.
- Not getting "bit" by some of the more clever registration / licensing schemes that are designed to catch pirates.
- Some prayer of support if there *is* a problem with the software.
Not that most of these benefits didn't exist before, but if you emphasize them and figure out how to balance your prices against what college student's would be willing to pay you may generate a lot of interest in actually purchasing your products.Have you applied all of these tweaks or these and maybe these? I had similar problems with my cable modem. I was getting about 1.8 Mbps with my Win2K machine and 4.5 Mbps with my Linux boxes. Adding the appropriate registry tweaks gave me about equivalent performance with the W2K machine. Note that not all of these tweaks are good for all types of network access, so depending on your usage patterns, your mileage may vary.
LOL -- I'm not sure how to take this. Are you sayin that your sex drive is good enough without it, or are you saying that you only need a good sex drive about once a year? Sorry, couldn't resist.
Anyway, I suppose you could save the stuff for a hundred years or so when you really need it.
Now that would be REALLY interested. You could call that the "I feel lucky" mode. Imagine your surprise when a 10 year supply of Viagra arrived at your door. Hmmm. I think I'd opt for a truckload of "All Your Base Are Belong to Us" T-shirts.
Oh good. I guess that means it'll pretty much be around forever.
OK, so that makes it great for things like space travel (ala "Star Trek") that require lots of energy with very low mass. But I guess the trick here would be to find a way to STORE anti-hydrogen (or any kind of antimatter) that doesn't require constant usage of large amounts of energy -- some sort of inert form, right? Any possibilities of this? I mean, we wouldn't want the beasty to leak out and contact real matter while people are standing around, would we?
Any idea as to how this compares to the energy required to CREATE and HOLD the anti-hydrogen atom in the first place? Would this be a viable energy source? (create anti-hydrogen, hold, combine with hydrogen, harness resulting energy) Would this provide significantly more energy than burning hydrogen gas or the like? (Physics is not my forte).
It sits there and looks cute. According to the article, if you put it into a boxing ring with a normal atom, they would fight, annihilate each other, and maybe produce enough energy to warm your cup of coffee a tad. I'm surprised though. I was expecting the energy released from such a collision to be pretty large.
I also read somewhere years ago that there was speculation that antimatter of this sort may possess anti-gravity. I don't know how true this is, as I haven't followed particle physics very closely.
From Microsoft's site: "The Computational Clustering Technical Preview (CCTP) toolkit is used for creating and evaluating computational clusters built on the Windows® 2000 operating system."
Obviously, they are now attempting to compete with projects like Beowulf. It's probably all part of the M$ aggressive stance on Linux (and other competitors). The real question is, has anybody downloaded this kit and played with it. It's just a technology preview, so how mature is it in comparison to Beowulf or other clustering technologies?
You know, one of the best managers I ever had was "businessy." She had almost no computer knowledge whatsoever, aside from the ability to use e-mail and office applications. But here's the difference: She KNEW she was lacking in that area and relied on the opinions of her employees. When one of us told her that something couldn't be accomplished as the company wanted it, she took the time to ask questions and explore where the problem was. Then she would help us to consider ways of dealing with or eliminating the problem. Sometimes, that worked. When it didn't, she would tell the VP the truth -- it couldn't be done in the time requested. Up until that time, I always griped about how stupid managers were. She really opened my eyes.
The key learning is: Know thine own limits. You'll be much more successful in anything you do as long as you know your weaknesses.
Yeah, but I hope they have done a REALLY good job of studying what the ecological impact of eradicating the flies will be. If they are part of the food chain, or if they are a deterrant to any other type of even more annoying animal / insect / plant, then this could be a really really big mistake. I honestly don't know anything about how the Tsetse fly fits into ecology. I just hope that the experts truly know "everything."
Life will find a way.... What's the guarantee that ALL of them will be sterile. Sure, radiation might render 99.9% of them sterile, but what about that .1% that are not sterile and have some rather interesting manipulations in their 'seed'?
Hey, I think they would be uniquely qualified to design the appropriate controller for that new "Waterworks" game. Why should they have to pay licensing for that? :)
I agree with everything you said, except that although DeCSS was not intended to get around copy protection, the "evil empires" used the argument that it CAN be used to defeat the DVD encoding, and therefore violated the DMCA. I definitely wouldn't bet my money on M$ not finding a way to use DMCA against anyone that gets around their controller control (pun intended). It's not what the DMCA was intended for, but big companies will try to stretch it for this kind of purpose.
Aww, give him a break. You know what he meant. He meant that the output energy is greater than the amount of direct energy put in. Never mind the fact that most of the output energy is obtained by consuming materials with stored energy.
If making an adapter is a DMCA violation, then any of you people out there using computers that spoof the MAC address on the ethernet card in order to connect to your high-speed internet service that only allows a specific MAC address are going to be in violation too....
But I don't think this situation is using technology to get around copy protection....
This is a different animal. It appears that they are now making it so that you have to buy your controller hardware either from M$, or from a M$ approved vendor. This would be equivalent to Playstation not allowing you to play games made by anybody else.
Of course, maybe I'm wrong and encoding the correct USB setting will not be a secret, thus allowing even generic controller brands to offer a US-compatible version.
Agreed. In fact, a move like this might drive off potential buyers who are educated about this little fact. I certainly won't buy one now. Not if I can only buy my controllers from Microsoft (or MS approved company paying royalties).
Nothing. But remember, the monopoly itself isn't bad. It's the abuse of it that's the problem. Of course it's pretty clear these days that getting rid of an abusive monopoly is also a problem.
You'd think by now that Customs would be wise to this practice and randomly check these packages. If they find one, they could then make it a policy to inspect EVERY package coming from the same shipper. I'm surprised that hasn't happened. Is it illegal?
Ah, yes. That makes a big difference. As I recall from my time living in Europe, there were MANY things legal in the Netherlands that weren't legal elsewhere.
not everyone in the world finds this type of behaviour worthy of beatings and/or rape as punishment
I think most of the folks in the US don't want to see beatings or rape as the method of punishment. They just want to see the person locked up for a good long time so they can think about what they did. The rape and beating usually seems to be a side effect of that. The prison system really needs to find a way to control that aspect. However, I must say that if I were the criminal and I was given a choice between a prison sentence or a public flogging that would leave no permanent injury (key element there), I think I'd choose the flogging. You get it over with much quicker.