True. Unfortunately, it's a gimmick, and everyone could see that. (Plus it quickly got replicated by the home-theater systems, since if it wasn't a gimmick, then people needed it at home to see the full movie once they bought it.)
They really need to work on the basics: A movie theater has the resources for a better picture, sound, seating, and food. (Since except in rare cases all of a home theaters systems are going to have to be dual-use, and able to get out of the way when not in use.) The only ones of those they even try to take advantage of is the better picture and sound. (And they don't try very hard - read Ebert's article on the death of projectionists.) They can do better. Short-term, yes, it'll cut into their profit margins. But longer term it will mean they have profit margins.
People go to the movie theater for the experience of watching a movie in the theater. If that experience isn't better than watching it at home, they won't go to the theater. Home theaters have improved, and movie theaters have degraded. Fix that. And no, you don't get to control the home theaters.
Namecheap appeared to be the most commonly-recommended registrar in threads on switching. (To the point that a guide was written using it as the 'switch-to'.) It's possible that they are getting a large percentage of the people switching.
I'd never heard of either of the previous issues. Their commercials were scummy, but they started them after I'd already started registering domains with them, and it was convenient to keep all my domains in one place, and bad commercials aren't enough to make me leave a product that's working for me.
However, this news put transferring my domains as part of my to-do list for the weekend. This reversal doesn't change that: It says they can listen, but not that they can think. Otherwise wouldn't have taken the position they did in the first place.
I have to admit, I'm starting to be impressed with Universal in this. A finer example of shooting yourself in the foot, I've never seen. I mean, most people manage to aim for a toe or something, but no, Universal had to aim directly for an artery. Nothing less would do.
Really, they've managed to argue that they have the authorization to take down any clip on YouTube, for any or no reason. If they manage to win their argument, they'll prove they are arrogant douchbags, and prompt Google to re-do their DMCA takedown procedures to more closely fit the law. (And, incidentally, make it harder for Universal to use.) If they don't, they still manage to be arrogant douchbags, but they also manage to be the first case of someone being taken to court for abusing the DMCA.
All of this over a video I'd have never heard of if they hadn't bothered to do anything. Give them a hand: when they aim for their foot, they make sure it's gone.
If you are spending that much time, effort, and money on being a laptop thief, you'll get caught eventually some other way. And you could have done better going into something honest.
Asset Tags are tracked internally, by some system you have implemented at your location/organization. StuffBak tags come with that service, including a way to handle returning a lost item.
Basically, Asset Tags are a commercial service, that just prints the tags. StuffBak is a comparable consumer service, that does tags+tracking+returns. You get less control over the design of the tags or the numbers, but you also have less hassle.
The sticker does have to be registered. Which doesn't completely solve that either.
If they did, and then tried to claim it was theirs, I suppose you could take it to court the same as any other. It's just a piece of evidence, not absolute proof.
But I can think of easier and cheaper ways to steal something from you than putting a marker on it and then trying to convince the cops it was mine because of that marker.
Slightly more low-tech, but giving the same idea of 'make it trackable' is Stuffbak. It's just a (hard to remove) sticker, but it means you can prove a specific device is yours.
But none of this is prevention. If you can't hide it and you can't lock it, take it with you.
No, the secret is that they need to not be trying to out-blockbuster Star Wars or Alien. Sci-fi movies out of Hollywood all tend to be horror or adventure stories, where the 'sci-fi setting' can be used to make the set up believable.
Both of the examples you give pre-date the blockbusters, and deal with near-term realistic future. Hollywood doesn't want that anymore, because they think they can get megabucks out of 'sci-fi/action/horror' movies.
(This is actually one of the reasons Anime is so popular among geeks, in my opinion. Anime is willing to tell a straight science fiction story on occasion, and not just have it be backdrop for explosions or bug-eyed monsters.)
Besides, you could have sold a couple of months ago when it became pretty clear what the result was going to be. And this decision is likely to save you more money, if you carry your own cellphone. (As oligopolies aren't known for keeping prices low.)
On the other hand, it's possible that Android would never have been able to make it to market without Apple first muscling their way into the game the way they did. One of the benefits they got by going exclusive was that they were allowed a lot more control over their hardware and what could be installed on it than any other phone manufacturer was. You could make an argument that the smartphone market wouldn't be as big as it was without Apple showing what was possible.
