Sorry if I forgot about them. One doesn't generally worry about the troublemakers when devising a solution to a problem. I suppose law enforcement isn't really optimal for thieves either. I take it you're one of the slimeball p2p users taking up scarce bandwidth on free wi-fi networks? Personally, I'd call it a DoS attack, and would believe that the perpetrator (the person intentionally disrupting other people's connections) is a criminal and should be treated as such.
Uh huh. And where did you get an expectation of free bandwidth and connectivity on a free network where you didn't pay a dime for it? Also note that he has the permission of the network admins to do this. It's also possible that merely sniffing the network (arguably to see where all the bandwidth is going) is violating the law.
How does one have an expectation of privacy on a publically accessible, completely non-encrypted, broadcast over the air network? Even if you did, any automated application would be only looking at packet headers and packet volumes to identify hogs. Do you really consider how much bandwidth you're hogging to be protected under privacy laws? Didn't think so.
Sheesh.. everyone here is freaking out like this is some kind of fork. The only thing that's changed is the naming of the application because Mozilla is being a little weird about Debian distributing changed versions of firefox that display their logo. It was called debian firefox, and Mozilla was OK with that previously. That's a pretty typical thing that happens in distributions. You don't see Linus freaking out when every distribution changes the linux kernel, but yet still calls their product linux. I seriously doubt the Debian folks want a full fledged fork of Firefox (nor should they)
Really there's nothing that's changing in the development model except the name. Debian will continue to patch and update firefox. They'll branch off a new version of firefox every so often and create a version for debian just like they've been doing before. The only difference is Mozilla doesn't want them to call it "debian firefox", so the Debian folks decide to call it "ice weasel".
It's kind of confusing, I'll certainly agree with that but it seems like a reasonable approach by the Debian people. (And no, I'm not a debian user, but I do run Ubuntu).
Thanks for the typical comment that gets cheered on Oprah. It doesn't really tell anyone anything we didn't already know though.
This case isn't about parental responsibility however, it's about parental liability. How are parents supposed to be held liable for not stopping their kids from posting a fake Myspace page? Are parents supposed to act like little police states, spying on their kids at every moment? I could see the parents being held liable if they knew about this whole fiasco before it got shut down by MySpace. But what about the far more likely case that they had no idea?
It's not exactly paranoid here. It's a well reasoned and cautious approach that we haven't tested these new nano-particles as food additives, drugs, etc. If they didn't behave any different from the much larger sized particles, then why are companies interested in them?
There's nothing inherently dangerous about nano-particles, just like there's nothing inherently dangerous about chemicals. It's simply the fact that nano-scale implementations of old substances haven't been tested, and behave differently. Why is that so difficult for some people to understand?
Well in that case, if you have the cooperation of the hospital and hotel, why not replace the router with one that will take a more flexible firmware (like DD-WRT) and then enable its QoS controls?
Because he's "just some guy" using the network, not the network administrator. He doesn't want to administrate the network, and the people who run the network don't want to go to all the trouble of pulling out one solution that works (minus the hogs).
It seems to me the solution of disrupting peoples network connections who're hogging the bandwidth is a perfect solution for all involved. If done correctly it only interrupts the p2p guys, and if there's some problem with it, you can just turn it off without having to troubleshoot and fix what's broken. There's probbably ways around this solution, but I doubt the p2p guys hogging bandwidth are going to be sophisticated enough to even realize what's going on. Anyone that has the knowledge to get around this kind of disruption isn't likely to be using a free wireless connection for p2p apps, they'll p2p from home.
Exactly what I was going to say. A free wifi network is NOT your network. Just because someone else is being a asshat doesn't mean you need to be one as well.
Well, my argument would be it's not the bandwidth hogs network either. If someone were blasting really loud music in a public space, would anyone but the music blaster complain if you were able to send sound cancelling noise to block the loud music (and do it in a perfect way that only stopped the loud music)?
In this case the guy isn't being an "asshat" at all since he's also making the network useable for everyone. I'd be more worried about legal implications of doing this than someones strange morality of being against inteferring with other peoples breaking of a network.
