Yeah, but compare the good-to-bad ratio of Paypal to, say, Amazon.com. Just because you're huge, doesn't mean you need to be a customer relations disaster.
Mmmm... Maxim with notebooks... wait, huh? What the hell? I clicked on the "few pictures and details" links and all it comes up with are shots of freaking computers!
First of all, do you have anything at all to do with academia? If you did (i.e. read papers/journals on a regular basis), you'd realise that not all research is done in the US. Depending on your field (mine is literature), it's even considered to be much more prestigious if your degree comes from a world-renowned institution such as Oxford or Cambridge.
"Few people will have heard of where you studied, so they'll just assume the worst."
Come again? Ever heard of Oxford or Cambridge? What about Strasbourg in France? Or McMasters or McGill in Canada?
Yes,/. is US-centric, but stating that all degrees need to be earned in the US is somewhat ridiculous. Sorry to call you on this, but from your resume you've only earned a bachelor's degree - what gives you the credentials to determine whether carrying a foreign graduate degree is helpful or harmful?
"I see you neglected to reply about my masturbation comment -- they're "partial humans" -- by your definition they're a "pre-developmental" (if you will) stage preceding birth."
I neglected to reply because it was obviously inflammatory. Iron is a component of steel and is required for it's formation, but it's still just iron and not steel. Sperm or eggs by themselves do not grow into a human if left to their natural devices; furthermore, their cells do not divide and grow as does a fertilised egg. Therefore each of these separate components do not meet the most rudimentary definition of life - growth.
"Birds are birds, lizards evolved into birds, fish evolved into lizards; does this mean that fish are birds? Hell we all evolved from earlier life forms, does that mean that the earlier lifeforms were also human?" If you believe in the theory of evolution, I suppose. May I stress the word "theory"?
"Absolutely. I didn't say I condoned the scientists' use of cells without permission from the donors. If the scientists felt that strongly, they should have used their own cells."
I think this was the entire point of the article:) One scientist mentioned in the article allegedly used her own reproductive tissue (egg? eggs?) in the formation of a stem cell. This sets a bad precedent, especially since the "rights" of stem cells/pre-embryonic "humans" (we don't agree on this point, I suppose) have not been established - are scientists allowed to experiment on themselves? Their children? Depends on how you look at the situation, I suppose. I think that stem cell research is unethical, but in a theoretical, relaxed way; I don't protest such research as much as I would protest, say, the outright destruction of these "cells"/pre-embryonic humans - abortion. But that's a whole nother battlefield;)
I figure that, if people really want to use stem cells for research, that they need to adhere to the strictest standards of ethics - fully anonymous and compliant donors, preferably double-blind (donors don't know where their rep. tissue is going, scientists don't know from whom they came from), fully documented research, and peer-reviewed publishing. It doesn't sound like these guys are doing so well over there, which is what has sparked this entire debacle.
I noticed you neglected to mention the sentence immediately following this quote. I would make no distinction between "full" and "incomplete" humans. What is absurd, sir, is the fact that calling a mass of cells, which will inevitably and irrevocably become a living, breathing member of society, "stem cells" when they are in fact human. An adult is human. A child is human. A baby is human. It stands to reason that the developmental stages preceding birth are therefore undertaken by humans and not some amoebus or fuzzy creatures which will somehow metamorphose into humans.
We're not going to agree on this, obviously. Do you at least agree with my point about the scientists' lack of ethics in regards to using their own reproductive tissue in their research?
From the moment that I knew that my wife was pregnant, I thought of him as a baby and not an "undifferentiated pile of cells." Yes, I would have strong feelings if he had been aborted.
" I support stem-cell research and the use of reproductive and cloning technology to the extent of providing 100% compatible stem cells for people."
I find this attitude absolutely terrifying. There's not much of a leap from harvesting "stem cells" to harvesting embryos. How far does it go? Do you support "reproductive and cloning technology" to grow babies whose sole purpose is to grow organs? I realise that there's a bit of difference between embryos and postpartem babies, but only in terms of time and *nothing* else.
