Speaking as one who's masters research was based around phytic acid, your theory doesn't stand up. The problem with phytic acid is that it is not digestible. That means the ingested phytic acid doesn't get absorbed, and is voided in the feces. The anti-nutritive effect of phytic acid is due to it being the principal storage form of Phosphorus in plants (> 75% of Phosphorus in dehulled solvent-extracted soybean meal) and a result of it binding to other nutrients and dragging them out with the feces as well.
My guess (educated, but still a guess) would be that the refusal you experienced is due to high circulating levels of blood urea nitrogen. Amino acids absorbed in excess of what can be used must be degraded. Part of the degradation process results in urea production, and the higher the protein degradation rate the higher the urea synthesis rate. There may be a point at which the liver and kidneys get overtaxed in their effort to synthesize and excrete urea, which in turn could make you feel like your body is telling you "No more!" I don't know of any research along these lines though, so this is pure speculation.
If that's true, then they've made a lot of progress in developing balanced vegan diets in the last 10 to 12 years. In the late 90's I was dating a vegan and she was on more than just B12, iron and Calcium. That doesn't change the general point that Veganism is dependent upon infrastructure. Soy needs to be processed quite heavily before it can be used as a sole source of protein. Aquaculture also requires infrastructure, but arguably less of it. I imagine that if they are trying to develop a self-sustaning colony, they'd use a combination of protein, energy, and vitamin sources.
Soy is an excellent plant source of protein. However, protein is not a single nutrient, but a collection of nutrients known as amino acids. Some amino acids can be synthesized by humans (non-essential or dispensible amino acids), others can be interconverted between each other, and others still have to be consumed intact because humans have innadequate ability to synthesize them (essential or indispensible amino acids). Generally, animal sources of protein have ratios of amino acids more in line with the human requirement (Egg being the gold standard).
one must also consider anti-nutritive factors in soy. Soy is the second most alergenic food to humans, and contains high concetrations of phytic acid. Phytic acid can reduce the digestibility not only of nutrients within the soy plant (P, Ca, Zn, Mn, et al), but also within other foods eaten with the soy.
Also, animal protein sources are much more dense. Fish contain a much higher percent protein in addition to having a better amino acid profile. Humans living on vegan diets usually take amino acid supplements because they cannot physically eat enough soy in a day to meet their dietary requirements for amino acids without feeling like they've eaten too much, if they can consume that much soy at all. A filet of fish goes a longer way toward meeting the nutritional requirement than an identical wieght of soy beans. If you want to isolate soy protein, then you need a lot of specialized equipment and some rather harsh chemicals to extract the protein whereas fish protein is simply extracted by mechanically scaling and gutting the fish.
Any potential Martian colonists will have a diet that bares little resemplence to the average American's diet now, but Veganisms is dependent upon modern infrastructure that would be difficult to replicate on Mars.
Ok, I've only had time to just glancing though this, but it appears to be a type of storage lagoon. I don't see any fundamental differences between this and the lagoons I described. They store effluent, and encourage it to breakdown. The lagoons at Purdue are 2 stage digesters, and this seems to be simply a different design with the same function.
Your anger and suspicion is not going to be a very effective argument against my formal training and experience. Calling me stupid, especially over a term that I did not create, is unlikely to help convince me either. Unlike you, I'm not basing my arguments on what appears to be vitriol and ignorance. If you intend to continue this discourse I'd appreciate if you'd refrain from mudslinging and maybe provide a little evidence to back up your claims as to the reasons for lagoons. I've read a fair amount of peer-reviewed research literature on lagoons, where are your 'facts' coming from??
Raw sewage can be toxic. But no one is talking about eating it, or spreading it on your salad. They are talking about spreading it on fields that grow primarily corn and soybeans for livestock. It has just as much bacteria when it enters the lagoon as it does when it is applied to the land. That is what makes feces dangerous, the bacteria not the undigested organic matter. Lagoons allow the bacteria to further degrade the manure and liberate nutrients bound up in that undigested organic matter, or in bedding (straw and wood shavings can end up in lagoons as well as feces, urine and wasted feed), whether it fits into your world view or not.
I agree that holding ponds can be a health hazard. That's why they are usually located in the middle of the farm, as far from the road and the neighbors as possible. As long as you don't climb into them, and they are well constructed, then they are a manageable risk just like storing heating oil in a tank in your basement (common in the north east US), or a propane tank on your back porch. That is the reason for the state and federal regulations. In fact, when I was working on a dairy in CT a heifer got away from us when being moved between barns and ran straight off of the cement ramp that we used for pushing manure into the lagoon. She floated (thanks to her rumen) for about 20 min before we were able to get a lasso around her neck and drag her back to the ramp. She was covered from head to foot in manure by the time she got out, and after rinsing her down the with the hose, had no lasting negative effects. She didn't get sick, go off feed, or loose the fetus she was carrying.
Besides, the government doesn't just trust that farmers are going to be good stewards of that potential risk. They ensure it through laws and procedures that force the farmer to prove that they are being responsible. Farms operate on razor thin margins, when profitable at all (we recently went through a period of 2 years where most pork producers lost money on every hog due in part to feed prices), and no one can really afford to face fines or waste the nutrient value of manure (inorganic fertilizers are expensive).
The alternative to lagoons is to spread the manure on land as soon as possible. Either directly by the animal (grazing situation) or by frequent use of manure spreaders (like the MA diary I described above). Either way the manure still needs to be spread, its just that the risks and benefits differ from each scenario. Grazing requires far too much land for current production levels on the large scale. Isolated operations can do it, but it just doesn't scale to meet nation (never mind international) demand. Frequent application to avoid lagoons is also not really feasible on the medium to large scale based on the costs associated (time, fuel, equipment, wasted nutrients, potential for run off in the winter) with this method.
Hey, if you've got another method that was cost competitive, and further reduced the risks I'd be glad to hear it. I could even call a couple of people in Ag Engineering, or in other departments at various Universities to see what they thought of it. There are a lot of smart people trying to address these questions (I tend to think of myself as one of them, but I am by no means among the smartest) and they are constantly coming up with ideas and evaluating them. Your interest is appreciated, but your armchair quarterbacking is not
yeah, I'd take the word of Rolling Stone at face value. Their investigative journalism is what they are known for. All that stuff about glorifying the excesses of Sex, Drugs, and Rock 'n Roll is just noise. [/sarcasm]
As someone with advanced degrees in animal science (non-ruminant nutrition specifically) I feel confident in stating that no one sprays their manure into the air thinking it's going to vanish. First off their is gravity which then pulls it back down to earth. Any sprayed manure is only dispersed this way in order to get it onto ground that needs fertilizing. Second, their are the laws of conservation of mass and energy, and I doubt most farmers expect airborne manure to simply undergo spontaneous conversion into energy.