Spam is a product name, not a general term for something almost every single person has in their home. It's MUCH more common to refer to windows as the glass thing than the software thing. The opposite is true for spam. When was the last time that the spiced meat product usage came up in one of your conversations? When was the last time that the unwanted email usage came up in conversation? I don't eat the spiced meat product, and I don't know anyone that does. Nearly everyone that has an email address gets the unwanted email though, or at least knows someone that does. In other words the crappy email definition is much more widely used than the spiced meat product usage.
I'd say Hormel is in some danger of a generation of kids growing up wondering why Hormel named Spam after crappy email (ok, maybe just the dumb kids). I also think Homel lost this battle long ago. They should give up the battle and admit that they've lost the trademark as far as people including Spam in bulk-email stopping products.
If Hormel was smart, they'd see this as a product opportunity. Use the fact that people are always thinking of your product name. Have a weird ad campaign that associates the two in some funny way. Sponsor some kind of spam email blocking contest. Give away free Spam filtering to anyone that wants it. Sheesh, they own the damn trademark as far as the spiced-meat thing is concerned, start taking advantage of how your product is on the lips of people on a daily basis. The way to fight an association you don't like is to create a new association, not dumb legal tactics.
Is Hans really that important to ReiserFS? Isn't this the whole beauty of GPL code, that there are thousands of people out there who can pick his work up without even involving him, Namesys etc., and continue the 'legacy'?
Not many people think about it, but in any software project (open or close) the most important thing is leadership. Good leaders are hard to come by, and they aren't replaced by thousands of people who can pick up work.
I'll restate it for you: there is a difference between natural development and artificial engineering
How is there a difference? Where is the difference? Define natural. Your statements aren't scientific ones, they're all ideological. don't criticize other people's religious beliefs without first making an effort to understand why they hold them.
For food? The vast majority were probbably good practices 2000 years ago when we didn't understand disease. Don't eat pork, don't get trichinosis. Keep the utensils clean, don't get sick. Only let a guy who knows what the hell he's doing slaughter the meat. Don't eat meat, because raising animals takes too many resources in a world without many resources. That worked pretty well a few hundred years ago, but we have a much better understanding of disease and sanitation, and aren't in fear of constant famine so they're irrelevent. The new ones (vegans, etc) are just people over-identifying with animals, people who don't like people very much and use animals as substitutes, people who want to seperate themselves from everyone else, etc. The anti-GM people like yourself just have an anti-technological ideology, an anti-corporate ideology, or a combination of the two. I'll stick with science myself and ignore what The Great And Powerfull Oz says. Actually, its probably best that you just keep your trap shut.
Guess I must have hit pretty close to the mark, eh? Don't feel too bad about misunderstanding religious practices though, the Pharisees were in a much better position to understand the dietary restrictions than you are, and they didn't get it either.
Uh huh. Put all your magic beans in the religion and don't look back eh? No logical thought, rational analysis, or the devil Science to question anything.. just believe and shut up.
Well, the "chill" here is just that someone with disposable income can get a ridiculously large verdict against someone without the money to defend themselves. There's no public defender available for civil cases. As you say we don't really have any idea who is right and who is wrong since the defendant wasn't able to defend herself at all.
Really the defense probbably costs more than the plaintiff since all the plaintiffs attourney had to do was copy some blog posts. A defense lawyer would have to do some investigation and provide evidence for the statements the defendant made against the plaintiff. That'd include contacting other people the defendant allegedly cheated, getting them to testify, etc.
It's not really anything new. The only thing that's kind of shocking is the amount awarded. 11 million dollars for some blog posts?
"the greater mass of humanity doesn't give a flying fuck about me". He is right and I wish it wasn't like that. Sorry if you misunderstood me.
What a horrible thought. How could anyone stand to live each day if they were all depressed over the 150,000 people that die every single day? If you truly loved each and every one of the 150,000 people you'd certainly become suidical or depressed over their deaths.
Or maybe you're talking about "the group", which I think most people are concerned about. People define the group differently. For some it's just their own community, for others it's a nation, for others it's the whole world. This is very different from being concerned about each individual (which is ultimately ridiculous since we live in a world of limited resources). You're always forced to choose between one group or individual or another. Wishing it wasn't so is pointless and counter-productive.
I suspect you're trolling, but it is not practical for one person to reform the system.