Anyway, the lack of ethics on the part of these scientists is also somewhat disturbing, but also understandable. If I were doing research for such a project, I would be very excited about the outcome and would probably be very upset if I thought that I would not have enough research material. Putting aside the ethics of stem cell research in the first place, donating your own reproductive tissue for the purpose of creating stem cells for your own research completely violates the entire scientific method. The very suggestion of impropriety in this experiment has already tainted the result, which is unfortunate, seeing how much time and effort these scientists put in for their research.
"What if a decade from now a virus hits humanity that destroys our fertility (just imagine, you don't have to figure out how exactly)"
What if, a century from now, all cloned humans are destroyed by a mutant virus? What if, in a million years, the Morlocks and Eloi manage to combine their DNA and form a retro-human, circa 10,000 BCE? We can all play the "what if" game, but it doesn't really add anything to the conversation.
"Animals clone themselves all the time [therefore it is ethical for humans to do so as well]." Well, gee, gorillas have a harem and beat their oldest sons when they threaten his role as leader. Male cats eat their young. Male lions sit around all day while the females do the hunting. Just because an animal does something, it doesn't necessarily make it correct or ethically right for *humans* to do so, does it?
"Anyone who would treat a thinking human different based on how they were born is a very ignorant animal." Do you have proof that cloned humans can think?
"If a clump of cells doesn't have a brain, then it can't contain any thoughts." This is mighty restrictive of you. Can you prove this statement to be true beyond a shadow of a doubt? How do you know that bacteria or cells do not, in some instinctual or even hitherto unknown method not known to us, feel?
The one thing that gets me going is the phrase "stem cells." If your parents decided to donate some stem cells from you, then we probably wouldn't be having this conversation, now would we? As I sit here, typing this with a squirmy 7 week old baby in my arms, I shudder to think that, had his "stem cells" been harvested some eleven months ago, that he wouldn't be here right now. Stem cells aren't just cells, but are precursors to all of us.
I guess I'm a child of the cold war, but I'm thinking that these suckers would be pretty sweet against an ICBM. We can finally nuke those commie bastards back to the ice age while we sit around drinking margaritas, not having to worry about a punitive strike. Think about it - if these lasers can hit a small mortar shell, I think that they could hit an ICBM moving along an established trajectory over a thousand KMs.
Umm, yeah, but pirates don't register their machines in order to legitimately purchase online games. That's why they're called "pirates" and not "paid users."
Now *here's* an interesting idea! I've never played a MMOG in the past, having baulked at first purchasing a game and then paying for it monthly ($25-30 CAD); for the money spent on an MMOG and a couple months' worth of subscriptions, I could buy two new games every three months.
But if a company offered more than one MMOG per subscription (a la Compuserve back in the day), I might actually consider it. I'm not the only person who thinks like this - only my friends with completely addictive personalities play MMOGs, while the rest of us are content with single- or [subscription-free] multiplayer experiences (UT2004, for example).
That's not exactly true up here in Canada, at least. Most products (not including electronics - much more competitve) are *much* cheaper at Walmart than elsewhere. For example, a 2L bottle of pop is $0.84, whereas you can jack up that price to $1.33 (if it's on sale) to $3.00 (at a local convenience store). A huge tin of Good Host Ice Tea (which I consume on a monthly basis) is $7.83 at Walmart, but $10.00 or more anywhere else. The same holds true for beauty products/cosmetics (I'm married), toys (yu-gi-oh cards.. I have a kid) and snacks (because I like to snack).
Yes, electronics are generally more expensive at Walmart, but come release day for any video game, they're guaranteed to be cheaper at Walmart. I picked up a copy of SMB3 for my GBA for $25, where it was retailing for $40 elsewhere.
Does this mean that the PS3 and/or XboX2 is around the corner? Microsoft cancels 2004 games, EA does likewise, and now Sony? This means to me that, either people aren't interested in sports games any more (HA!) or that they're starting work on next-gen systems/games - after all, if Sony/MS want to have some kick ass games for startup (MS perhaps in a year, Sony by Q4/05), they need to get cracking, right?
