So, it seems a lot of people consider the whole Iran thing to be Twitter's finest hour. I think the case is overstated somewhat.
Twitter helped get information out of Iran, and contributed to the protests being widely publicized around the world, but the only evidence for it being used by the protesters themselves seems to be "a) Twitter is awesome and b) wouldn't it be awesome if it was used by the Iranian protesters? Let's assume it was." The Wikipedia page about the incident is a good example of this attitude: claiming things like "Twitter in particular has been a key central gathering site during the protests." based solely on wishful thinking and without any actual evidence.
The English-language side of it was kind of a mixed bag, too. It was certainly gripping reading the first-hand accounts (along with the photos and videos), and news of any actual developments would tend to show up on Twitter first, but those reports would usually be either confirmed or discredited by professional news organizations (I know, the evil, and totally lame professional news organizations) within a few hours, at about a 50/50 rate. So while it helped provide an unprecedented level of exposure, it's naive to think that Twitter alone allowed anyone to form a credible picture of what was going on.
Oh yeah, and there wasn't an actual revolution. That seems kind of an important distinction.
But maybe I'm wrong, any experts out there want to weigh in?
No, no, that's exactly how it works. Let's not forget that as long as you use the word "genetics", science is whatever you want it to be. If you say that sequencing a couple of human genomes allows you to instantly create weapons that will simply wipe out vaguely defined groups of people, who's to say you are wrong?
It's not like anyone can actually understand biology. Why that would be preposterous - clearly anyone claiming to have any kind of scientific expertise is a hubristic zealot, so blinded by the allure of infinite profit that they will wreak unspeakable misery on the human race; for, after all, they are meddling in God's Domain.
That, or they could use this data to possibly find genetic markers for a few diseases... It's one or the other, really.
I will stand by my defense of South African fans, the posts calling them "retarded" or malicious are unfair. FIFA was aware of the buzzing after last year's tournament, so the blame lies with them, not the fans.
Well hey, the fans around here like to shout idiotic slogans about things that may or may not suck, and then vomit on the subway. I was certainly not trying to argue that they are superior to the South African fans.
I admire FIFA's decision, they valued the host nation's fans over the international fans.
Let's not go pretending that this is some little guy sticking it to The Man kind of thing.
I know that quaint ethnic traditions are pure and good and "homogenization" is evil, but when you hold an international sporting event, there's the expectation that the players should be able to play the goddamn sport without interference from the fans. It's up there with "providing a stadium", you're just kind of expected to do that.
And yes, if the fan traditions of my country are disruptive to the game, I would very much like FIFA to ban them.
Sure you tune it out after a while, but the problem is they drown out all other ambient noise, making this the first World Cup that no one came to see (at least if you are watching it on TV).
Oh yeah, and there's the whole "players can't hear the whistle" thing. But, hey, who cares about the game when you can make some obnoxious fucking noise!
one of the suggestions for "other people who viewed this product also bought" was a fleshlight, picture and all. Needless to say, I stopped browsing wheel rims...
I see they once again dipped into the "candidate organ names for newly discovered species of amphibians" pool. Didn't that fad die out a while ago?
Re:So, my only question regarding Lost is
on
Lost Ends
·
· Score: 1
The physical manifestation of the writer's lack of talent?
Hmmm, I can see more shows starting to use this: by about season 3, a mysterious new character shows up - Mr. Wright Ers Block (think goatee, monocle, top hat and black cape) - and just starts randomly stabbing major characters in the face.
Hey, it would at least be more honest than what most shows do.
Re:Meandering story not going anywhere
on
Lost Ends
·
· Score: 1
Holy shit, someone is still watching FlashForward? What are you, some kind of masochist?
Try comparing R&D expenses to their marketing expenses. R&D doesn't look that expensive anymore.
Most big pharma companies spend roughly twice as much on advertising as they do on R&D. What's your point though? Advertising is how they make the money that pays for the research, what exactly are you suggesting they should do differently?