Well duh. It's pretty much impossible for one person to do ANYTHING, unless you're a billionaire. With that attitude no one would ever do anything. The key to accomplishing something is to attract people like yourself to your cause. That's called leadership and vision. You say everything is doable if enough people want it, but they don't.
A lot of people want to do nothing, but you don't need those people. In fact you should be TAKING ADVANTAGE OF THOSE PEOPLE. Those same people that want to sit on their ass and do nothing also won't do anything when a small group of people take power and change things. Why do you think we have evil crap like banning funding of stem-cell research when the majority of those ass-sitters oppose it?
Don't tell me that you can't make a difference, because you can. It just takes interest, dedication, and hard work. Personally I'm more interested in doing other things so I don't want to change the world through politics. Maybe you are interested in it, or maybe you don't have enough interest or dedication, or whatever. That's fine, I don't expect everyone to have the right skillset and interest to change the world. But don't tell me it's not possible, because it's been proven time and time again that it is.
Manufacturing cost has nothing to do with it - things are *not* sold for what they cost to produce. They are sold for what people are prepared to pay.
Incorrect. Things are sold at a price to maximize profits. As price goes up, you'll attract less people to buy your product. These guys don't have a monopoly on televisions, so people will just buy something else if it's too expensive. I just bought a new TV and didn't even consider the HDTV sets because it was just too expensive. I could have afforded it if I _really_ wanted to, but it just wasn't worth twice the price for HDTV. I might have considered the HDTV if it was $500 vs the $400 I paid for the SDTV though.
but I care about everyone in general. Call me a hippy but I actually love you and I wish the best for you.
I think we should all be concerned about society or the world, but I don't think that extends to each and every individual. It's fine that you "love everyone and wish the best". I think that's a little delusional and unrealistic to actually love everyone, but to each his own. You seem to be upset that everyone doesn't share your love though. Why does everyone have to feel the same way as you do? I really hope some day we can get passed this "I don't know you, you don't live near me, you don't affect me, so screw you" mentality.
Now you're simply projecting something onto the GP that he never said. All he said was that he didn't believe people outside of his friend and family circle really cared if he died or not. He never expressed any "screw you" attitude, I'm not sure where you're getting that.
Who did the separating, and who is jumping to false conclusions?
You, and you. You can't force nature into anything because nature is everything. You can only force nature into something if you've seperated yourself from nature. Tell you what, you eat all the processed artifical GM foods you want, and leave the organic fruits and vegetables to me.
Fine by me. Just don't go around lying to people, spreading FUD, and trying to ban anything you have some ideological but not scientific problem with. Anyone that's against GM and "processed" food out of hand is no better than the people that reject meat, pork, eggs, etc for religious reasons.
There's a difference between allowing nature to work its course and attempting to force it into taking whatever direction you want it to.
Right, because "nature" is a good thing, and interferring with it is bad. Tell that to anyone that has diabetes, if "nature" had it's way, they'd all be dead. Tell that to all the people that no longer die of smallpox because we "forced" nature into a direction it didn't want to go. Or how about the countless people that are alive because of medication to control high blood pressure. Another instance where we're "forcing nature into whatever direction you want".
People are part of nature. Seperating the two makes no sense, and leads to false conclusions.
That doesn't answer my question. I asked what you propose the average person does. Reforming the broken FDA, legal system, federal subsidies, federal grant program, or breaking the law and conducting our own experiments on live subjects using patented materials at extreme cost is not a practical solution.
Why not? Everything you've just mentioned is certainly do-able in a few years if enough people want it. You don't even need a majority, just a vocal minority. The evangelicals managed to get federal funding of stem cell research banned, even though they're only maybe 10-15% of the population, and a large majority of the populace supports stem-cell funding. I don't know of any law that prevents you from experimenting on animals with patented food products you legally got from the manufacturer.
If nothing else you should at least be calling for labeling. Hell, even the republicans are for labelling.
because there is nothing generically special about particles that occur in the nanometre scale versus bigger sizes If there was, then you'd already see "nanoparticle regulation" applied to such dangerous materials as mayonaise or other tiny-particle emulsions.
It's pretty easy to pick out an already well-tested case and then somehow claim that this applies to the general case. The point is that nano-particles behave differently than non nano-particles. If they didn't no one would be using them. If we've only tested non-nano particles before, who's to say they won't interact differently with some biological system? "Oh sorry, after 10 years of exposure to nano-food additive XYZ increases the risk of kidney failure by 400%. It was a really strange interaction that we couldn't have thought through, so the guesswork guys were wrong. It'd probbably have show up with animal testing though.".