I also feel confident that Rolling Stone didn't bother talking to anyone in the EPA about the dumping of manure into rivers. Anyone caught doing that faces hefty fines, and can have their farm taken away. Any Concentrated Animal Feeding Operation (CAFO) is required to file a nutrient management plan outlining the flow of nutrients onto (Fertilizer, imported feedstuffs, nutrient supplements, etc.) and off of (grain, animals, milk, wool, manure, etc.) the farm, with the goal being no net change (any Nitrogen coming onto the farm is matched by Nitrogen leaving the farm for example). Anyone caught deviating from the plan, or lying on the application faces very serious consequences from the state and federal governments.
As to holding tanks, what could possibly be the problem with those. They allow the farms to hold the manure until spring when it is most advantageous to use it as fertilizer. Do you really want farmers to be spreading manure in January and February? Any manure spread onto snow will simply run off into surface water when the snow melts, but the ground is still frozen. While in holding tanks, the manure breaks down further due to the action of microbes, thus increasing the nutrient availability for the plants when the manure is later applied to cropland. This degradation also has the effect of reducing total volume (water vapor and gas emissions, combined with breakdown of larger structures). Some progressive farms have taken to capturing the methane produced by this microbial fermentation and then burning it to generate electricity. Some even generate enough electricity to sell the surplus back to the grid. Others have started separating the solids from the liquid, composting the solids and selling them as fertilizer for gardens.
Please try reading something from an organization that is actually involved in agriculture before making your final judgement.
The lagoons (the proper term) are artificial constructs. They are not natural ponds that were converted into waste holding sites. They are designed by engineers and constructed specifically for the purpose of storing waste. The EPA has rules governing their construction, one of which being that they must be large enough to contain all of the waste generated by the farm for 12-18 months, and have sufficient extra storage capacity to be able to stand up to a 100-year storm event. Essentially they have to be big enough to hold all the waste, plus all of the extra water from the largest rainfall event the farm is likely to experience this century.
Now, these lagoons can occasionally leak, but that is why they need to be inspected periodically. Engineers come out and look over the walls of the lagoon, take samples from local surface and well water, and if there is a problem with the lagoon they require it be fixed or replaced.
Under normal operations a lagoon is filled over the course of the year (running generally from late spring to the end of winter) and then the contents of the lagoon are spread on fields as fertilizer. The lagoons are rarely drained completely, but they reach an equilibrium where the amount remaining in the lagoon each year after the farm is done fertilizing is roughly the same from year to year. The lagoons act not only as a reservior for the manure, but as a digester as you indicated. They break down much of the wasted feed (pigs are pigs after all) or previously undigested organic matter in the feces. This acts to do 2 things. First it increases the availability of nutrients in the manure, making it a better fertilizer. Second, it results in a reduction in the total amount of waste. Methane, H2SO4, and various other gasses are produced by the microbes in the lagoon as part of the digestion process. There have been various attempts to capitalize on the Methane production specifically, and a lot of work has been done on trying to reduce the production of noxious odors like H2SO4. I have even seen farms which utilize equipment to separate the solid parts of the waste from the liquid. The solid is then composted and sold as garden fertilizer, and the left over liquid is then used as both fertilizer and irrigation. However, it is feces after all and there is no reason to expect it to smell like roses.
As to the "economic damage", I would disagree. The on farm jobs, and down stream jobs that animal production creates (truck drivers, slaughterhouse employees, grocery stores, local butcher blocks, meat inspectors, etc.) are a net positive for the economy. These lagoons do not routinely leak, and anyone making claims to the contrary have a political axe to grind in my experience (PETA, ELF, ALF, etc.). Hell, you even indicate where some progressive farmers are using the methane to create extra profit for themselves by selling back surplus electricity to the grid (which the electric companies in some areas are not actually pleased about according to a dairy farmer I met from California).
Basically your view contains all real components of animal manure handling, but is based on an mistaken impression as to the prevalence of leaks, which happen rarely and a very big deal when they happen (as opposed to being glossed over) and the true purpose of a lagoon. The lagoons exist to improve the fertilizer value of manure, and hold it so that it can be spread at the best time of the year for cropping (spring around planting time). I worked on a very small dairy in MA that did not have a lagoon. They utilized straw and a recessed lane in the floor with a chain that dragged the dirty straw and manure out to a pile. They were forced to spread manure every couple of months in the summer because they didn't have enough storage space to go all winter. They were a small operation as I said (~30 milking cows at a time) so much of the regulations don't apply to them, and fortunately they didn't have any surface water close to their farm (no streams, brooks, lakes, or ro
Don't worry about that too much. MS has been trying to copy Apple for a while. It has gotten more obvious with Vista, Windows 7, Zune, and now Windows Phone 7 (or what ever they are calling it today). I'd start worrying (if it actually matter to me) if Blackberry and Android started copying Apples business model.
My specialty is in Nutrition, but we have a very active Animal Behavior group at Purdue (MS and PhD), and I learned quite a bit about stress physiology.
Stress can be measured using various different metrics. The most popular is measuring plasma cortisol levels, as I stated before. However, a friend of mine's Ph.D. work was in trying to develop a multi-diciplinary method for evaluating the status of pigs during transportation. He looked at blood chemistry (cortisol among others), behavior (aggression, vocalization, etc.), body temp, and a 4th category that I can't remember.
The problem with "common sense" arguments in the absence of even basic knowledge on the topic, is that you are ill prepared to know what actually makes sense. It's not just you, I'm sure that your field of expertise (what ever that is) there are issues that I'm ill prepared to make "common sense" judgements. For that reason I try to avoid posting on issues in which I am unprepared, accept to ask questions. I also try to avoid getting snarky when someone points out just how off base my "common sense" arguments are from reality.
Comparing Apples policy to the Vietnam war is excessively simplistic and completely disproportionate at the same time. The soldiers who were sent to Vietnam had no choice, nor did the majority of Vietnamese who were caught in the middle (whereas you can buy any phone you want). As I and others have pointed out repeatedly, you (and everyone else for that matter) are free to not buy an iPhone, thus making the comparison largely irrelevant. Trying to use vivd imagery of a violent political conflict in which most of those who died would have rather been left out of it, is just cheap mudslinging.
Apple is not "Taking" anything away from you, it is stating up-front that you can buy this device, they are going to provide certain services for the device such as firmware updates and the App Store. They tell you up front that you can only buy apps they approve of, with certain classes of applications being forbidden. Other platforms market themselves based on the fact that they offer features lacking from the iPhone ecosystem. As Babyrat points out, they can't stop you from jailbreaking your phone. In fact, they could't stop you from writing your own OS for the phone from scratch. They just don't have to make it easy for you to use their device in a method other than intended.
