Colored bands are a great solution for identifying things (like resistors, for example), but they still don't solve the problem of accidental connections. A tube that will not physically connect to another tube is a sure fired way to get someone's attention, especially if they're doing something wrong.
The engine of a car, or the motherboard of a PC are evidence that we've solved this problem several times. Even experienced people try to hook up PSUs backwards, or swap their spark-plug wires (which is one (and I know there are others!) reason they're different lengths). A keyed connector saves everybody some level of greif. It still won't turn off idiocy and keep you from breaking off mother board components, or shorting a spanner over the battery, but it helps and it's a cheap way to prevent expensive failure.
Personal responsibility goes a long way in every job from auto mechanic to jet pilot, but redundancies help everybody. I rather like that my radiator cap is labeled differently than my oil cap. Sure it's my responsibility to make sure I put the right fluid in the right hole, but having a little bit of labeling sure saves me some greif. I also bet that pilots enjoy having all the automated warnings built in. Sure, a pilot's job is to monitor the gauges and double and triple check that everything is working right, but when the proximity alarm goes off you can bet he's pretty happy it was there. And if you happen to be on the plane, you're probably pretty happy that it's there as well.
Nurses have hard jobs that require lots of thinking, physical labor and are frequently over worked. A little redundancy that adds minimal material cost to the appliances is not only a nice feature for them, but a nice feature for the person they're working on.
Unfortunately, the FTA says that some companies have internally consistent color codings, but other companies have pioneered their own color coding scheme. Even if the industry came together on a color coding standard, there would still be problems. The most obvious are color-blind nurses and doctors mistakenly connecting the wrong colors and accidental connections. Then there's the problem of internal consistency with colors. There's a reason Pantone is still in business. In my factory red comes out pretty close to Pantone 200. Due to differences in materials, production, dye quality, etc. your red comes out closer to Pantone 186. Both of those are pretty red, but next to each-other they don't look anything alike.
The simplest way to prevent this problem is what the OP suggests. Make the tubes physically incompatible and add a color code to simplify grabbing the right one. Even if the care-giver nabs the wrong tube, it won't be possible for them to connect it up.
I'm actually a little shocked to hear that this problem hasn't already been fixed. I suppose it has to do with the lengthy application and approval process for medical devices. Changing the ends or adding color probably requires an entirely new review by the FDA or some such agency.
Are computers moral? Can they experience empathy (or rather, as in Asimov's laws, simply are coded to never hurt a human, whether indirectly or not)? How can we tell from the outside if a computer behaves normally or not?
That's a good point, but the big difference between a human and a computer is self motivation. Our current computers can be programed with the appearance of self motivation, but they lack real, self directed action. I suppose a virus has the beginnings of rudimentary self preservation and life, but that's more of a philosophical argument. Our computers may appear outwardly normal, but cannot act any more amorally or morally than their programers; they are just tools acting on behalf of their users. It's like questioning the morality, or amorality, of a gun or a car.
We can only hope that if we ever develop thinking machines that we treat them ethically, or through some magic make them truly Asimov 1.0 compliant. Ruddy Rucker wrote a strange and bawdy book, The Ware Tetralogy that explores this idea of constructed and enslaved life and its relation to humanity.
As you said, this will just be used for further testing. Treatment for autism is very similar for other behavioral abnormalities, so not much will change for the families. If a child has already been singled out for further testing by their teachers/counselors/doctors/family, this will just be another in a set of tests to help further treatment. A child with EBD or Autism receives much of the same interventions at school and home. The interventions are extremely specific to each child; knowing that this child may be autistic gives parents, teachers and doctors a more focused approach to treatment. It directs which bag-of-tricks to start working from. Fortunately, if the child is not actually autistic, but has say Pervasive Development Disorder (PDD), many of the same interventions such as remedial communication skills and socialization skills can be used.
It's not like this test puts a kid into a box with only one possible medication or treatment is offered. Each child's treatment is developed with the parents, teachers and other professionals. Some kids need headphones to walk though the cafeteria, some kids need a special squeeze ball, some kids need slow subtle introductions to complex social situations with highly scripted encounters to help them understand what is going on. This is true for the whole spectrum of EBD/autism disorders. Being able to scan a kid that might be autistic just gives everyone a much better starting place. They have a greater chance of successful treatment if they know which bag to start with rather than just grasping at straws.