Spread that cost to the CDC, NIH, the WHO, various teaching hospitals, universities, pharmacos, foreign medical systems... and yes, research gets cheap per study.
The CDC and WHO don't fund any significant amount of research (and even if they did, the CDC budget is only something like $8 billion, WHO is under a billion), the NIH is supposed to primarily support basic research, not development (not to mention funding those universities you mentioned).
Look, it's a fairly complex industry, fixing it isn't quite as simple as "let's everyone pitch in now!".
Research isn't, research and development is. (research can be pretty expensive, too).
And we do have exactly the industry that we do - that is, everybody chasing blockbusters, the glut of "me-too" drugs, the paltry number of drugs actually making it to market - because it is prohibitively expensive.
The current model seems to be for giant pharma companies to more or less indiscriminately buy up small biotechs, hoping to randomly strike gold with one of them. This does not lead to a very efficient system: I think we are up to $100+ billion spent on research annually ($70B from industry, $30B from the NIH) for a grand total of 26 new drugs approved last year.
So yeah, 'prohibitively' is exactly the right word.
Slashdot Mirror
Right, because how could Java possibly hope to compete with the blazing speeds of PHP and Ruby?
I'm sick of "First X Elected To Whatever Office." Haven't we moved past this yet? Ideas matter. Gender, ethnicity, heredity do not.
No, we haven't. Read some of the other comments in this thread (pick something about "the feminists", for example) - it will be truly eye-opening.
and even helped fuel a revolution in Iran.
So, it seems a lot of people consider the whole Iran thing to be Twitter's finest hour. I think the case is overstated somewhat.
Twitter helped get information out of Iran, and contributed to the protests being widely publicized around the world, but the only evidence for it being used by the protesters themselves seems to be "a) Twitter is awesome and b) wouldn't it be awesome if it was used by the Iranian protesters? Let's assume it was." The Wikipedia page about the incident is a good example of this attitude: claiming things like "Twitter in particular has been a key central gathering site during the protests." based solely on wishful thinking and without any actual evidence.
The English-language side of it was kind of a mixed bag, too. It was certainly gripping reading the first-hand accounts (along with the photos and videos), and news of any actual developments would tend to show up on Twitter first, but those reports would usually be either confirmed or discredited by professional news organizations (I know, the evil, and totally lame professional news organizations) within a few hours, at about a 50/50 rate. So while it helped provide an unprecedented level of exposure, it's naive to think that Twitter alone allowed anyone to form a credible picture of what was going on.
Oh yeah, and there wasn't an actual revolution. That seems kind of an important distinction.
But maybe I'm wrong, any experts out there want to weigh in?
No, no, that's exactly how it works. Let's not forget that as long as you use the word "genetics", science is whatever you want it to be. If you say that sequencing a couple of human genomes allows you to instantly create weapons that will simply wipe out vaguely defined groups of people, who's to say you are wrong?
It's not like anyone can actually understand biology. Why that would be preposterous - clearly anyone claiming to have any kind of scientific expertise is a hubristic zealot, so blinded by the allure of infinite profit that they will wreak unspeakable misery on the human race; for, after all, they are meddling in God's Domain.
That, or they could use this data to possibly find genetic markers for a few diseases... It's one or the other, really.
To nitpick, I'm not quite sure if Apollo 13 should be counted as a "success" or not. Nobody died, but only just.
Well, if everyone died, but "only just" you'd still call that a failure, right?
What a fine example of stupidity and.. dare I say.. incredible ignorance we have here. Honestly, who the hell hasn't heard of Facebook?
Are there really people naive enough to believe that these patents are granted through some personal failing of the examiners?
Think of it this way: are there any incentives for the USPTO to only grant patents which fit your criteria of what a "good patent" should be?
Basically, they're saying that, due to incompetence, the scientists caused the deaths of those people by not giving sufficient warning
Incompetence is not the same as negligence. If you could charge people with incompetence, 80% of the US population would be in prison.