How do you propose the average person does this? We sure can't trust the "science" behind it, since the motivations behind it lead to bogus results, and even completely false data. What is a reasonable approach? I'd argue avoiding foods made with "new" techniques until it has had a few generations of human guinea pigs chowing down on it may be the best way to make sure it is safe.
I guess I don't understand your complaint about not being able to trust scientific testing. Where is it that science has failed us? Are the scientists corrupt? Are the corporations not releasing the bad results? Is the FDA cooking the books? Whatever the flaw is, my suggestion would be to correct it. Use the same forces that've propelled science since it was created. That is openess, peer review, honesty, integrity, etc. Not everyone is motivated solely towards profit to the exclusion of all else.
Given that people often grow their crops on basaltic rocks repleat with zeolite minerals, and people don't die from the bits of adhering mineral left on their food, I doubt there's much of a risk. It's possible something different occurs when ground up, but other than an increase in surface area, I suspect the effect is minimal, because the chemistry is essentially similar.
And do crops grown on basaltic rocks create 20 nm sized nano-particles? If so how many? The body isn't just simple chemical reactions, it's quite complex. What will the immune system do to nano-particles? Will it effect the blood-brain barrier? Could they effect some membrane system that normally doesn't encounter particles of this size/type?
Probbably doesn't cut it when you're going to expose millions or billions of people to a new form of a substance. Is it really so much to ask that this stuff be tested on animals before we just apply guesswork to potentially billions of people?
Evolution has not equipped man to deal with genetic modification, chemicals, or preservatives.
If you believe that genetically modified food, preservatives, and "chemicals" are harmfull, you shouldn't eat really any food produced today. All food produced on a farm has been genetically modified by humans, and has been since agriculture began. Salt has been used as a preservative for thousands of years. No one seems to be terribly concerened about it causing cancer though (though it does contribute to high blood pressure in some people). I'm not sure what you mean by "chemicals", other than the scary-sounding chemicals that are often just as present in "natural" food.
Nothing too special, but enough to make everyone freak out about "dangerous nanoparticles."
Maybe it's not, and maybe your guesses are correct. But the human body is notoriously complex. Maybe you're willing to eat some new form of a food additive that's never been tested or eaten before based on guesswork, but I'm not. No, the question is "Do zeolites have toxic effects when ground up very finely and consumed with french fries?"
No, this zeolite thing is a minor battle. I'm referring to the big picture here. The big picture is whether the FDA will just blindly allow nano food additives to be considered safe without further testing. Nano-particles are sufficiently different that I hope that there won't be just a blanket "add all the nano-particles you want" policy.
It's not like food has been statically unchanged over the last several thousand years, or even several hundred years. We've been using selective breeding techniques ever since we started agriculture. Do you think that chicken you're eating is like the original un-domesticated version that came from the wild? Is the corn, wheat, tomatoes, etc the same as it was 2000 years ago, or even 200 years ago?
Rejecting GM, processed, or whatever food with broad strokes doesn't make any sense. We've been changing our food for a long long time, so you really shouldn't be eating anything that society (modern or non-modern) produces at all. If you want "purity before human intervention" you should go back to the hunter-gatherer society, just be carefull not to gather anything that's reproduced with human-interferred stuff.
That's not to say that you shouldn't be concerned with food additives, GM foods, etc. It's just a matter of making sure it's all safe rather than rejecting it all out of hand.
From what I can tell zeolite is an approved food additive. But does it become something that's been entirely untested once you grind it up into nano-particles, and then coat it with some other undisclosed substance (presumably another food safe additive)?
Moon dust was a big problem huge problem for Apollo astronauts as it got past seals. I've heard that it's supposed to consist at least partially of nano-particles. The question is, do ordinary substances behave a lot differently when we grind them up into nano-particles?
My guess it that the FDA rules don't mention particle size when specifying food additives, so something like this could fly under the radar until someone thinks that maybe nano food additives might be a little different.
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For all? Even the p2p user?