"It's MUCH better for Apple to say 'We have a vulnurability... And three hours later we have a patch.'
Better than what? Better than quietly patching a vulnerability without admitting culpability? Microsoft does this all the time ("we have a vulnerability..." "we have a vulnerability..."), release fixes fairly quickly, but still they've got a horrible rep. OS X doesn't, AFAIK.
In case anybody was wondering, I *don't* use OSX - I've got an x86 box with XP Pro on it. I've heard more mentions of viruses on the 6 o'clock news for Windows than for OS X, so I can only assume that Apple's doing *something* right.
"massive and widespread effects of [hypothetical] viruses on their OS" -- heck, even if there *were* any, this policy of "deny and quietly patch" wouldn't necessarily require Apple to come clean about any infections.
Think about it: if Apple keeps quiet about the massive and widespread effects of viruses on their OS, the benefits are:
-Less damage to the Apple brand
-Less desire for virus writers to write viruses for Macs -- if it's not widely covered in the media, then how do you know if your virus works? No bragging rights == no desire to make such viruses
-More security - if you don't publish holes but quietly fix them, then the chances of script kiddies (biggest cause for net viruses according to a study I read a while ago) exploiting such holes is much, much less.
Of course, it sucks from an end-user viewpoint, but *only* if such a virus actually infects your computer!
Sorry, but are you kidding? Time has proven over and over again that market penetration > brand recognition. Apple has a year's head start on Sony -- what makes you think Sony can catch up now?
For people wanting to check out a nice, sub-1MB calendar app, check out Rainlendar. Transparency, to-do lists, skinnable, free, and very light-weight. Not that I'm against what Mozilla is trying to do, but why bother waiting for Sunbird to creep up to 1.0 when you can get a fully-featured, stable app right now?
Disclaimer: I don't work for, nor am I associated with Rainlendar. For the record, I use iCal with my YzDock (OH NO APPLE'S GONNA SUE ME) dock.
I've always found this to be counter-intuitive when it comes to free e-mail accounts. After all, the most common account names are the ones that get the most spam, so I'd rather pick something like "2inchjohnson@hotmail.com" and get no junk mail... insert penis-extension jokes here.
Am I the only one who was completely underwhelmed by the Halo engine? I know that this guy helped develop it, but who needs another game where the enemies do sommersaults and shout out in falsetto-monster voices? Not that I'm bitter about Halo... *twitch*...
Having said that, I completely agree with the state of the industry vis a vi "ten core staffers, lotsa outsourced help." Video games by the same developers tend to be hit and miss, mostly because the "core staff" varies so much -- see Bioware, Troika and Interplay (Fallout/2/BOS) for example. Now look at Studio Ghibli in regards to animation/anime - every single movie these guys have churned out is bloody fantastic. We need more video game devs like Ghibli.
I remember hearing somewhere that the best indicator of how good an employer is is based on how happy their janitorial staff is. If the people who clean up shit are happy, then everybody else is bound to be happy too. I dunno how it would look at an interview if you asked to schedule an appointment with a janitor to discuss the company, though...
What about the refund on the bottle in which the Pepsi came in? How does this factor in with MS Office? And what about at restaurants where they bring you a straw with sodas, but not with water? I'm so very confused...
Slashdot Mirror
Yeah, but compare the good-to-bad ratio of Paypal to, say, Amazon.com. Just because you're huge, doesn't mean you need to be a customer relations disaster.
Mmmm... Maxim with notebooks... wait, huh? What the hell? I clicked on the "few pictures and details" links and all it comes up with are shots of freaking computers!
Better conclusion: everybody wants to try out Sidetalkin'.
"Few people will have heard of where you studied, so they'll just assume the worst."
Come again? Ever heard of Oxford or Cambridge? What about Strasbourg in France? Or McMasters or McGill in Canada?
Yes, /. is US-centric, but stating that all degrees need to be earned in the US is somewhat ridiculous. Sorry to call you on this, but from your resume you've only earned a bachelor's degree - what gives you the credentials to determine whether carrying a foreign graduate degree is helpful or harmful?