I'll agree there can be errors in this - but the errors are likely to be 'females can occasionally fly, just not as well'. (And they are testing.) Which might or might not hurt the project, but won't help the mosquitoes.
But the 'the modifications attack other species' just doesn't work. That's not how genetics works. (Not in animals at least. Plants hybridize a bit more freely, and bacteria/viruses can directly swap DNA.) The mosquitoes modified by this project produce female offspring that can't fly. For that to directly affect another species of mosquitoes, they'd have to mate with those mosquitoes (not likely), and successfully breed (even less likely). This is literally by definition of species: If they could breed together, they wouldn't be separate species.
Actually, that I do get. It's also harder and more dangerous: If the modifications we make change the mosquitoes in other ways, that might not be good either, and it would tend to spread. This choice is at the very least self-limiting: Whether it works or not, the GM mosquitoes will die off in a few generations. (The harder is just that it's a more complex change.)
That said, there are other groups working on that approach. They don't have anything testable yet though. (As it's a more complex approach.)
First off 'evolve a bit' would require that they reproduce. The whole point of this is that it breaks the reproductive cycle. Second 'target other species'... How? The way this works is that they breed with the targeted mosquitoes. If it's another species, they don't breed with each other. By definition.
The most likely failure mode of this is that the targeted mosquitoes evolve a bit and start to recognize and avoid the GM mosquitoes. But that would take several generations at minimum, and that might be enough to wipe out malaria in the area anyway. (By allowing the infected population to fall below the minimum for sustainability.)
So, for instance, we could create a way to selectively wipe out just the one species of mosquitoes that carry these diseases, while leaving other closely related species unharmed. Perhaps we could make it so that their females can't feed or flee from predators.
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True. Unfortunately, it's a gimmick, and everyone could see that. (Plus it quickly got replicated by the home-theater systems, since if it wasn't a gimmick, then people needed it at home to see the full movie once they bought it.)
They really need to work on the basics: A movie theater has the resources for a better picture, sound, seating, and food. (Since except in rare cases all of a home theaters systems are going to have to be dual-use, and able to get out of the way when not in use.) The only ones of those they even try to take advantage of is the better picture and sound. (And they don't try very hard - read Ebert's article on the death of projectionists.) They can do better. Short-term, yes, it'll cut into their profit margins. But longer term it will mean they have profit margins.
In other words, to summarize both you and Ebert:
People go to the movie theater for the experience of watching a movie in the theater. If that experience isn't better than watching it at home, they won't go to the theater. Home theaters have improved, and movie theaters have degraded. Fix that. And no, you don't get to control the home theaters.
Namecheap appeared to be the most commonly-recommended registrar in threads on switching. (To the point that a guide was written using it as the 'switch-to'.) It's possible that they are getting a large percentage of the people switching.
I'd never heard of either of the previous issues. Their commercials were scummy, but they started them after I'd already started registering domains with them, and it was convenient to keep all my domains in one place, and bad commercials aren't enough to make me leave a product that's working for me.
However, this news put transferring my domains as part of my to-do list for the weekend. This reversal doesn't change that: It says they can listen, but not that they can think. Otherwise wouldn't have taken the position they did in the first place.
Only if this isn't already counting compression.
I have to admit, I'm starting to be impressed with Universal in this. A finer example of shooting yourself in the foot, I've never seen. I mean, most people manage to aim for a toe or something, but no, Universal had to aim directly for an artery. Nothing less would do.
Really, they've managed to argue that they have the authorization to take down any clip on YouTube, for any or no reason. If they manage to win their argument, they'll prove they are arrogant douchbags, and prompt Google to re-do their DMCA takedown procedures to more closely fit the law. (And, incidentally, make it harder for Universal to use.) If they don't, they still manage to be arrogant douchbags, but they also manage to be the first case of someone being taken to court for abusing the DMCA.
All of this over a video I'd have never heard of if they hadn't bothered to do anything. Give them a hand: when they aim for their foot, they make sure it's gone.
If you are spending that much time, effort, and money on being a laptop thief, you'll get caught eventually some other way. And you could have done better going into something honest.
Asset Tags are tracked internally, by some system you have implemented at your location/organization. StuffBak tags come with that service, including a way to handle returning a lost item.