Portal was one of the funnest games I have played in a long long time. Very creative and original. And Funny.
Part of the huge enjoyment for me was the twisted and black humor. GLADOS' accumulating lies and unhinged personality were a huge part of the enjoyment. The addition of an unhinged and slightly psychopathic computer added a great story to what would have otherwise been a puzzle/platformer.
The game mechanics and physics were a treat too. Along with great level design, Portal has to be one of the most unique and engaging games I've played in a long time. I really enjoyed that it was a FPS experience, but with limited 'S'. It's not often that my wife will see me playing a game and stop to watch more. Usually with the first explosion, she's lost interest. The clever puzzles and feats of wonder, like falling through the floor, attracted even her.
I'm inclined to give Valve as much time as they need; I've yet to be disappointed with one of their titles. I'm ok waiting for it to be done than paying a fortune for a half finished piece of junk.
Not only has the internet changed the way some people speek, but just the common use of keyboards without the intervention of editing or editors (or thinking, sometimes) has contributed to the way we speak online, and occasionally in real life. A few examples that pop to mind are "borken," a simple transposition of the "r" and "o" in broken-- and of course thanks to the Swedish Chef. That transposition also gave us the incredibly useful word "bork" as well. The transposition "teh" has also crept into usage, usually to show some sort of derision or sarcasm.
What other transpositions or artifacts of keyboard usage can/. come up with?
Along with the TAL episode, check out this Radio Lab show on memory and forgetting. Our memory is a strange and beautifully imperfect self reinforcing system that modifies its self enjoy your time with your wife and treasure the experiences you have with her. They will be worth more than anything you collect. http://www.wnyc.org/shows/radiolab/episodes/2007/06/08
Ugg, and there's 10 minutes of my life I'll never get back. I thought that I was going to learn something, or perhaps gain some insight into the design process and it's consistency over decades of products. Alas, Computer World shows us once again that all they can write is poorly reported fluff. The article just a bunch of straws grasped at in desperation of imitating journalism.
A simple firm/soft ware upgrade for the copiers can solve this problem. Today's copiers aren't the stupid behemoths of 20 years ago. They're full fledged programable computers with stupid, impenetrable UI.
All the articles are pretty poorly written, and the Computer World article misquotes the Toshiba press release
Computer World
Drives with the technology will go into hard drives for laptops and desktops.
Toshiba
But lost or stolen notebooks are not the only security risk that IT departments must address. Today, most office copier and printing systems utilize HDD capacity and performance to deliver a highly productive document imaging environment. Many organizations are now realizing the critical importance of maintaining the security of document image data stored within copier and printer systems.
Toshiba is selling these drives as a method for securing scanning copiers. Many of the current copiers hold onto everything that is copied or scanned indefinitely leaving a gaping security hole. The new SED drives encrypt their contents and then wipe the key when the drive powers down leaving the data intact, but no meaningful method for recovering it. If a thief tries to yank a SED drive out of a copier, it automagically wipes it. If part of your security procedure is to shut down the copiers each night, your daily load of potentially secure documents and copies of Bob's butt are also automagically wiped.
Clearly, this type of technology would be worthless in a notebook or any other type of PC. You'd always be running from outlet to outlet to save your data. It'd be an IT version of that terrible Jason Statham movie Crank 2: High Voltage. Shudder.
This has been covered to death here on slashdot, but basically one pass of/dev/random will pretty much take care of wiping a drive. Drive recovery companies will tell you that the hypothetical bit-by-bit recovery is possible, but is so ungodly costly that it's not worth doing unless there's something REALLY important on the drive (like pictures of your mom). If you're really paranoid, don't waste your time with shred, just dd if=/dev/urandom of=/dev/hda twice and call it a day. Shred takes F O R E V E R and really provides nothing more than a nifty status bar. If you're SUPER paranoid, dd the drive twice and yank the platters, play frisbee, build a tesla turbine or simply scratch the hell out of them and chuck them in the recycle bin.
Like you say, some people play the games for the realism, and the others play for the fun. I personally like games with ridiculously entertaining weapons like Ratchet and Clank. The weapons designers for that game have a great sense of humor and create weapons that do more than just blow things up. They turn your enemies into exploding ducks and shoot wads of slime. Clearly, there's nothing even remotely realistic about those weapons, but I get a chuckle out of them.