Only someone living under a rock is unaware of the tradeoffs, and if they are looking into the iPhone I'm sure they'll run across more criticism than they can read in a life time if they simply Google "iPhone". As I said before, it's not that anyone should be silenced. You are free to keep complaining, I'm just getting incredibly tired of reading it over and over and over and over and over and over (get the picture). Unless you've got a NEW complaint or REASONABLE comparison Let it GO already.
WTF are "Stress byproducts" I've seen several people refer to them, but as an animal scientist I have NO IDEA what you are talking about. By-products implies that they were something else that then broke down. AFAIK, stress is measured in body fluids by measuring stress hormones such as cortisol. No one measures for the breakdown products of cortisol, because as a steroid hormone, they are the same chemicals that result from the breakdown of testosterone, estrogen, etc.
The fact that the OP is using words like "Stress byproducts" indicates that they have no real understanding of stress physiology and they are talking out of their ass.
FUD check There are no "Requisite steroids, antibiotics and other chemicals fed to cows." Sick animals get treated (would you prefer that they suffer?), and as a result they are more expensive (Pharmaceuticals are expensive no matter who get them) than healthier animals. The trick is to keep the animals healthy while they grow, or go out of business paying your Veterinarian to treat your herd. Hormones are often used to synchronize Estrus (think the birth control pill), and to increase lean gain during the final stages of the Finishing period (and nothing prevents them from being fed to grass fed beef BTW).
None of these are the reason that grass fed beef tastes different (and I agree it is a better taste). The difference is the lipid that is deposited is of higher quality in grass fed beef (synthesized from the volatile fatty acids that are produced by the rumen microbes) as opposed to grain fed beef (a higher proportion of the fat is derived from corn oil which has a shorter carbon chain and is therefor softer). The difference has nothing to do with whether or not antibiotics or hormones are used in production.
We need to stop confusing the issue of feed quality and production aids. Good feed makes for a better animal product. Synchronizing estrus is a tool for managing when calves are born, that has no effect on meat quality a year later. Anabolic hormones in feedlot cattle will effect the fat:Protein ratio in the animal, but not the quality of the fat, which as I already said is influenced by what feedstuffs are going into the ration.
Hormones and antibiotics have a bad rap. I've seen no evidence that they deserve it, and I've seen a lot of evidence that the bad rap is the result of a FUD campaign being pushed by animal rights groups, and health guru's that are trying to sell you something to cure all of your ills.
Soo, do you take off your tinfoil hat when you shower, or do you keep it on all the time??
I kid, I kid!!
Seriously though, where do you get your information?? I got mine by spending 12 years getting a BS, MS and PhD in animal science. There are more acres of land for manure spreading than manure to spread. Even if there weren't (and on some farms their isn't enough land), the manure is not dumped into the ocean.
One quick way to get shut down by the federal government is to get caught intentionally polluting the environment with animal waste. Even accidental pollution will get you shut down pretty quickly. The EPA requires all Concentrated Animal Production Facilities (CAFO's) to file Nutrient Management Plans, by which the farms indicate flow of nutrients onto (fertilizer, feedstuffs, etc.) and off of (animal products, waste, run-off, etc.) the farm and what exactly they are doing to prevent pollution. If your plan is not comprehensive enough, they can levy huge fines and ultimately shut you down. If you are found to have lied on your plan, or to be deviating from the plan then the same things can happen, fines or being shut down.
I'm guessing that you are not actually a tinfoil hat conspiracy theorist, but just (mis/un)informed. Try visiting the EPA's website and reading the rules on CAFO's. They are fairly dry and dense reading, but it's better to have facts to base your opinion on than a whole lot of nothing.
I fail to see what your post is really arguing with?? I said that consumers need to do the cost/benefit analysis as individuals. You did so and the Android phone won (Which one was it specifically? the different hardware offered by different vendors is an important variable).
If I am correct in assuming that you bought the Android phone, then you've done exactly what I said. You voted with your feet and bought the phone that was the best deal for you. I just fail to see what you gain by insisting that everyone else made the wrong choice without knowing their specific requirements.
One of my requirements is compatibility with iTunes, and to the best of my knowledge none of the Android phones are compatible. You obviously didn't place a lot of importance on that, I did. It's presence doesn't make the iPhone the best bet for everyone, just as its absence doesn't make the Android phone you used unacceptable to everyone. It call all be summed up with as "Different strokes for different folks."
As to the attempt at martyrdom "Go ahead now, mod me down into oblivion". Grow up. Throwing that onto the end of a non-controversial post (you Opinion is yours) is practically a guarantee of getting modded up by those that agree with your opinion. It a blatant attempt at karma whoring in my opinion. Just let your words stand on their own merit. There are plenty of anti-iphone people on/. and they are easily a match for the rabid Apple fanbois.
And the numbers can attest that Blackberry is the best selling smartphone and it didn't need to be locked down like the iPhone. It didn't need the 'Geek Stamp of Approval tm'. Its users are feeling comfortable purchasing it.
Good for Blackberry! I'm not making any claims as to the superiority of Apples business model for the iPhone. I was just pointing out that the things geeks tend to complain about with the iPhone don't matter to most consumers. However, in direct rebuttal, I only know 1 person that bought a Blackberry for them-self. Everyone else got it through work and have something else for their personal phone. Anecdotal, but to me is evidence that corporate IT is purchasing the majority of Blackberry's. Not a bad thing, but not necessarily the broad general consumer acceptance you make it out to be.
So instead of trying to let the publics voice be heard, you think its better to just be quiet and hope to problem will either be resolved by itself or quietly try to find an alternative? This is why they aren't getting fixed, its because of thoughts like that. If no one complains or they quietly find their own solution, whats truly broken or needs to be fixed? The problem isn't addressed. So the company really doesn't see a need to address anything.
No, I'm not saying anyone should be silenced. Who would really?? What I'm saying is that we've all heard the arguments ad nauseum and it's obvious that people are still buying iPhones. Why continue wasting your energy tilting at windmills?? If someone asks you for your opinion on the iPhone, let them have it with both barrels, but otherwise stop looking for excuses to bring the topic up if no one else does. That's all I'm saying.
As to this ball of half thought through comparisons and disproportionate vitriol:
Again, your solution is just remain quiet, roll over and give up. This is the worst idea possible. You expect people to 'buy a phone that best suites you' but to do that, you need to be informed of the product which can't be done since you expect everyone to ignore the problems found in them and be quiet. This isn't something a 9 year old does and looks like they are throwing a temper tantrum, its what people need to do to let the problem be known and address. Or would you say that the Vietnam war protests were just a bunch a 9 years olds having a tantrum? Maybe all the nations complaining then going to war against Hilter was just 9 year olds throwing a tantrum because hey, he was able to do it let him and just be quiet or everyone quietly find their own private solution? Maybe the fighting the civil war was just 9 year olds throwing a tantrum because hey, they always were slaves and that suits some of them, so quiet if you don't like that. Hell, the whole seeking independence from Europe must have been a horrible mistake to you because the people in North America didn't like the limitations being put upon them by Europe. Just like in this whole article, just replace North America with users, Europe with Apple and freedoms of use with seeking independence and you've got history repeating itself.