I will stand by my defense of South African fans, the posts calling them "retarded" or malicious are unfair. FIFA was aware of the buzzing after last year's tournament, so the blame lies with them, not the fans.
Well hey, the fans around here like to shout idiotic slogans about things that may or may not suck, and then vomit on the subway. I was certainly not trying to argue that they are superior to the South African fans.
While it may hinder them hearing the ref's whistle, I think you're being a bit of a big girl's blouse to call it "interfering".
From what I understand, the players are finding it difficult to communicate with each other - I was mostly referring to that.
They left out the most obvious: rectal shaft for vuvuzela enthusiasts.
I admire FIFA's decision, they valued the host nation's fans over the international fans.
Let's not go pretending that this is some little guy sticking it to The Man kind of thing.
I know that quaint ethnic traditions are pure and good and "homogenization" is evil, but when you hold an international sporting event, there's the expectation that the players should be able to play the goddamn sport without interference from the fans. It's up there with "providing a stadium", you're just kind of expected to do that.
And yes, if the fan traditions of my country are disruptive to the game, I would very much like FIFA to ban them.
Sure you tune it out after a while, but the problem is they drown out all other ambient noise, making this the first World Cup that no one came to see (at least if you are watching it on TV).
Oh yeah, and there's the whole "players can't hear the whistle" thing. But, hey, who cares about the game when you can make some obnoxious fucking noise!
You're one of those idiots that complain about Ladies Nights being sexist, aren't you?
one of the suggestions for "other people who viewed this product also bought" was a fleshlight, picture and all. Needless to say, I stopped browsing wheel rims...
I take it you started browsing fleshlights?
I mean, computers don't have fingers, so how exactly can they do arithmetic?
They don't? But I thought they were digital?
Guess I'm gonna have to get started on meth now.
People who prefer print books over e-books may still want extra digital material to go with them.
They may, but that group is vanishingly small.
I'm just curious, why use sic in your own posts? Wouldn't you just correct whatever you are sic-ing?
Kind of creepy how accurate that book was in many ways, for how old it is.
Only if you grossly exaggerate the capabilities and importance of Second Life.
I see they once again dipped into the "candidate organ names for newly discovered species of amphibians" pool. Didn't that fad die out a while ago?
The physical manifestation of the writer's lack of talent?
Hmmm, I can see more shows starting to use this: by about season 3, a mysterious new character shows up - Mr. Wright Ers Block (think goatee, monocle, top hat and black cape) - and just starts randomly stabbing major characters in the face.
Hey, it would at least be more honest than what most shows do.
Holy shit, someone is still watching FlashForward? What are you, some kind of masochist?
Try comparing R&D expenses to their marketing expenses. R&D doesn't look that expensive anymore.
Most big pharma companies spend roughly twice as much on advertising as they do on R&D. What's your point though? Advertising is how they make the money that pays for the research, what exactly are you suggesting they should do differently?
Spread that cost to the CDC, NIH, the WHO, various teaching hospitals, universities, pharmacos, foreign medical systems... and yes, research gets cheap per study.
The CDC and WHO don't fund any significant amount of research (and even if they did, the CDC budget is only something like $8 billion, WHO is under a billion), the NIH is supposed to primarily support basic research, not development (not to mention funding those universities you mentioned).
Look, it's a fairly complex industry, fixing it isn't quite as simple as "let's everyone pitch in now!".
Research isn't, research and development is. (research can be pretty expensive, too).
And we do have exactly the industry that we do - that is, everybody chasing blockbusters, the glut of "me-too" drugs, the paltry number of drugs actually making it to market - because it is prohibitively expensive.
The current model seems to be for giant pharma companies to more or less indiscriminately buy up small biotechs, hoping to randomly strike gold with one of them. This does not lead to a very efficient system: I think we are up to $100+ billion spent on research annually ($70B from industry, $30B from the NIH) for a grand total of 26 new drugs approved last year.
So yeah, 'prohibitively' is exactly the right word.