If you're going to whinge about the realism of FPS, then you should probably do something about the ridiculous amount of damage a player can take while you're at it. If you're going for realism, one bullet takes you out of the fight and probably kills you. Or, take the realism to the extreme and give the user just one shot to play the game through. If you die, the game self destructs. Now that would be realistic. Stupid, but realistic.
FPS are about diversion, entertainment and the opportunity to live another reality for a short period of time. If you want to develop a title that focuses on physics, tactics and realism, go for it. Cutting down other titles for having unrealistic weapons is just a waste of breath.
I think it's rather silly to flatly state that selling phones direct to consumers is "dead." Just because Google didn't out sell the iphone, or push millions of units doesn't make direct-to-consumer sales dead. It just means that if you want to sell lots of phones direct to consumers, there are many lessons to be learned from Googles experiment.
I bought a Nexus One unsubsidized because Apple and AT&T refused to unlock my paid-for iPhone. I just moved out of the US and wasn't willing to pay literally hundreds of dollars per month to keep my phone tied to AT&T. Now, here in Norway I pay around $30 USD for the same basic service I was paying AT&T $85/mo for in the US. Sure I don't have the unlimited data that I had in the US, but 250MB/mo is enough for me and I can always buy more if I need it. At least I'm not paying the subsidy price forever like most US phone users.
I don't know if the average person really puts much thought into what they are paying for in a phone contract, but there will always be a market for users that want some more choice in their contract. It doesn't look like anyone is going to swoop in to fill the N1 market for the time being, but that doesn't mean that selling phones directly to consumers is "dead." It just means that no one has found the right way to do it and be profitable yet.
Part of the investigation would also include examining the break pads and rotors. The roters and pads would probably show some serious wear and glazing if the driver had indeed been flooring the break while the car was continuing to accelerate. I suppose this still doesn't rule out a total failure of the breaking system AND computer control unit AND recorder. That's a whole lot of failures all at once. Not impossible, but not terribly likely either.
This really is the scariest and most potentially cruel thing Monsanto and their buddies could do to the third world. Thank goodness for heirloom seeds from places like Seed Savers Exchange.
It's just a matter of time before some super bug, insect, virus or bacteria find a chink in the modern corn crop and leave us in the great potato famine of the 21st century. Corn is the single most successful plant on the planet. We've given over so much of our land to it that if we had a serious corn failure, we'd definitely be in some hot water.
It's a little terrifying how much power Monsanto has in the US and really, the world. They have farmers all over the world under their thumb through royalty payments and the patents they hold on certain traits. There are plenty of cases where farmers have legitimately planted NON-GMO soy and corn only to find that pollen from their neighbors farms has drifted into their field and GMO'ed their crops. These farmers now have to supply the burden of evidence to show their innocence if Monsanto chooses to chase them into court over patent infringement. Monsanto has single-handedly, in a single generation of farmers, cut out seed saving. This is the single most important advancement that allowed us as a species to move from casual, opportunistic farmers to the agrarian based society we enjoy today.
I don't begrudge Monsanto for trying something new, but I am concerned with their disregard for the wellbeing of farmers and for their consumers. Over the last twenty years there has been mounting evidence to show that pests are developing resistance to BT Toxin and that many other crops are inadvertently horizontally transferring BT genes. But wait! There's more!
In recent studies researchers have found that BT maize (corn) can cause serious health problems in mammals. A diet heavy in GMO corn caused rats to develop liver and kidney problems. Most of the corn raised in the US carries the BT gene, along with a few other, like the RoundUp Ready. I'm sure you're thinking to your self, "gee, I'm glad I don't eat very much corn!" Oh, but you do. Almost everything that isn't a vegetable or a fruit found in American grocery stores has some form of corn in it. From ascorbic acid, citric acid, corn starch, high fructose corn syrup, food colorings and ink, and even some waxes applied to fruit are all derived from corn.
I'm not a biochemist and I certainly don't have any idea how rat models scale (or don't scale) up to humans, but the study cited above suggests that a diet rich in BT corn (which most of us well-fed americans eat) might be bad for us. Perhaps some diversity and choice in our market would be a good thing. At least some public discussion about this subject, and less media schilling on behalf of giant multi-nationals would definitely be welcome.
