I've used both shell + dialog and python + dialog, and can vouch for the usability of the library. It's an excellent choice for any text-based UI programming. For python, I'd use this nifty little wrapper - http://pythondialog.sourceforge.net/.
I mean, the people who use Apache clearly use it because they don't want the reliability and the dependability that comes from a commercial software model.
Seriously, why is stuff like this even news anymore?
There is an idiom in my native tongue of Sinhala for this - natanna bari minihata polova adai, which translated directly (albeit a little clunkily) reads the ground is always uneven for the person who can't dance.
Having said this, I'm sure everyone agrees that a certain amount of tools are necessary to be productive. All in all though, I think this article sums up the value of tools pretty well.
Perhaps we are walking in that direction, but I'm not sure this actually infringes there.
Maybe so, but it is this walking in that direction that bothers me. Why set a precedent? I mean, especially when this is not something critical like finding the cure for a fatal disease. This is stopping diarrhea, and there are many other tested methods for doing so, many of which are far more practical than genetically engineering crops.
OK, let's leave the ethics aside for the moment and discuss what you have said.
Have you ever dealt with poverty?
Look at my homepage, and see where I live.:)
I'm sick of unproven and untested methods like this being touted as the project that's going to save that unnamed dying third world child. Give me a break. If half of this funding was given to a country in the developing world, the root causes of many of these diseases could be dealt with.
The key to addressing health care in the developing world is not miracle crops. It's improved infrastructure. Whenever a sensational topic like this comes up I just laugh quietly to myself. As I've said in other places on this thread, this may be wonderful in terms of scientific breakthrough, but in terms of helping the third world, it's still a long way off.
Make roads, provide clean water, find new methods of sanitation. These have been proven time and time again as the most effective ways to combat the spread of disease.
We're looking at these complicated cures when it would be much simpler to strengthen existing infrastructure and provide these kids with clean water, and functional sanitation. We're engineering crops that might lessen the severity and duration of diarrhea attacks instead of actually doing something that is practical (and proven) in the long term.
R & D is good and all, but when there are existing solutions, why not use them?
Is there truly a line being crossed if the genetic material belonged to humans?
IMHO there is. Scientifically this may be wonderful, and productive. Ethically though, we're giving people in the third world food with human genes in them. Will the recipients of this miracle rice be told what they're ingesting? Since much of the third world is in fact vegetarian, how would this affect their system of ethics / beliefs?
What about the ethical aspect of putting human genes in rice? Wouldn't people who eat that rice be eating a part of a human? That's kind of freaky to think about.
Slashdot Mirror
I've used both shell + dialog and python + dialog, and can vouch for the usability of the library. It's an excellent choice for any text-based UI programming. For python, I'd use this nifty little wrapper - http://pythondialog.sourceforge.net/.
Er, RTFA.
Oh, wait...
I mean, the people who use Apache clearly use it because they don't want the reliability and the dependability that comes from a commercial software model.
Seriously, why is stuff like this even news anymore?
There is an idiom in my native tongue of Sinhala for this - natanna bari minihata polova adai, which translated directly (albeit a little clunkily) reads the ground is always uneven for the person who can't dance.
Having said this, I'm sure everyone agrees that a certain amount of tools are necessary to be productive. All in all though, I think this article sums up the value of tools pretty well.
Perhaps we are walking in that direction, but I'm not sure this actually infringes there.
Maybe so, but it is this walking in that direction that bothers me. Why set a precedent? I mean, especially when this is not something critical like finding the cure for a fatal disease. This is stopping diarrhea, and there are many other tested methods for doing so, many of which are far more practical than genetically engineering crops.
OK, let's leave the ethics aside for the moment and discuss what you have said.
:)
Have you ever dealt with poverty?
Look at my homepage, and see where I live.
I'm sick of unproven and untested methods like this being touted as the project that's going to save that unnamed dying third world child. Give me a break. If half of this funding was given to a country in the developing world, the root causes of many of these diseases could be dealt with.
The key to addressing health care in the developing world is not miracle crops. It's improved infrastructure. Whenever a sensational topic like this comes up I just laugh quietly to myself. As I've said in other places on this thread, this may be wonderful in terms of scientific breakthrough, but in terms of helping the third world, it's still a long way off.
Make roads, provide clean water, find new methods of sanitation. These have been proven time and time again as the most effective ways to combat the spread of disease.
+1 to that.
We're looking at these complicated cures when it would be much simpler to strengthen existing infrastructure and provide these kids with clean water, and functional sanitation. We're engineering crops that might lessen the severity and duration of diarrhea attacks instead of actually doing something that is practical (and proven) in the long term.
R & D is good and all, but when there are existing solutions, why not use them?
Is there truly a line being crossed if the genetic material belonged to humans?
IMHO there is. Scientifically this may be wonderful, and productive. Ethically though, we're giving people in the third world food with human genes in them. Will the recipients of this miracle rice be told what they're ingesting? Since much of the third world is in fact vegetarian, how would this affect their system of ethics / beliefs?
What about the ethical aspect of putting human genes in rice? Wouldn't people who eat that rice be eating a part of a human? That's kind of freaky to think about.