Basically, Asset Tags are a commercial service, that just prints the tags. StuffBak is a comparable consumer service, that does tags+tracking+returns. You get less control over the design of the tags or the numbers, but you also have less hassle.
The sticker does have to be registered. Which doesn't completely solve that either.
If they did, and then tried to claim it was theirs, I suppose you could take it to court the same as any other. It's just a piece of evidence, not absolute proof.
But I can think of easier and cheaper ways to steal something from you than putting a marker on it and then trying to convince the cops it was mine because of that marker.
Which is why Stufbak has a way to unregister your stuff. (And the next person can then use their service using the same sticker. For free even.)
Slightly more low-tech, but giving the same idea of 'make it trackable' is Stuffbak. It's just a (hard to remove) sticker, but it means you can prove a specific device is yours.
But none of this is prevention. If you can't hide it and you can't lock it, take it with you.
I bet they decrease the amount insurance companies have to pay though.
No, the secret is that they need to not be trying to out-blockbuster Star Wars or Alien. Sci-fi movies out of Hollywood all tend to be horror or adventure stories, where the 'sci-fi setting' can be used to make the set up believable.
Both of the examples you give pre-date the blockbusters, and deal with near-term realistic future. Hollywood doesn't want that anymore, because they think they can get megabucks out of 'sci-fi/action/horror' movies.
(This is actually one of the reasons Anime is so popular among geeks, in my opinion. Anime is willing to tell a straight science fiction story on occasion, and not just have it be backdrop for explosions or bug-eyed monsters.)
I wouldn't sully that name by calling anything out of Hollywood by it. They barely manage 'fiction', never mind 'science'.
That's human genomes.
They are also sequencing plants, and (other) animals, and fungus, and bacteria, and viruses, and...
Nope.
Every living being on the planet. And as many of the dead ones as they can get their hands on.
It'll be back up soon enough.
Besides, you could have sold a couple of months ago when it became pretty clear what the result was going to be. And this decision is likely to save you more money, if you carry your own cellphone. (As oligopolies aren't known for keeping prices low.)
No, but I can imagine silence. Or a one-sentence 'we respectfully disagree'.
On the other hand, it's possible that Android would never have been able to make it to market without Apple first muscling their way into the game the way they did. One of the benefits they got by going exclusive was that they were allowed a lot more control over their hardware and what could be installed on it than any other phone manufacturer was. You could make an argument that the smartphone market wouldn't be as big as it was without Apple showing what was possible.
Hard to tell. It's all guesswork at this point.
I'll agree there can be errors in this - but the errors are likely to be 'females can occasionally fly, just not as well'. (And they are testing.) Which might or might not hurt the project, but won't help the mosquitoes.
But the 'the modifications attack other species' just doesn't work. That's not how genetics works. (Not in animals at least. Plants hybridize a bit more freely, and bacteria/viruses can directly swap DNA.) The mosquitoes modified by this project produce female offspring that can't fly. For that to directly affect another species of mosquitoes, they'd have to mate with those mosquitoes (not likely), and successfully breed (even less likely). This is literally by definition of species: If they could breed together, they wouldn't be separate species.
Actually, that I do get. It's also harder and more dangerous: If the modifications we make change the mosquitoes in other ways, that might not be good either, and it would tend to spread. This choice is at the very least self-limiting: Whether it works or not, the GM mosquitoes will die off in a few generations. (The harder is just that it's a more complex change.)
That said, there are other groups working on that approach. They don't have anything testable yet though. (As it's a more complex approach.)
Ok, there's two problems with your scenario...
First off 'evolve a bit' would require that they reproduce. The whole point of this is that it breaks the reproductive cycle. Second 'target other species'... How? The way this works is that they breed with the targeted mosquitoes. If it's another species, they don't breed with each other. By definition.
The most likely failure mode of this is that the targeted mosquitoes evolve a bit and start to recognize and avoid the GM mosquitoes. But that would take several generations at minimum, and that might be enough to wipe out malaria in the area anyway. (By allowing the infected population to fall below the minimum for sustainability.)
Actually, I didn't. ;)
(I read another article about the same group of scientists someplace else, and recognized what they were doing.)
So, for instance, we could create a way to selectively wipe out just the one species of mosquitoes that carry these diseases, while leaving other closely related species unharmed. Perhaps we could make it so that their females can't feed or flee from predators.
No, but there is more immediately available, as it's a design technique that has been less utilized.