This is the angle I can never figure out. Homosexuality isn't like robbery or assault, it doesn't affect anyone except for those that participate in it. And, no, alternative sexual orientation is not a crime. The argument that a extending rights such as marriage to gay couples somehow lessens the social value of marriage is ridiculous. Following that same logical path, all those that do not practice christian marriage (Jewish, Islamic, Navajo) are also decreasing the social value of "christian" marriage.
I hope that Google's position in this matter will help influence other companies and eventually federal and state policies positively. If enough companies throw their weight behind this issue, it will become standard to offer a salary benefit for gay partners to cover the tax difference. Once it becomes standard, you can bet that companies will start lobbying congress to solve this problem in order to save them money.
Aside from the tax issues, how can anyone that appreciates the freedoms offered by our constitution and the rationale backing it in the declaration of independence, willfully discriminate against another based solely on private, personal preference? After all, "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all [people] are created equal."
If the company you sold it to does something you don't want them to, you can choose to no longer sell to them. This is very common in the game console business as well as many others, including the conputer business. That's why consoles always cost the same everywhere, and why online stores sometimes make you add an item to your cart before it will show you the price.
Isn't that called price fixing? As I recall, Nintendo has gotten in to hot water for this at least once. I think a manufacturer can set an MSRP, but the seller can sell your item for whatever they want. Can a company choose to not fill orders for businesses that don't play by their rules, or is that some form of discrimination?
Just because we can transport oranges from around the world, doesn't mean we should. I agree that a rail-shipped orange takes less fule to move than one transported in a pickup, but an orange that was grown in Plaquimines Parish Louisiana and then sold in New Orleans Louisiana (about 30 miles travel) is fresher and definitely has a smaller carbon footprint than an orange grown in California and sold in Louisiana.
Cities like Denver and Tucson are sort of screwed as far as local produce goes. I'm not sure what their alternative is. Perhaps people weren't meant to live in the middle of the desert. Oh, and all the water that Tucson and Denver uses for agriculture, it'snot going to last. They're depleting aquifers and using river water at a rate that is unsustainable. Even if you don't mind killing the entire Colorado river eco-system (it doesn't even make it to the ocean any more), there simply isn't enough snow melt to meet everybody's needs if those cities keep growing.
Slashdot Mirror
Colored bands are a great solution for identifying things (like resistors, for example), but they still don't solve the problem of accidental connections. A tube that will not physically connect to another tube is a sure fired way to get someone's attention, especially if they're doing something wrong.
The engine of a car, or the motherboard of a PC are evidence that we've solved this problem several times. Even experienced people try to hook up PSUs backwards, or swap their spark-plug wires (which is one (and I know there are others!) reason they're different lengths). A keyed connector saves everybody some level of greif. It still won't turn off idiocy and keep you from breaking off mother board components, or shorting a spanner over the battery, but it helps and it's a cheap way to prevent expensive failure.
Personal responsibility goes a long way in every job from auto mechanic to jet pilot, but redundancies help everybody. I rather like that my radiator cap is labeled differently than my oil cap. Sure it's my responsibility to make sure I put the right fluid in the right hole, but having a little bit of labeling sure saves me some greif. I also bet that pilots enjoy having all the automated warnings built in. Sure, a pilot's job is to monitor the gauges and double and triple check that everything is working right, but when the proximity alarm goes off you can bet he's pretty happy it was there. And if you happen to be on the plane, you're probably pretty happy that it's there as well.
Nurses have hard jobs that require lots of thinking, physical labor and are frequently over worked. A little redundancy that adds minimal material cost to the appliances is not only a nice feature for them, but a nice feature for the person they're working on.
Unfortunately, the FTA says that some companies have internally consistent color codings, but other companies have pioneered their own color coding scheme. Even if the industry came together on a color coding standard, there would still be problems. The most obvious are color-blind nurses and doctors mistakenly connecting the wrong colors and accidental connections. Then there's the problem of internal consistency with colors. There's a reason Pantone is still in business. In my factory red comes out pretty close to Pantone 200. Due to differences in materials, production, dye quality, etc. your red comes out closer to Pantone 186. Both of those are pretty red, but next to each-other they don't look anything alike.
The simplest way to prevent this problem is what the OP suggests. Make the tubes physically incompatible and add a color code to simplify grabbing the right one. Even if the care-giver nabs the wrong tube, it won't be possible for them to connect it up.
I'm actually a little shocked to hear that this problem hasn't already been fixed. I suppose it has to do with the lengthy application and approval process for medical devices. Changing the ends or adding color probably requires an entirely new review by the FDA or some such agency.