Sorry if I forgot about them. One doesn't generally worry about the troublemakers when devising a solution to a problem. I suppose law enforcement isn't really optimal for thieves either. I take it you're one of the slimeball p2p users taking up scarce bandwidth on free wi-fi networks?
Personally, I'd call it a DoS attack, and would believe that the perpetrator (the person intentionally disrupting other people's connections) is a criminal and should be treated as such.
Uh huh. And where did you get an expectation of free bandwidth and connectivity on a free network where you didn't pay a dime for it? Also note that he has the permission of the network admins to do this.
It's also possible that merely sniffing the network (arguably to see where all the bandwidth is going) is violating the law.
How does one have an expectation of privacy on a publically accessible, completely non-encrypted, broadcast over the air network? Even if you did, any automated application would be only looking at packet headers and packet volumes to identify hogs. Do you really consider how much bandwidth you're hogging to be protected under privacy laws? Didn't think so.
Sheesh.. everyone here is freaking out like this is some kind of fork. The only thing that's changed is the naming of the application because Mozilla is being a little weird about Debian distributing changed versions of firefox that display their logo. It was called debian firefox, and Mozilla was OK with that previously. That's a pretty typical thing that happens in distributions. You don't see Linus freaking out when every distribution changes the linux kernel, but yet still calls their product linux. I seriously doubt the Debian folks want a full fledged fork of Firefox (nor should they)
Really there's nothing that's changing in the development model except the name. Debian will continue to patch and update firefox. They'll branch off a new version of firefox every so often and create a version for debian just like they've been doing before. The only difference is Mozilla doesn't want them to call it "debian firefox", so the Debian folks decide to call it "ice weasel".
It's kind of confusing, I'll certainly agree with that but it seems like a reasonable approach by the Debian people. (And no, I'm not a debian user, but I do run Ubuntu).
Thanks for the typical comment that gets cheered on Oprah. It doesn't really tell anyone anything we didn't already know though.
This case isn't about parental responsibility however, it's about parental liability. How are parents supposed to be held liable for not stopping their kids from posting a fake Myspace page? Are parents supposed to act like little police states, spying on their kids at every moment? I could see the parents being held liable if they knew about this whole fiasco before it got shut down by MySpace. But what about the far more likely case that they had no idea?
It's not exactly paranoid here. It's a well reasoned and cautious approach that we haven't tested these new nano-particles as food additives, drugs, etc. If they didn't behave any different from the much larger sized particles, then why are companies interested in them?
There's nothing inherently dangerous about nano-particles, just like there's nothing inherently dangerous about chemicals. It's simply the fact that nano-scale implementations of old substances haven't been tested, and behave differently. Why is that so difficult for some people to understand?
Well in that case, if you have the cooperation of the hospital and hotel, why not replace the router with one that will take a more flexible firmware (like DD-WRT) and then enable its QoS controls?
Because he's "just some guy" using the network, not the network administrator. He doesn't want to administrate the network, and the people who run the network don't want to go to all the trouble of pulling out one solution that works (minus the hogs).
It seems to me the solution of disrupting peoples network connections who're hogging the bandwidth is a perfect solution for all involved. If done correctly it only interrupts the p2p guys, and if there's some problem with it, you can just turn it off without having to troubleshoot and fix what's broken. There's probbably ways around this solution, but I doubt the p2p guys hogging bandwidth are going to be sophisticated enough to even realize what's going on. Anyone that has the knowledge to get around this kind of disruption isn't likely to be using a free wireless connection for p2p apps, they'll p2p from home.
Exactly what I was going to say. A free wifi network is NOT your network. Just because someone else is being a asshat doesn't mean you need to be one as well.
Well, my argument would be it's not the bandwidth hogs network either. If someone were blasting really loud music in a public space, would anyone but the music blaster complain if you were able to send sound cancelling noise to block the loud music (and do it in a perfect way that only stopped the loud music)?
In this case the guy isn't being an "asshat" at all since he's also making the network useable for everyone. I'd be more worried about legal implications of doing this than someones strange morality of being against inteferring with other peoples breaking of a network.
Spam is a product name, not a general term for something almost every single person has in their home. It's MUCH more common to refer to windows as the glass thing than the software thing. The opposite is true for spam. When was the last time that the spiced meat product usage came up in one of your conversations? When was the last time that the unwanted email usage came up in conversation? I don't eat the spiced meat product, and I don't know anyone that does. Nearly everyone that has an email address gets the unwanted email though, or at least knows someone that does. In other words the crappy email definition is much more widely used than the spiced meat product usage.