We are talking about a cell phone. Not international politics, nothing that could get anyone killed or reshape the map of wester Europe. Seriously, do you always jump off the deep end when looking for a comparison?? A sense of proportion is a good thing
I never said give up, I said vote with your feet. Buy the phone best suited to you, and quit bitching because a lot of people don't share your priorities in a cell phone. If people later end up regretting their decision, then you can jump up and down, pointing, laughing, and yelling "I told you so!!!" to your hearts content. But railing against their personal decision is just pointless.
Correction # 1: Cattle are not as sedentary as you may believe. Range raised beef cattle walk between 2.8 and 4 kilometers/day according to a 1991 study published the Journal of Animal Science. This means they are already doing a lot of walking. The real question is whether we can capture that energy they are already spending, and turn it into electricity at a price that is acceptable. (I doubt that they can, but I could be wrong)
Correction # 2: Exercise does not increase "stress byproduct" concentrations (what every that's supposed to mean), unless the exercise in forced. As I mentioned before, the animals already do a fair amount of walking on their own initiative. In that case the actions taken to force the exercize would be causing the stress, not the exercise itself.
Correction # 3: It is the intramuscular fat that is responsible for the great taste. Backfat is often cut off by consumers and not eaten due to texture issues, and sometime for cooking issues. Kobe beef is completely unlike anything raised for the general consumer market, so trying to draw conclusions based on that niche market is inadvisable.
I don't know how much time you actually spend watching cows walk, but they do a fair amount of it. In grazing situations, they can travel pretty far over the course of a day. I know, because I worked on a couple of dairy farms that incorporated grazing when possible. I had to track them down to bring them in for the evening milkings. However, with that being said I don't really see this being feasible, no matter how plausible.
I do know of a breed of pigs that is so lazy they'll sit down with their head in the feeder and not move unless forced. They are an older line, not used anymore in part because of how much fat they put down due to their sedentary nature.
How many generations are you separated from the farm Ellie??
Don't bother answering that, it's retorical. Animal production farms are always associated with crop production farms where the manure is spread on fields as fertilizer. Landfills are full of trash, not animal waste (unless you count cat and dog feces).
We don't feed 75% of our grain production to ruminants. We don't even feed 75% of our grain production to livestock (which includes pigs and poultry). According to the USDA, nearly a third (~ 4.25 billion bushels) of domestic corn production is expected to be used for ethanol in 2009/10. In the same season, ~5 billion bushels (~45%) will be used for "Feed and residual uses" which includes both human consumption and livestock use, and another ~2 billion bushels will be exported.
As to the original topic, putting cows on treadmills, I don't see it being feasible. Cows are rough on equipment, so the treadmills would need to be very robust. Cow manure is very corrosive, so they'd either have to use expensive equipment that is durable, or have a high rate of failure of various parts. I do have to admit though, that cows do a fair amount of walking in free stall barns, but I just don't see how you'd get them to use the treadmills instead of walking up and down the isles as they do now. IMO, it's a case of something being technically plausible, but ultimately unfeasible.
Definitely an intriguing idea though. I'd be interested to see if they could do something similar with an animal that is raised in a more confined environment, like a gestating sow. It would require that she get more food, but her appetite already oustrips what she's allowed to eat so that's not an issue (whereas dairy farmers don't want their cows to be wasting any of the energy that could be going into milk production, and the cows are already offered ad libitum feed). It would come down to whether the electricity a sow could generate would save the farmer more money over the increased feed, equipment, and management costs.
As the iPhone's market share numbers can attest. They've managed to make a device that does not require the Geek Stamp of Approval tm. for end users to feel comfortable purchasing. That means, as dzfoo points out, that these are specifically designed for end users. Since you are a geek, that means it was not designed for you. If you like it, I'm sure Apple will be happy to sell you one, but you are not the target demographic.
This whole topic is essentially a big whining fest. "I want to tinker with the iPhone, AND I want them to provide me support" It is perfectly acceptable for you to want it, but Apple is under no obligation to give it to you. After being a user of Apple computers for over a decade now, I can give you similar list of things I desired, but were never delived by other vendors (a decent version of MS office, functional Palm Sync client, stable and fully functioning Flash for mac, etc.). Those companies never decided that giving me what I wanted was important to them, and I just had to come to terms with that. I've learned to stop bitching about it and find alternatives if possible. If no alternatives exist I reassess how valuable those things are to me, and whether a different platform had a better cost/benefit ratio. No other platform ever did, although I seriously considered chucking Office 2008 in favor of virtualizing XP to run the Windows version of office, but I've made that calculation several dozen times over the years.
I have my own gripes about my iPhone, but the positives outweigh the minuses, and no other phone I've seen comes close as far as what matters the most to me featurewise. If the cost/benefit analysis doesn't add up for you in favor of the iPhone, that is fine. I'd just appreciate it if you'd (and I mean "You" in terms of the complainers, not you specifically) stop trying to convince me that I need to care about what you want in a phone, or that somehow my math is wrong. Buy the phone that best suites you, suggest it to like minded individuals, and shut up already. Complaining to everyone that you can't have your cake and eat it too just makes you (again, not necessarily YOU specifically) sound like they are 9 and throwing a temper tantrum.
Really? Because I'm not seeing the option to compile it and allow it to run on any hardware I want. Can you direct me to that part of the source code?
Can you direct me to a copy of the MS source code that isn't blanketed with NDA's??? [sarcasm] No access to source is definitely better than unrestricted access to some source with limits on what it can be used for. [/sarcasm]
Openness is not a radio button, either completely open or completely closed. Different companies have different attitudes toward Openness, based on how they see it benifiting them. Neither company is in business to give stuff away if they don't believe they'll get something of benefit back.
Apples OS is closed to the hardware, and the user-space is closed source, but the hardware is open to OS (windows, linux, etc.), and the kernel is open source (darwin), as are many of the technologies they've developed since moving to OSX (Grand Central for example).
Windows is not locked to hardware, but the entire OS is closed source, and the hoops they make paying customers jump through in order to prove they've paid is hardly in the spirit of open (in comparison to the complete lack of enforcement with regards to installing the single user license on every mac you come across).