That looks like a great place to start hacking from!
Are computers moral? Can they experience empathy (or rather, as in Asimov's laws, simply are coded to never hurt a human, whether indirectly or not)? How can we tell from the outside if a computer behaves normally or not?
That's a good point, but the big difference between a human and a computer is self motivation. Our current computers can be programed with the appearance of self motivation, but they lack real, self directed action. I suppose a virus has the beginnings of rudimentary self preservation and life, but that's more of a philosophical argument. Our computers may appear outwardly normal, but cannot act any more amorally or morally than their programers; they are just tools acting on behalf of their users. It's like questioning the morality, or amorality, of a gun or a car.
We can only hope that if we ever develop thinking machines that we treat them ethically, or through some magic make them truly Asimov 1.0 compliant. Ruddy Rucker wrote a strange and bawdy book, The Ware Tetralogy that explores this idea of constructed and enslaved life and its relation to humanity.
As you said, this will just be used for further testing. Treatment for autism is very similar for other behavioral abnormalities, so not much will change for the families. If a child has already been singled out for further testing by their teachers/counselors/doctors/family, this will just be another in a set of tests to help further treatment. A child with EBD or Autism receives much of the same interventions at school and home. The interventions are extremely specific to each child; knowing that this child may be autistic gives parents, teachers and doctors a more focused approach to treatment. It directs which bag-of-tricks to start working from. Fortunately, if the child is not actually autistic, but has say Pervasive Development Disorder (PDD), many of the same interventions such as remedial communication skills and socialization skills can be used.
It's not like this test puts a kid into a box with only one possible medication or treatment is offered. Each child's treatment is developed with the parents, teachers and other professionals. Some kids need headphones to walk though the cafeteria, some kids need a special squeeze ball, some kids need slow subtle introductions to complex social situations with highly scripted encounters to help them understand what is going on. This is true for the whole spectrum of EBD/autism disorders. Being able to scan a kid that might be autistic just gives everyone a much better starting place. They have a greater chance of successful treatment if they know which bag to start with rather than just grasping at straws.
Portal was one of the funnest games I have played in a long long time. Very creative and original. And Funny.
Part of the huge enjoyment for me was the twisted and black humor. GLADOS' accumulating lies and unhinged personality were a huge part of the enjoyment. The addition of an unhinged and slightly psychopathic computer added a great story to what would have otherwise been a puzzle/platformer.
The game mechanics and physics were a treat too. Along with great level design, Portal has to be one of the most unique and engaging games I've played in a long time. I really enjoyed that it was a FPS experience, but with limited 'S'. It's not often that my wife will see me playing a game and stop to watch more. Usually with the first explosion, she's lost interest. The clever puzzles and feats of wonder, like falling through the floor, attracted even her.
I'm inclined to give Valve as much time as they need; I've yet to be disappointed with one of their titles. I'm ok waiting for it to be done than paying a fortune for a half finished piece of junk.
What about those of us that are gestalt entities, you insensitive clod.
Not only has the internet changed the way some people speek, but just the common use of keyboards without the intervention of editing or editors (or thinking, sometimes) has contributed to the way we speak online, and occasionally in real life. A few examples that pop to mind are "borken," a simple transposition of the "r" and "o" in broken-- and of course thanks to the Swedish Chef. That transposition also gave us the incredibly useful word "bork" as well. The transposition "teh" has also crept into usage, usually to show some sort of derision or sarcasm.
What other transpositions or artifacts of keyboard usage can /. come up with?
Along with the TAL episode, check out this Radio Lab show on memory and forgetting. Our memory is a strange and beautifully imperfect self reinforcing system that modifies its self enjoy your time with your wife and treasure the experiences you have with her. They will be worth more than anything you collect. http://www.wnyc.org/shows/radiolab/episodes/2007/06/08
Ugg, and there's 10 minutes of my life I'll never get back. I thought that I was going to learn something, or perhaps gain some insight into the design process and it's consistency over decades of products. Alas, Computer World shows us once again that all they can write is poorly reported fluff. The article just a bunch of straws grasped at in desperation of imitating journalism.
WHOOSH!
A simple firm/soft ware upgrade for the copiers can solve this problem. Today's copiers aren't the stupid behemoths of 20 years ago. They're full fledged programable computers with stupid, impenetrable UI.