I'd say Hormel is in some danger of a generation of kids growing up wondering why Hormel named Spam after crappy email (ok, maybe just the dumb kids). I also think Homel lost this battle long ago. They should give up the battle and admit that they've lost the trademark as far as people including Spam in bulk-email stopping products.
If Hormel was smart, they'd see this as a product opportunity. Use the fact that people are always thinking of your product name. Have a weird ad campaign that associates the two in some funny way. Sponsor some kind of spam email blocking contest. Give away free Spam filtering to anyone that wants it. Sheesh, they own the damn trademark as far as the spiced-meat thing is concerned, start taking advantage of how your product is on the lips of people on a daily basis. The way to fight an association you don't like is to create a new association, not dumb legal tactics.
Is Hans really that important to ReiserFS? Isn't this the whole beauty of GPL code, that there are thousands of people out there who can pick his work up without even involving him, Namesys etc., and continue the 'legacy'?
Not many people think about it, but in any software project (open or close) the most important thing is leadership. Good leaders are hard to come by, and they aren't replaced by thousands of people who can pick up work.
I'll restate it for you: there is a difference between natural development and artificial engineering
How is there a difference? Where is the difference? Define natural. Your statements aren't scientific ones, they're all ideological.
don't criticize other people's religious beliefs without first making an effort to understand why they hold them.
For food? The vast majority were probbably good practices 2000 years ago when we didn't understand disease. Don't eat pork, don't get trichinosis. Keep the utensils clean, don't get sick. Only let a guy who knows what the hell he's doing slaughter the meat. Don't eat meat, because raising animals takes too many resources in a world without many resources. That worked pretty well a few hundred years ago, but we have a much better understanding of disease and sanitation, and aren't in fear of constant famine so they're irrelevent. The new ones (vegans, etc) are just people over-identifying with animals, people who don't like people very much and use animals as substitutes, people who want to seperate themselves from everyone else, etc. The anti-GM people like yourself just have an anti-technological ideology, an anti-corporate ideology, or a combination of the two. I'll stick with science myself and ignore what The Great And Powerfull Oz says.
Actually, its probably best that you just keep your trap shut.
Guess I must have hit pretty close to the mark, eh?
Don't feel too bad about misunderstanding religious practices though, the Pharisees were in a much better position to understand the dietary restrictions than you are, and they didn't get it either.
Uh huh. Put all your magic beans in the religion and don't look back eh? No logical thought, rational analysis, or the devil Science to question anything.. just believe and shut up.
Actually the wire story says that Bock had a lawyer 3 years ago, but he stopped working on the case after she couldn't afford to pay him anymore.
There is no "chill" here people. Move on.
Well, the "chill" here is just that someone with disposable income can get a ridiculously large verdict against someone without the money to defend themselves. There's no public defender available for civil cases. As you say we don't really have any idea who is right and who is wrong since the defendant wasn't able to defend herself at all.
Really the defense probbably costs more than the plaintiff since all the plaintiffs attourney had to do was copy some blog posts. A defense lawyer would have to do some investigation and provide evidence for the statements the defendant made against the plaintiff. That'd include contacting other people the defendant allegedly cheated, getting them to testify, etc.
It's not really anything new. The only thing that's kind of shocking is the amount awarded. 11 million dollars for some blog posts?
"the greater mass of humanity doesn't give a flying fuck about me". He is right and I wish it wasn't like that. Sorry if you misunderstood me.
What a horrible thought. How could anyone stand to live each day if they were all depressed over the 150,000 people that die every single day? If you truly loved each and every one of the 150,000 people you'd certainly become suidical or depressed over their deaths.
Or maybe you're talking about "the group", which I think most people are concerned about. People define the group differently. For some it's just their own community, for others it's a nation, for others it's the whole world. This is very different from being concerned about each individual (which is ultimately ridiculous since we live in a world of limited resources). You're always forced to choose between one group or individual or another. Wishing it wasn't so is pointless and counter-productive.
I suspect you're trolling, but it is not practical for one person to reform the system.