NO, he's saying that having an open source kernel and a closed source user space is MORE OPEN than having a closed source kernel AND a closed source user space. It's not an "all or nothing" argument, neither is completely open, but OSX is simply more open.
There are plenty of legitimate gripes one can make about Apple (I've got my own list as an exclusively Mac person at home), and we all know the relevant ones for MS. Claiming that Apple is less open than MS is just plain stupid, and will be so until MS starts open sourcing large portions of its key OS technology (user space or kernel).
On the Apple platform, if you really want to hack, they always make it relatively easy to jailbreak. I doubt this is an accident.
Correction... They don't make it easy to jailbreak, but it is fairly cheap and simple to get a Developers License and add as many of your own apps to your iPhone OS powered device (iPod Touch, iPhone, iPad) as you like. They actually seem to be putting a fair amount of effort into making Jailbreaking more hassle than it's worth (they can't actually make it impossible, no matter how hard they try, IHO).
I agree, but it does imply causation. Sociology is a science built almost entirely on correlations detected in large sets of observational data. Since you can't control society under rigidly controlled conditions, correlation is all that is left. Conclusions are then drawn on the repeatability, and reliability of those correlations for predicting future behavior. It's not as cut and dry as a 2 x 2 factorial with an alpha of 0.05, but it can get the job done, eventually.
Your grandmother was probably much more emotionally mature at 19 than you or I were. It's not that 16 or 17 year old are incapable of being mature enough for sex, but that our culture is discouraging that development until much later in our lives. Physical maturity cannot be pushed back, but we've managed to make 20 year olds that are completely incapable of handling a pregnancy the norm. With that kind of stunted development, the average teenage mother is more teen than mother, no matter what her biology says.
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Speaking as one who's masters research was based around phytic acid, your theory doesn't stand up. The problem with phytic acid is that it is not digestible. That means the ingested phytic acid doesn't get absorbed, and is voided in the feces. The anti-nutritive effect of phytic acid is due to it being the principal storage form of Phosphorus in plants (> 75% of Phosphorus in dehulled solvent-extracted soybean meal) and a result of it binding to other nutrients and dragging them out with the feces as well.
My guess (educated, but still a guess) would be that the refusal you experienced is due to high circulating levels of blood urea nitrogen. Amino acids absorbed in excess of what can be used must be degraded. Part of the degradation process results in urea production, and the higher the protein degradation rate the higher the urea synthesis rate. There may be a point at which the liver and kidneys get overtaxed in their effort to synthesize and excrete urea, which in turn could make you feel like your body is telling you "No more!" I don't know of any research along these lines though, so this is pure speculation.
If that's true, then they've made a lot of progress in developing balanced vegan diets in the last 10 to 12 years. In the late 90's I was dating a vegan and she was on more than just B12, iron and Calcium. That doesn't change the general point that Veganism is dependent upon infrastructure. Soy needs to be processed quite heavily before it can be used as a sole source of protein. Aquaculture also requires infrastructure, but arguably less of it. I imagine that if they are trying to develop a self-sustaning colony, they'd use a combination of protein, energy, and vitamin sources.
Soy is an excellent plant source of protein. However, protein is not a single nutrient, but a collection of nutrients known as amino acids. Some amino acids can be synthesized by humans (non-essential or dispensible amino acids), others can be interconverted between each other, and others still have to be consumed intact because humans have innadequate ability to synthesize them (essential or indispensible amino acids). Generally, animal sources of protein have ratios of amino acids more in line with the human requirement (Egg being the gold standard).
one must also consider anti-nutritive factors in soy. Soy is the second most alergenic food to humans, and contains high concetrations of phytic acid. Phytic acid can reduce the digestibility not only of nutrients within the soy plant (P, Ca, Zn, Mn, et al), but also within other foods eaten with the soy.
Also, animal protein sources are much more dense. Fish contain a much higher percent protein in addition to having a better amino acid profile. Humans living on vegan diets usually take amino acid supplements because they cannot physically eat enough soy in a day to meet their dietary requirements for amino acids without feeling like they've eaten too much, if they can consume that much soy at all. A filet of fish goes a longer way toward meeting the nutritional requirement than an identical wieght of soy beans. If you want to isolate soy protein, then you need a lot of specialized equipment and some rather harsh chemicals to extract the protein whereas fish protein is simply extracted by mechanically scaling and gutting the fish.
Any potential Martian colonists will have a diet that bares little resemplence to the average American's diet now, but Veganisms is dependent upon modern infrastructure that would be difficult to replicate on Mars.
Ok, I've only had time to just glancing though this, but it appears to be a type of storage lagoon. I don't see any fundamental differences between this and the lagoons I described. They store effluent, and encourage it to breakdown. The lagoons at Purdue are 2 stage digesters, and this seems to be simply a different design with the same function.
Your anger and suspicion is not going to be a very effective argument against my formal training and experience. Calling me stupid, especially over a term that I did not create, is unlikely to help convince me either. Unlike you, I'm not basing my arguments on what appears to be vitriol and ignorance. If you intend to continue this discourse I'd appreciate if you'd refrain from mudslinging and maybe provide a little evidence to back up your claims as to the reasons for lagoons. I've read a fair amount of peer-reviewed research literature on lagoons, where are your 'facts' coming from??
Raw sewage can be toxic. But no one is talking about eating it, or spreading it on your salad. They are talking about spreading it on fields that grow primarily corn and soybeans for livestock. It has just as much bacteria when it enters the lagoon as it does when it is applied to the land. That is what makes feces dangerous, the bacteria not the undigested organic matter. Lagoons allow the bacteria to further degrade the manure and liberate nutrients bound up in that undigested organic matter, or in bedding (straw and wood shavings can end up in lagoons as well as feces, urine and wasted feed), whether it fits into your world view or not.
I agree that holding ponds can be a health hazard. That's why they are usually located in the middle of the farm, as far from the road and the neighbors as possible. As long as you don't climb into them, and they are well constructed, then they are a manageable risk just like storing heating oil in a tank in your basement (common in the north east US), or a propane tank on your back porch. That is the reason for the state and federal regulations. In fact, when I was working on a dairy in CT a heifer got away from us when being moved between barns and ran straight off of the cement ramp that we used for pushing manure into the lagoon. She floated (thanks to her rumen) for about 20 min before we were able to get a lasso around her neck and drag her back to the ramp. She was covered from head to foot in manure by the time she got out, and after rinsing her down the with the hose, had no lasting negative effects. She didn't get sick, go off feed, or loose the fetus she was carrying.
Besides, the government doesn't just trust that farmers are going to be good stewards of that potential risk. They ensure it through laws and procedures that force the farmer to prove that they are being responsible. Farms operate on razor thin margins, when profitable at all (we recently went through a period of 2 years where most pork producers lost money on every hog due in part to feed prices), and no one can really afford to face fines or waste the nutrient value of manure (inorganic fertilizers are expensive).
