That is definitely not what you said. Let me walk you through it.
What the article says is this (my emphasis):
Genes are complex organic molecules, and when you isolate and purify them from the chromosomes where they reside, they are eligible to be patented as chemical compounds.
In other words, genes can be patented once they have been isolated.
You said this:
IANAScientist, but I don't believe you can actually patent a gene. What you patent is the chemical method for isolating or reproducing the gene.
This is not true. You don't patent the method for extracting a gene. You patent the isolated gene itself.
For the article to say that this is not "anything as it exists in nature" is ridiculous. It's like allowing me to patent gorillas once I have found a way to put them in a zoo.
Can you imagine a sound so loud that it kills you? It's mindboggling. Not a nice way to die. I have heard estimates as high as 235 decibels. That's a hundred thousand times louder than pressing your ear up against a jumbo jet engine.
I don't understand your logic. From where I sit, if they pay $1 more than the cost of their launch, then they have made the space agency $1 they wouldn't otherwise have had. That's a good thing.
Maybe you are thinking that such missions draw engineers away from productive missions, but I don't think there's a shortage of smart engineers who want to work for the space program. Some engineers can go and make $1 for the space program, and others can continue to do the kinds of work you want them to do, as though the space tourists didn't exist.
Of course, if his chute doesn't open, he becomes his own airbrake and bursts into flames.
Nonsense. If he was moving so fast that this were a possibility, then a parachute would be useless.
You must be imagining that anything falling from space must be falling from orbit, and therefore has to deal with reentry. Not so--he's jumping from a stationary balloon held aloft by buoyancy, not by the momentum of an orbiting spacecraft.
This raises another question though: if they are considering this as an escape route for shuttle or space station passengers, then they will have to deal with re-entry. I wonder how they plan to do that...
I think you missed the point of the story. $2500 is indeed a reasonable price, precisely because knowing where to hit the machine is what it's all about. Same with CLI.
Personally, I have never bothered with modules because I couldn't be bothered to figure them out. Call me stupid, but I don't change hardware enough to bother. I build myself a kernel once, and that's it. However, I have often clicked the buttons to install a new driver in Windows, and it's dead easy.
I agree. I was just responding to the techno-jock's claim that running a few commands is just as easy as clicking a button. However, I have recently had the pleasure of installing SuSE 8.0 and it was a breeze.
If you don't value your own brain cells, that's your business. I don't want to have to learn irrelevant arcane things about every package I install. I just let apt-get do the work, and it works beautifully.
I'm happy to learn useful things to get the most out of my software. That's a different thing altogether.
For the record, I'm glad you replied instead of moderating. That's usually the right decision.
Re:Mostly reasonable and hardly insightful...
on
A Linux User Goes Back
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· Score: 4, Insightful
One day, a manufacturing company finds that one of its machines has stopped working. The plant manager calls a maintenance man, who studies the machine. After a while, he pulls out a hammer and hits the machine with it, at which point the machine begins to work again. The manager thanks the maintenance man, who goes on his way.
A few weeks later, the manager receives a bill for $2500. Outraged, he demands the bill be itemized so he can see where the money went. The maintenance man replies with the following bill:
Hitting machine with hammer: $20
Knowing where to hit it: $2480
So yes, Virginia, typing three commands is indeed harder than clicking through menus. Otherwise, why do you think menus exist?
(For the allegorically challenged: hammer = command line interface; where to hit = what command to type.)
I don't think anyone is missing the point. I think the flash issue is all the more frustrating to the Slashdot readership because, on top of the annoyance, the flash doesn't even do anything useful. That adds insult to injury.
It may be a good idea to "elect" the people that will be allowed in, to make sure there are some effective voices to be heard. Then the rest could mill around outside with signs and slogans.
Slashdot Mirror
What the article says is this (my emphasis):
In other words, genes can be patented once they have been isolated.You said this:
This is not true. You don't patent the method for extracting a gene. You patent the isolated gene itself.For the article to say that this is not "anything as it exists in nature" is ridiculous. It's like allowing me to patent gorillas once I have found a way to put them in a zoo.
What amazes me is that this is not totally obvious to everyone.
"Goober" is another word for "peanut". The name got hijacked presumably because of its similarity to "booger".
Nuzoo disagrees.
Nope, you can definitely patent a gene.
Settle down. This is only the abstract.
Can you imagine a sound so loud that it kills you? It's mindboggling. Not a nice way to die. I have heard estimates as high as 235 decibels. That's a hundred thousand times louder than pressing your ear up against a jumbo jet engine.
Maybe you are thinking that such missions draw engineers away from productive missions, but I don't think there's a shortage of smart engineers who want to work for the space program. Some engineers can go and make $1 for the space program, and others can continue to do the kinds of work you want them to do, as though the space tourists didn't exist.
You must be imagining that anything falling from space must be falling from orbit, and therefore has to deal with reentry. Not so--he's jumping from a stationary balloon held aloft by buoyancy, not by the momentum of an orbiting spacecraft.
This raises another question though: if they are considering this as an escape route for shuttle or space station passengers, then they will have to deal with re-entry. I wonder how they plan to do that...
Thanks for the laugh!
Why do you think a rocket guy would literally be talking about catapults?
I agree with everything you said, but I'll take too many comments over too few any day, so long as they're correct.
Personally, I have never bothered with modules because I couldn't be bothered to figure them out. Call me stupid, but I don't change hardware enough to bother. I build myself a kernel once, and that's it. However, I have often clicked the buttons to install a new driver in Windows, and it's dead easy.
I'm happy to learn useful things to get the most out of my software. That's a different thing altogether.
Some coward moderators only mod with "underrated" or "overrated" so they can't be meta-moderated. I don't think those show up.
For the record, I'm glad you replied instead of moderating. That's usually the right decision.
A few weeks later, the manager receives a bill for $2500. Outraged, he demands the bill be itemized so he can see where the money went. The maintenance man replies with the following bill:
So yes, Virginia, typing three commands is indeed harder than clicking through menus. Otherwise, why do you think menus exist?(For the allegorically challenged: hammer = command line interface; where to hit = what command to type.)
Small? What are you comparing with?
I don't think anyone is missing the point. I think the flash issue is all the more frustrating to the Slashdot readership because, on top of the annoyance, the flash doesn't even do anything useful. That adds insult to injury.
It may be a good idea to "elect" the people that will be allowed in, to make sure there are some effective voices to be heard. Then the rest could mill around outside with signs and slogans.