That's why the really paranoid can always pull out the platter and inflict whatever thermite hell they want on it.
All the articles are pretty poorly written, and the Computer World article misquotes the Toshiba press release
Computer World
Drives with the technology will go into hard drives for laptops and desktops.
Toshiba
But lost or stolen notebooks are not the only security risk that IT departments must address. Today, most office copier and printing systems utilize HDD capacity and performance to deliver a highly productive document imaging environment. Many organizations are now realizing the critical importance of maintaining the security of document image data stored within copier and printer systems.
Toshiba is selling these drives as a method for securing scanning copiers. Many of the current copiers hold onto everything that is copied or scanned indefinitely leaving a gaping security hole. The new SED drives encrypt their contents and then wipe the key when the drive powers down leaving the data intact, but no meaningful method for recovering it. If a thief tries to yank a SED drive out of a copier, it automagically wipes it. If part of your security procedure is to shut down the copiers each night, your daily load of potentially secure documents and copies of Bob's butt are also automagically wiped.
Clearly, this type of technology would be worthless in a notebook or any other type of PC. You'd always be running from outlet to outlet to save your data. It'd be an IT version of that terrible Jason Statham movie Crank 2: High Voltage. Shudder.
Remember RAM disks?
Is that an operating instruction?
This has been covered to death here on slashdot, but basically one pass of /dev/random will pretty much take care of wiping a drive. Drive recovery companies will tell you that the hypothetical bit-by-bit recovery is possible, but is so ungodly costly that it's not worth doing unless there's something REALLY important on the drive (like pictures of your mom). If you're really paranoid, don't waste your time with shred, just dd if=/dev/urandom of=/dev/hda twice and call it a day. Shred takes F O R E V E R and really provides nothing more than a nifty status bar. If you're SUPER paranoid, dd the drive twice and yank the platters, play frisbee, build a tesla turbine or simply scratch the hell out of them and chuck them in the recycle bin.
Like you say, some people play the games for the realism, and the others play for the fun. I personally like games with ridiculously entertaining weapons like Ratchet and Clank. The weapons designers for that game have a great sense of humor and create weapons that do more than just blow things up. They turn your enemies into exploding ducks and shoot wads of slime. Clearly, there's nothing even remotely realistic about those weapons, but I get a chuckle out of them.
If you're going to whinge about the realism of FPS, then you should probably do something about the ridiculous amount of damage a player can take while you're at it. If you're going for realism, one bullet takes you out of the fight and probably kills you. Or, take the realism to the extreme and give the user just one shot to play the game through. If you die, the game self destructs. Now that would be realistic. Stupid, but realistic.
FPS are about diversion, entertainment and the opportunity to live another reality for a short period of time. If you want to develop a title that focuses on physics, tactics and realism, go for it. Cutting down other titles for having unrealistic weapons is just a waste of breath.
I think it's rather silly to flatly state that selling phones direct to consumers is "dead." Just because Google didn't out sell the iphone, or push millions of units doesn't make direct-to-consumer sales dead. It just means that if you want to sell lots of phones direct to consumers, there are many lessons to be learned from Googles experiment.
I bought a Nexus One unsubsidized because Apple and AT&T refused to unlock my paid-for iPhone. I just moved out of the US and wasn't willing to pay literally hundreds of dollars per month to keep my phone tied to AT&T. Now, here in Norway I pay around $30 USD for the same basic service I was paying AT&T $85/mo for in the US. Sure I don't have the unlimited data that I had in the US, but 250MB/mo is enough for me and I can always buy more if I need it. At least I'm not paying the subsidy price forever like most US phone users.
I don't know if the average person really puts much thought into what they are paying for in a phone contract, but there will always be a market for users that want some more choice in their contract. It doesn't look like anyone is going to swoop in to fill the N1 market for the time being, but that doesn't mean that selling phones directly to consumers is "dead." It just means that no one has found the right way to do it and be profitable yet.
Part of the investigation would also include examining the break pads and rotors. The roters and pads would probably show some serious wear and glazing if the driver had indeed been flooring the break while the car was continuing to accelerate. I suppose this still doesn't rule out a total failure of the breaking system AND computer control unit AND recorder. That's a whole lot of failures all at once. Not impossible, but not terribly likely either.
This really is the scariest and most potentially cruel thing Monsanto and their buddies could do to the third world. Thank goodness for heirloom seeds from places like Seed Savers Exchange.