The alternative to lagoons is to spread the manure on land as soon as possible. Either directly by the animal (grazing situation) or by frequent use of manure spreaders (like the MA diary I described above). Either way the manure still needs to be spread, its just that the risks and benefits differ from each scenario. Grazing requires far too much land for current production levels on the large scale. Isolated operations can do it, but it just doesn't scale to meet nation (never mind international) demand. Frequent application to avoid lagoons is also not really feasible on the medium to large scale based on the costs associated (time, fuel, equipment, wasted nutrients, potential for run off in the winter) with this method.
Hey, if you've got another method that was cost competitive, and further reduced the risks I'd be glad to hear it. I could even call a couple of people in Ag Engineering, or in other departments at various Universities to see what they thought of it. There are a lot of smart people trying to address these questions (I tend to think of myself as one of them, but I am by no means among the smartest) and they are constantly coming up with ideas and evaluating them. Your interest is appreciated, but your armchair quarterbacking is not
yeah, I'd take the word of Rolling Stone at face value. Their investigative journalism is what they are known for. All that stuff about glorifying the excesses of Sex, Drugs, and Rock 'n Roll is just noise. [/sarcasm]
As someone with advanced degrees in animal science (non-ruminant nutrition specifically) I feel confident in stating that no one sprays their manure into the air thinking it's going to vanish. First off their is gravity which then pulls it back down to earth. Any sprayed manure is only dispersed this way in order to get it onto ground that needs fertilizing. Second, their are the laws of conservation of mass and energy, and I doubt most farmers expect airborne manure to simply undergo spontaneous conversion into energy.
I also feel confident that Rolling Stone didn't bother talking to anyone in the EPA about the dumping of manure into rivers. Anyone caught doing that faces hefty fines, and can have their farm taken away. Any Concentrated Animal Feeding Operation (CAFO) is required to file a nutrient management plan outlining the flow of nutrients onto (Fertilizer, imported feedstuffs, nutrient supplements, etc.) and off of (grain, animals, milk, wool, manure, etc.) the farm, with the goal being no net change (any Nitrogen coming onto the farm is matched by Nitrogen leaving the farm for example). Anyone caught deviating from the plan, or lying on the application faces very serious consequences from the state and federal governments.
As to holding tanks, what could possibly be the problem with those. They allow the farms to hold the manure until spring when it is most advantageous to use it as fertilizer. Do you really want farmers to be spreading manure in January and February? Any manure spread onto snow will simply run off into surface water when the snow melts, but the ground is still frozen. While in holding tanks, the manure breaks down further due to the action of microbes, thus increasing the nutrient availability for the plants when the manure is later applied to cropland. This degradation also has the effect of reducing total volume (water vapor and gas emissions, combined with breakdown of larger structures). Some progressive farms have taken to capturing the methane produced by this microbial fermentation and then burning it to generate electricity. Some even generate enough electricity to sell the surplus back to the grid. Others have started separating the solids from the liquid, composting the solids and selling them as fertilizer for gardens.
Please try reading something from an organization that is actually involved in agriculture before making your final judgement.
The lagoons (the proper term) are artificial constructs. They are not natural ponds that were converted into waste holding sites. They are designed by engineers and constructed specifically for the purpose of storing waste. The EPA has rules governing their construction, one of which being that they must be large enough to contain all of the waste generated by the farm for 12-18 months, and have sufficient extra storage capacity to be able to stand up to a 100-year storm event. Essentially they have to be big enough to hold all the waste, plus all of the extra water from the largest rainfall event the farm is likely to experience this century.
Now, these lagoons can occasionally leak, but that is why they need to be inspected periodically. Engineers come out and look over the walls of the lagoon, take samples from local surface and well water, and if there is a problem with the lagoon they require it be fixed or replaced.
Under normal operations a lagoon is filled over the course of the year (running generally from late spring to the end of winter) and then the contents of the lagoon are spread on fields as fertilizer. The lagoons are rarely drained completely, but they reach an equilibrium where the amount remaining in the lagoon each year after the farm is done fertilizing is roughly the same from year to year. The lagoons act not only as a reservior for the manure, but as a digester as you indicated. They break down much of the wasted feed (pigs are pigs after all) or previously undigested organic matter in the feces. This acts to do 2 things. First it increases the availability of nutrients in the manure, making it a better fertilizer. Second, it results in a reduction in the total amount of waste. Methane, H2SO4, and various other gasses are produced by the microbes in the lagoon as part of the digestion process. There have been various attempts to capitalize on the Methane production specifically, and a lot of work has been done on trying to reduce the production of noxious odors like H2SO4. I have even seen farms which utilize equipment to separate the solid parts of the waste from the liquid. The solid is then composted and sold as garden fertilizer, and the left over liquid is then used as both fertilizer and irrigation. However, it is feces after all and there is no reason to expect it to smell like roses.
As to the "economic damage", I would disagree. The on farm jobs, and down stream jobs that animal production creates (truck drivers, slaughterhouse employees, grocery stores, local butcher blocks, meat inspectors, etc.) are a net positive for the economy. These lagoons do not routinely leak, and anyone making claims to the contrary have a political axe to grind in my experience (PETA, ELF, ALF, etc.). Hell, you even indicate where some progressive farmers are using the methane to create extra profit for themselves by selling back surplus electricity to the grid (which the electric companies in some areas are not actually pleased about according to a dairy farmer I met from California).
Basically your view contains all real components of animal manure handling, but is based on an mistaken impression as to the prevalence of leaks, which happen rarely and a very big deal when they happen (as opposed to being glossed over) and the true purpose of a lagoon. The lagoons exist to improve the fertilizer value of manure, and hold it so that it can be spread at the best time of the year for cropping (spring around planting time). I worked on a very small dairy in MA that did not have a lagoon. They utilized straw and a recessed lane in the floor with a chain that dragged the dirty straw and manure out to a pile. They were forced to spread manure every couple of months in the summer because they didn't have enough storage space to go all winter. They were a small operation as I said (~30 milking cows at a time) so much of the regulations don't apply to them, and fortunately they didn't have any surface water close to their farm (no streams, brooks, lakes, or ro
Don't worry about that too much. MS has been trying to copy Apple for a while. It has gotten more obvious with Vista, Windows 7, Zune, and now Windows Phone 7 (or what ever they are calling it today). I'd start worrying (if it actually matter to me) if Blackberry and Android started copying Apples business model.
My specialty is in Nutrition, but we have a very active Animal Behavior group at Purdue (MS and PhD), and I learned quite a bit about stress physiology.