I neglected to reply because it was obviously inflammatory. Iron is a component of steel and is required for it's formation, but it's still just iron and not steel. Sperm or eggs by themselves do not grow into a human if left to their natural devices; furthermore, their cells do not divide and grow as does a fertilised egg. Therefore each of these separate components do not meet the most rudimentary definition of life - growth.
"Birds are birds, lizards evolved into birds, fish evolved into lizards; does this mean that fish are birds? Hell we all evolved from earlier life forms, does that mean that the earlier lifeforms were also human?" If you believe in the theory of evolution, I suppose. May I stress the word "theory"?
"Absolutely. I didn't say I condoned the scientists' use of cells without permission from the donors. If the scientists felt that strongly, they should have used their own cells."
I think this was the entire point of the article :) One scientist mentioned in the article allegedly used her own reproductive tissue (egg? eggs?) in the formation of a stem cell. This sets a bad precedent, especially since the "rights" of stem cells/pre-embryonic "humans" (we don't agree on this point, I suppose) have not been established - are scientists allowed to experiment on themselves? Their children? Depends on how you look at the situation, I suppose. I think that stem cell research is unethical, but in a theoretical, relaxed way; I don't protest such research as much as I would protest, say, the outright destruction of these "cells"/pre-embryonic humans - abortion. But that's a whole nother battlefield ;)
I figure that, if people really want to use stem cells for research, that they need to adhere to the strictest standards of ethics - fully anonymous and compliant donors, preferably double-blind (donors don't know where their rep. tissue is going, scientists don't know from whom they came from), fully documented research, and peer-reviewed publishing. It doesn't sound like these guys are doing so well over there, which is what has sparked this entire debacle.
We're not going to agree on this, obviously. Do you at least agree with my point about the scientists' lack of ethics in regards to using their own reproductive tissue in their research?
" I support stem-cell research and the use of reproductive and cloning technology to the extent of providing 100% compatible stem cells for people."
I find this attitude absolutely terrifying. There's not much of a leap from harvesting "stem cells" to harvesting embryos. How far does it go? Do you support "reproductive and cloning technology" to grow babies whose sole purpose is to grow organs? I realise that there's a bit of difference between embryos and postpartem babies, but only in terms of time and *nothing* else.
Anyway, the lack of ethics on the part of these scientists is also somewhat disturbing, but also understandable. If I were doing research for such a project, I would be very excited about the outcome and would probably be very upset if I thought that I would not have enough research material. Putting aside the ethics of stem cell research in the first place, donating your own reproductive tissue for the purpose of creating stem cells for your own research completely violates the entire scientific method. The very suggestion of impropriety in this experiment has already tainted the result, which is unfortunate, seeing how much time and effort these scientists put in for their research.
What if, a century from now, all cloned humans are destroyed by a mutant virus? What if, in a million years, the Morlocks and Eloi manage to combine their DNA and form a retro-human, circa 10,000 BCE? We can all play the "what if" game, but it doesn't really add anything to the conversation.
"Animals clone themselves all the time [therefore it is ethical for humans to do so as well]." Well, gee, gorillas have a harem and beat their oldest sons when they threaten his role as leader. Male cats eat their young. Male lions sit around all day while the females do the hunting. Just because an animal does something, it doesn't necessarily make it correct or ethically right for *humans* to do so, does it?
"Anyone who would treat a thinking human different based on how they were born is a very ignorant animal." Do you have proof that cloned humans can think?
"If a clump of cells doesn't have a brain, then it can't contain any thoughts." This is mighty restrictive of you. Can you prove this statement to be true beyond a shadow of a doubt? How do you know that bacteria or cells do not, in some instinctual or even hitherto unknown method not known to us, feel?
The one thing that gets me going is the phrase "stem cells." If your parents decided to donate some stem cells from you, then we probably wouldn't be having this conversation, now would we? As I sit here, typing this with a squirmy 7 week old baby in my arms, I shudder to think that, had his "stem cells" been harvested some eleven months ago, that he wouldn't be here right now. Stem cells aren't just cells, but are precursors to all of us.