Well duh. It's pretty much impossible for one person to do ANYTHING, unless you're a billionaire. With that attitude no one would ever do anything. The key to accomplishing something is to attract people like yourself to your cause. That's called leadership and vision.
You say everything is doable if enough people want it, but they don't.
A lot of people want to do nothing, but you don't need those people. In fact you should be TAKING ADVANTAGE OF THOSE PEOPLE. Those same people that want to sit on their ass and do nothing also won't do anything when a small group of people take power and change things. Why do you think we have evil crap like banning funding of stem-cell research when the majority of those ass-sitters oppose it?
Don't tell me that you can't make a difference, because you can. It just takes interest, dedication, and hard work. Personally I'm more interested in doing other things so I don't want to change the world through politics. Maybe you are interested in it, or maybe you don't have enough interest or dedication, or whatever. That's fine, I don't expect everyone to have the right skillset and interest to change the world. But don't tell me it's not possible, because it's been proven time and time again that it is.
Manufacturing cost has nothing to do with it - things are *not* sold for what they cost to produce. They are sold for what people are prepared to pay.
Incorrect. Things are sold at a price to maximize profits. As price goes up, you'll attract less people to buy your product. These guys don't have a monopoly on televisions, so people will just buy something else if it's too expensive. I just bought a new TV and didn't even consider the HDTV sets because it was just too expensive. I could have afforded it if I _really_ wanted to, but it just wasn't worth twice the price for HDTV. I might have considered the HDTV if it was $500 vs the $400 I paid for the SDTV though.
but I care about everyone in general. Call me a hippy but I actually love you and I wish the best for you.
I think we should all be concerned about society or the world, but I don't think that extends to each and every individual. It's fine that you "love everyone and wish the best". I think that's a little delusional and unrealistic to actually love everyone, but to each his own. You seem to be upset that everyone doesn't share your love though. Why does everyone have to feel the same way as you do?
I really hope some day we can get passed this "I don't know you, you don't live near me, you don't affect me, so screw you" mentality.
Now you're simply projecting something onto the GP that he never said. All he said was that he didn't believe people outside of his friend and family circle really cared if he died or not. He never expressed any "screw you" attitude, I'm not sure where you're getting that.
Who did the separating, and who is jumping to false conclusions?
You, and you. You can't force nature into anything because nature is everything. You can only force nature into something if you've seperated yourself from nature.
Tell you what, you eat all the processed artifical GM foods you want, and leave the organic fruits and vegetables to me.
Fine by me. Just don't go around lying to people, spreading FUD, and trying to ban anything you have some ideological but not scientific problem with. Anyone that's against GM and "processed" food out of hand is no better than the people that reject meat, pork, eggs, etc for religious reasons.
There's a difference between allowing nature to work its course and attempting to force it into taking whatever direction you want it to.
Right, because "nature" is a good thing, and interferring with it is bad. Tell that to anyone that has diabetes, if "nature" had it's way, they'd all be dead. Tell that to all the people that no longer die of smallpox because we "forced" nature into a direction it didn't want to go. Or how about the countless people that are alive because of medication to control high blood pressure. Another instance where we're "forcing nature into whatever direction you want".
People are part of nature. Seperating the two makes no sense, and leads to false conclusions.
That doesn't answer my question. I asked what you propose the average person does. Reforming the broken FDA, legal system, federal subsidies, federal grant program, or breaking the law and conducting our own experiments on live subjects using patented materials at extreme cost is not a practical solution.
Why not? Everything you've just mentioned is certainly do-able in a few years if enough people want it. You don't even need a majority, just a vocal minority. The evangelicals managed to get federal funding of stem cell research banned, even though they're only maybe 10-15% of the population, and a large majority of the populace supports stem-cell funding. I don't know of any law that prevents you from experimenting on animals with patented food products you legally got from the manufacturer.
If nothing else you should at least be calling for labeling. Hell, even the republicans are for labelling.
because there is nothing generically special about particles that occur in the nanometre scale versus bigger sizes
If there was, then you'd already see "nanoparticle regulation" applied to such dangerous materials as mayonaise or other tiny-particle emulsions.