Stress can be measured using various different metrics. The most popular is measuring plasma cortisol levels, as I stated before. However, a friend of mine's Ph.D. work was in trying to develop a multi-diciplinary method for evaluating the status of pigs during transportation. He looked at blood chemistry (cortisol among others), behavior (aggression, vocalization, etc.), body temp, and a 4th category that I can't remember.
The problem with "common sense" arguments in the absence of even basic knowledge on the topic, is that you are ill prepared to know what actually makes sense. It's not just you, I'm sure that your field of expertise (what ever that is) there are issues that I'm ill prepared to make "common sense" judgements. For that reason I try to avoid posting on issues in which I am unprepared, accept to ask questions. I also try to avoid getting snarky when someone points out just how off base my "common sense" arguments are from reality.
Comparing Apples policy to the Vietnam war is excessively simplistic and completely disproportionate at the same time. The soldiers who were sent to Vietnam had no choice, nor did the majority of Vietnamese who were caught in the middle (whereas you can buy any phone you want). As I and others have pointed out repeatedly, you (and everyone else for that matter) are free to not buy an iPhone, thus making the comparison largely irrelevant. Trying to use vivd imagery of a violent political conflict in which most of those who died would have rather been left out of it, is just cheap mudslinging.
Apple is not "Taking" anything away from you, it is stating up-front that you can buy this device, they are going to provide certain services for the device such as firmware updates and the App Store. They tell you up front that you can only buy apps they approve of, with certain classes of applications being forbidden. Other platforms market themselves based on the fact that they offer features lacking from the iPhone ecosystem. As Babyrat points out, they can't stop you from jailbreaking your phone. In fact, they could't stop you from writing your own OS for the phone from scratch. They just don't have to make it easy for you to use their device in a method other than intended.
Only someone living under a rock is unaware of the tradeoffs, and if they are looking into the iPhone I'm sure they'll run across more criticism than they can read in a life time if they simply Google "iPhone". As I said before, it's not that anyone should be silenced. You are free to keep complaining, I'm just getting incredibly tired of reading it over and over and over and over and over and over (get the picture). Unless you've got a NEW complaint or REASONABLE comparison Let it GO already.
WTF are "Stress byproducts" I've seen several people refer to them, but as an animal scientist I have NO IDEA what you are talking about. By-products implies that they were something else that then broke down. AFAIK, stress is measured in body fluids by measuring stress hormones such as cortisol. No one measures for the breakdown products of cortisol, because as a steroid hormone, they are the same chemicals that result from the breakdown of testosterone, estrogen, etc.
The fact that the OP is using words like "Stress byproducts" indicates that they have no real understanding of stress physiology and they are talking out of their ass.
FUD check
There are no "Requisite steroids, antibiotics and other chemicals fed to cows." Sick animals get treated (would you prefer that they suffer?), and as a result they are more expensive (Pharmaceuticals are expensive no matter who get them) than healthier animals. The trick is to keep the animals healthy while they grow, or go out of business paying your Veterinarian to treat your herd. Hormones are often used to synchronize Estrus (think the birth control pill), and to increase lean gain during the final stages of the Finishing period (and nothing prevents them from being fed to grass fed beef BTW).
None of these are the reason that grass fed beef tastes different (and I agree it is a better taste). The difference is the lipid that is deposited is of higher quality in grass fed beef (synthesized from the volatile fatty acids that are produced by the rumen microbes) as opposed to grain fed beef (a higher proportion of the fat is derived from corn oil which has a shorter carbon chain and is therefor softer). The difference has nothing to do with whether or not antibiotics or hormones are used in production.
We need to stop confusing the issue of feed quality and production aids. Good feed makes for a better animal product. Synchronizing estrus is a tool for managing when calves are born, that has no effect on meat quality a year later. Anabolic hormones in feedlot cattle will effect the fat:Protein ratio in the animal, but not the quality of the fat, which as I already said is influenced by what feedstuffs are going into the ration.
Hormones and antibiotics have a bad rap. I've seen no evidence that they deserve it, and I've seen a lot of evidence that the bad rap is the result of a FUD campaign being pushed by animal rights groups, and health guru's that are trying to sell you something to cure all of your ills.
Soo, do you take off your tinfoil hat when you shower, or do you keep it on all the time??
I kid, I kid!!
Seriously though, where do you get your information?? I got mine by spending 12 years getting a BS, MS and PhD in animal science. There are more acres of land for manure spreading than manure to spread. Even if there weren't (and on some farms their isn't enough land), the manure is not dumped into the ocean.
One quick way to get shut down by the federal government is to get caught intentionally polluting the environment with animal waste. Even accidental pollution will get you shut down pretty quickly. The EPA requires all Concentrated Animal Production Facilities (CAFO's) to file Nutrient Management Plans, by which the farms indicate flow of nutrients onto (fertilizer, feedstuffs, etc.) and off of (animal products, waste, run-off, etc.) the farm and what exactly they are doing to prevent pollution. If your plan is not comprehensive enough, they can levy huge fines and ultimately shut you down. If you are found to have lied on your plan, or to be deviating from the plan then the same things can happen, fines or being shut down.
I'm guessing that you are not actually a tinfoil hat conspiracy theorist, but just (mis/un)informed. Try visiting the EPA's website and reading the rules on CAFO's. They are fairly dry and dense reading, but it's better to have facts to base your opinion on than a whole lot of nothing.
I fail to see what your post is really arguing with?? I said that consumers need to do the cost/benefit analysis as individuals. You did so and the Android phone won (Which one was it specifically? the different hardware offered by different vendors is an important variable).
/. and they are easily a match for the rabid Apple fanbois.
If I am correct in assuming that you bought the Android phone, then you've done exactly what I said. You voted with your feet and bought the phone that was the best deal for you. I just fail to see what you gain by insisting that everyone else made the wrong choice without knowing their specific requirements.
One of my requirements is compatibility with iTunes, and to the best of my knowledge none of the Android phones are compatible. You obviously didn't place a lot of importance on that, I did. It's presence doesn't make the iPhone the best bet for everyone, just as its absence doesn't make the Android phone you used unacceptable to everyone. It call all be summed up with as "Different strokes for different folks."
As to the attempt at martyrdom "Go ahead now, mod me down into oblivion". Grow up. Throwing that onto the end of a non-controversial post (you Opinion is yours) is practically a guarantee of getting modded up by those that agree with your opinion. It a blatant attempt at karma whoring in my opinion. Just let your words stand on their own merit. There are plenty of anti-iphone people on
And the numbers can attest that Blackberry is the best selling smartphone and it didn't need to be locked down like the iPhone. It didn't need the 'Geek Stamp of Approval tm'. Its users are feeling comfortable purchasing it.