I guess I'm a child of the cold war, but I'm thinking that these suckers would be pretty sweet against an ICBM. We can finally nuke those commie bastards back to the ice age while we sit around drinking margaritas, not having to worry about a punitive strike. Think about it - if these lasers can hit a small mortar shell, I think that they could hit an ICBM moving along an established trajectory over a thousand KMs.
Umm, yeah, but pirates don't register their machines in order to legitimately purchase online games. That's why they're called "pirates" and not "paid users."
But if a company offered more than one MMOG per subscription (a la Compuserve back in the day), I might actually consider it. I'm not the only person who thinks like this - only my friends with completely addictive personalities play MMOGs, while the rest of us are content with single- or [subscription-free] multiplayer experiences (UT2004, for example).
Yes, electronics are generally more expensive at Walmart, but come release day for any video game, they're guaranteed to be cheaper at Walmart. I picked up a copy of SMB3 for my GBA for $25, where it was retailing for $40 elsewhere.
Does this mean that the PS3 and/or XboX2 is around the corner? Microsoft cancels 2004 games, EA does likewise, and now Sony? This means to me that, either people aren't interested in sports games any more (HA!) or that they're starting work on next-gen systems/games - after all, if Sony/MS want to have some kick ass games for startup (MS perhaps in a year, Sony by Q4/05), they need to get cracking, right?
Better than what? Better than quietly patching a vulnerability without admitting culpability? Microsoft does this all the time ("we have a vulnerability..." "we have a vulnerability..."), release fixes fairly quickly, but still they've got a horrible rep. OS X doesn't, AFAIK.
In case anybody was wondering, I *don't* use OSX - I've got an x86 box with XP Pro on it. I've heard more mentions of viruses on the 6 o'clock news for Windows than for OS X, so I can only assume that Apple's doing *something* right.
"massive and widespread effects of [hypothetical] viruses on their OS" -- heck, even if there *were* any, this policy of "deny and quietly patch" wouldn't necessarily require Apple to come clean about any infections.
-Less damage to the Apple brand
-Less desire for virus writers to write viruses for Macs -- if it's not widely covered in the media, then how do you know if your virus works? No bragging rights == no desire to make such viruses
-More security - if you don't publish holes but quietly fix them, then the chances of script kiddies (biggest cause for net viruses according to a study I read a while ago) exploiting such holes is much, much less.
Of course, it sucks from an end-user viewpoint, but *only* if such a virus actually infects your computer!
Sorry, but are you kidding? Time has proven over and over again that market penetration > brand recognition. Apple has a year's head start on Sony -- what makes you think Sony can catch up now?
Sorry, gut reaction against a 11MB calendar app (Sunbird).
Disclaimer: I don't work for, nor am I associated with Rainlendar. For the record, I use iCal with my YzDock (OH NO APPLE'S GONNA SUE ME) dock.
That's why a true geek keeps all his important data on punch cards. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go rearrange my basement, the safe.
I've always found this to be counter-intuitive when it comes to free e-mail accounts. After all, the most common account names are the ones that get the most spam, so I'd rather pick something like "2inchjohnson@hotmail.com" and get no junk mail... insert penis-extension jokes here.
Having said that, I completely agree with the state of the industry vis a vi "ten core staffers, lotsa outsourced help." Video games by the same developers tend to be hit and miss, mostly because the "core staff" varies so much -- see Bioware, Troika and Interplay (Fallout/2/BOS) for example. Now look at Studio Ghibli in regards to animation/anime - every single movie these guys have churned out is bloody fantastic. We need more video game devs like Ghibli.
I remember hearing somewhere that the best indicator of how good an employer is is based on how happy their janitorial staff is. If the people who clean up shit are happy, then everybody else is bound to be happy too. I dunno how it would look at an interview if you asked to schedule an appointment with a janitor to discuss the company, though...
What about the refund on the bottle in which the Pepsi came in? How does this factor in with MS Office? And what about at restaurants where they bring you a straw with sodas, but not with water? I'm so very confused...
I don't post anon.