It's pretty easy to pick out an already well-tested case and then somehow claim that this applies to the general case. The point is that nano-particles behave differently than non nano-particles. If they didn't no one would be using them. If we've only tested non-nano particles before, who's to say they won't interact differently with some biological system? "Oh sorry, after 10 years of exposure to nano-food additive XYZ increases the risk of kidney failure by 400%. It was a really strange interaction that we couldn't have thought through, so the guesswork guys were wrong. It'd probbably have show up with animal testing though.".
How do you propose the average person does this? We sure can't trust the "science" behind it, since the motivations behind it lead to bogus results, and even completely false data. What is a reasonable approach? I'd argue avoiding foods made with "new" techniques until it has had a few generations of human guinea pigs chowing down on it may be the best way to make sure it is safe.
I guess I don't understand your complaint about not being able to trust scientific testing. Where is it that science has failed us? Are the scientists corrupt? Are the corporations not releasing the bad results? Is the FDA cooking the books? Whatever the flaw is, my suggestion would be to correct it. Use the same forces that've propelled science since it was created. That is openess, peer review, honesty, integrity, etc. Not everyone is motivated solely towards profit to the exclusion of all else.
Given that people often grow their crops on basaltic rocks repleat with zeolite minerals, and people don't die from the bits of adhering mineral left on their food, I doubt there's much of a risk. It's possible something different occurs when ground up, but other than an increase in surface area, I suspect the effect is minimal, because the chemistry is essentially similar.
And do crops grown on basaltic rocks create 20 nm sized nano-particles? If so how many? The body isn't just simple chemical reactions, it's quite complex. What will the immune system do to nano-particles? Will it effect the blood-brain barrier? Could they effect some membrane system that normally doesn't encounter particles of this size/type?
Probbably doesn't cut it when you're going to expose millions or billions of people to a new form of a substance. Is it really so much to ask that this stuff be tested on animals before we just apply guesswork to potentially billions of people?
Evolution has not equipped man to deal with genetic modification, chemicals, or preservatives.
If you believe that genetically modified food, preservatives, and "chemicals" are harmfull, you shouldn't eat really any food produced today. All food produced on a farm has been genetically modified by humans, and has been since agriculture began. Salt has been used as a preservative for thousands of years. No one seems to be terribly concerened about it causing cancer though (though it does contribute to high blood pressure in some people). I'm not sure what you mean by "chemicals", other than the scary-sounding chemicals that are often just as present in "natural" food.
Nothing too special, but enough to make everyone freak out about "dangerous nanoparticles."
Maybe it's not, and maybe your guesses are correct. But the human body is notoriously complex. Maybe you're willing to eat some new form of a food additive that's never been tested or eaten before based on guesswork, but I'm not.
No, the question is "Do zeolites have toxic effects when ground up very finely and consumed with french fries?"
No, this zeolite thing is a minor battle. I'm referring to the big picture here. The big picture is whether the FDA will just blindly allow nano food additives to be considered safe without further testing. Nano-particles are sufficiently different that I hope that there won't be just a blanket "add all the nano-particles you want" policy.
It's not like food has been statically unchanged over the last several thousand years, or even several hundred years. We've been using selective breeding techniques ever since we started agriculture. Do you think that chicken you're eating is like the original un-domesticated version that came from the wild? Is the corn, wheat, tomatoes, etc the same as it was 2000 years ago, or even 200 years ago?
Rejecting GM, processed, or whatever food with broad strokes doesn't make any sense. We've been changing our food for a long long time, so you really shouldn't be eating anything that society (modern or non-modern) produces at all. If you want "purity before human intervention" you should go back to the hunter-gatherer society, just be carefull not to gather anything that's reproduced with human-interferred stuff.
That's not to say that you shouldn't be concerned with food additives, GM foods, etc. It's just a matter of making sure it's all safe rather than rejecting it all out of hand.
From what I can tell zeolite is an approved food additive. But does it become something that's been entirely untested once you grind it up into nano-particles, and then coat it with some other undisclosed substance (presumably another food safe additive)?
Moon dust was a big problem huge problem for Apollo astronauts as it got past seals. I've heard that it's supposed to consist at least partially of nano-particles. The question is, do ordinary substances behave a lot differently when we grind them up into nano-particles?
My guess it that the FDA rules don't mention particle size when specifying food additives, so something like this could fly under the radar until someone thinks that maybe nano food additives might be a little different.