It's just a matter of time before some super bug, insect, virus or bacteria find a chink in the modern corn crop and leave us in the great potato famine of the 21st century. Corn is the single most successful plant on the planet. We've given over so much of our land to it that if we had a serious corn failure, we'd definitely be in some hot water.
It's a little terrifying how much power Monsanto has in the US and really, the world. They have farmers all over the world under their thumb through royalty payments and the patents they hold on certain traits. There are plenty of cases where farmers have legitimately planted NON-GMO soy and corn only to find that pollen from their neighbors farms has drifted into their field and GMO'ed their crops. These farmers now have to supply the burden of evidence to show their innocence if Monsanto chooses to chase them into court over patent infringement. Monsanto has single-handedly, in a single generation of farmers, cut out seed saving. This is the single most important advancement that allowed us as a species to move from casual, opportunistic farmers to the agrarian based society we enjoy today.
I don't begrudge Monsanto for trying something new, but I am concerned with their disregard for the wellbeing of farmers and for their consumers. Over the last twenty years there has been mounting evidence to show that pests are developing resistance to BT Toxin and that many other crops are inadvertently horizontally transferring BT genes. But wait! There's more!
In recent studies researchers have found that BT maize (corn) can cause serious health problems in mammals. A diet heavy in GMO corn caused rats to develop liver and kidney problems. Most of the corn raised in the US carries the BT gene, along with a few other, like the RoundUp Ready. I'm sure you're thinking to your self, "gee, I'm glad I don't eat very much corn!" Oh, but you do. Almost everything that isn't a vegetable or a fruit found in American grocery stores has some form of corn in it. From ascorbic acid, citric acid, corn starch, high fructose corn syrup, food colorings and ink, and even some waxes applied to fruit are all derived from corn.
I'm not a biochemist and I certainly don't have any idea how rat models scale (or don't scale) up to humans, but the study cited above suggests that a diet rich in BT corn (which most of us well-fed americans eat) might be bad for us. Perhaps some diversity and choice in our market would be a good thing. At least some public discussion about this subject, and less media schilling on behalf of giant multi-nationals would definitely be welcome.
This is the angle I can never figure out. Homosexuality isn't like robbery or assault, it doesn't affect anyone except for those that participate in it. And, no, alternative sexual orientation is not a crime. The argument that a extending rights such as marriage to gay couples somehow lessens the social value of marriage is ridiculous. Following that same logical path, all those that do not practice christian marriage (Jewish, Islamic, Navajo) are also decreasing the social value of "christian" marriage.
I hope that Google's position in this matter will help influence other companies and eventually federal and state policies positively. If enough companies throw their weight behind this issue, it will become standard to offer a salary benefit for gay partners to cover the tax difference. Once it becomes standard, you can bet that companies will start lobbying congress to solve this problem in order to save them money.
Aside from the tax issues, how can anyone that appreciates the freedoms offered by our constitution and the rationale backing it in the declaration of independence, willfully discriminate against another based solely on private, personal preference? After all, "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all [people] are created equal."
If the company you sold it to does something you don't want them to, you can choose to no longer sell to them. This is very common in the game console business as well as many others, including the conputer business. That's why consoles always cost the same everywhere, and why online stores sometimes make you add an item to your cart before it will show you the price.
Isn't that called price fixing? As I recall, Nintendo has gotten in to hot water for this at least once. I think a manufacturer can set an MSRP, but the seller can sell your item for whatever they want. Can a company choose to not fill orders for businesses that don't play by their rules, or is that some form of discrimination?
Just because we can transport oranges from around the world, doesn't mean we should. I agree that a rail-shipped orange takes less fule to move than one transported in a pickup, but an orange that was grown in Plaquimines Parish Louisiana and then sold in New Orleans Louisiana (about 30 miles travel) is fresher and definitely has a smaller carbon footprint than an orange grown in California and sold in Louisiana.
Cities like Denver and Tucson are sort of screwed as far as local produce goes. I'm not sure what their alternative is. Perhaps people weren't meant to live in the middle of the desert. Oh, and all the water that Tucson and Denver uses for agriculture, it'snot going to last. They're depleting aquifers and using river water at a rate that is unsustainable. Even if you don't mind killing the entire Colorado river eco-system (it doesn't even make it to the ocean any more), there simply isn't enough snow melt to meet everybody's needs if those cities keep growing.