Good for Blackberry! I'm not making any claims as to the superiority of Apples business model for the iPhone. I was just pointing out that the things geeks tend to complain about with the iPhone don't matter to most consumers. However, in direct rebuttal, I only know 1 person that bought a Blackberry for them-self. Everyone else got it through work and have something else for their personal phone. Anecdotal, but to me is evidence that corporate IT is purchasing the majority of Blackberry's. Not a bad thing, but not necessarily the broad general consumer acceptance you make it out to be.
So instead of trying to let the publics voice be heard, you think its better to just be quiet and hope to problem will either be resolved by itself or quietly try to find an alternative? This is why they aren't getting fixed, its because of thoughts like that. If no one complains or they quietly find their own solution, whats truly broken or needs to be fixed? The problem isn't addressed. So the company really doesn't see a need to address anything.
No, I'm not saying anyone should be silenced. Who would really?? What I'm saying is that we've all heard the arguments ad nauseum and it's obvious that people are still buying iPhones. Why continue wasting your energy tilting at windmills?? If someone asks you for your opinion on the iPhone, let them have it with both barrels, but otherwise stop looking for excuses to bring the topic up if no one else does. That's all I'm saying.
As to this ball of half thought through comparisons and disproportionate vitriol:
Again, your solution is just remain quiet, roll over and give up. This is the worst idea possible. You expect people to 'buy a phone that best suites you' but to do that, you need to be informed of the product which can't be done since you expect everyone to ignore the problems found in them and be quiet. This isn't something a 9 year old does and looks like they are throwing a temper tantrum, its what people need to do to let the problem be known and address. Or would you say that the Vietnam war protests were just a bunch a 9 years olds having a tantrum? Maybe all the nations complaining then going to war against Hilter was just 9 year olds throwing a tantrum because hey, he was able to do it let him and just be quiet or everyone quietly find their own private solution? Maybe the fighting the civil war was just 9 year olds throwing a tantrum because hey, they always were slaves and that suits some of them, so quiet if you don't like that. Hell, the whole seeking independence from Europe must have been a horrible mistake to you because the people in North America didn't like the limitations being put upon them by Europe. Just like in this whole article, just replace North America with users, Europe with Apple and freedoms of use with seeking independence and you've got history repeating itself.
We are talking about a cell phone. Not international politics, nothing that could get anyone killed or reshape the map of wester Europe. Seriously, do you always jump off the deep end when looking for a comparison?? A sense of proportion is a good thing
I never said give up, I said vote with your feet. Buy the phone best suited to you, and quit bitching because a lot of people don't share your priorities in a cell phone. If people later end up regretting their decision, then you can jump up and down, pointing, laughing, and yelling "I told you so!!!" to your hearts content. But railing against their personal decision is just pointless.
Correction # 1:
Cattle are not as sedentary as you may believe. Range raised beef cattle walk between 2.8 and 4 kilometers/day according to a 1991 study published the Journal of Animal Science. This means they are already doing a lot of walking. The real question is whether we can capture that energy they are already spending, and turn it into electricity at a price that is acceptable. (I doubt that they can, but I could be wrong)
Correction # 2:
Exercise does not increase "stress byproduct" concentrations (what every that's supposed to mean), unless the exercise in forced. As I mentioned before, the animals already do a fair amount of walking on their own initiative. In that case the actions taken to force the exercize would be causing the stress, not the exercise itself.
Correction # 3:
It is the intramuscular fat that is responsible for the great taste. Backfat is often cut off by consumers and not eaten due to texture issues, and sometime for cooking issues. Kobe beef is completely unlike anything raised for the general consumer market, so trying to draw conclusions based on that niche market is inadvisable.
I don't know how much time you actually spend watching cows walk, but they do a fair amount of it. In grazing situations, they can travel pretty far over the course of a day. I know, because I worked on a couple of dairy farms that incorporated grazing when possible. I had to track them down to bring them in for the evening milkings. However, with that being said I don't really see this being feasible, no matter how plausible.
I do know of a breed of pigs that is so lazy they'll sit down with their head in the feeder and not move unless forced. They are an older line, not used anymore in part because of how much fat they put down due to their sedentary nature.
How many generations are you separated from the farm Ellie??
Don't bother answering that, it's retorical. Animal production farms are always associated with crop production farms where the manure is spread on fields as fertilizer. Landfills are full of trash, not animal waste (unless you count cat and dog feces).
We don't feed 75% of our grain production to ruminants. We don't even feed 75% of our grain production to livestock (which includes pigs and poultry). According to the USDA, nearly a third (~ 4.25 billion bushels) of domestic corn production is expected to be used for ethanol in 2009/10. In the same season, ~5 billion bushels (~45%) will be used for "Feed and residual uses" which includes both human consumption and livestock use, and another ~2 billion bushels will be exported.
As to the original topic, putting cows on treadmills, I don't see it being feasible. Cows are rough on equipment, so the treadmills would need to be very robust. Cow manure is very corrosive, so they'd either have to use expensive equipment that is durable, or have a high rate of failure of various parts. I do have to admit though, that cows do a fair amount of walking in free stall barns, but I just don't see how you'd get them to use the treadmills instead of walking up and down the isles as they do now. IMO, it's a case of something being technically plausible, but ultimately unfeasible.
Definitely an intriguing idea though. I'd be interested to see if they could do something similar with an animal that is raised in a more confined environment, like a gestating sow. It would require that she get more food, but her appetite already oustrips what she's allowed to eat so that's not an issue (whereas dairy farmers don't want their cows to be wasting any of the energy that could be going into milk production, and the cows are already offered ad libitum feed). It would come down to whether the electricity a sow could generate would save the farmer more money over the increased feed, equipment, and management costs.
As the iPhone's market share numbers can attest. They've managed to make a device that does not require the Geek Stamp of Approval tm. for end users to feel comfortable purchasing. That means, as dzfoo points out, that these are specifically designed for end users. Since you are a geek, that means it was not designed for you. If you like it, I'm sure Apple will be happy to sell you one, but you are not the target demographic.
This whole topic is essentially a big whining fest. "I want to tinker with the iPhone, AND I want them to provide me support" It is perfectly acceptable for you to want it, but Apple is under no obligation to give it to you. After being a user of Apple computers for over a decade now, I can give you similar list of things I desired, but were never delived by other vendors (a decent version of MS office, functional Palm Sync client, stable and fully functioning Flash for mac, etc.). Those companies never decided that giving me what I wanted was important to them, and I just had to come to terms with that. I've learned to stop bitching about it and find alternatives if possible. If no alternatives exist I reassess how valuable those things are to me, and whether a different platform had a better cost/benefit ratio. No other platform ever did, although I seriously considered chucking Office 2008 in favor of virtualizing XP to run the Windows version of office, but I've made that calculation several dozen times over the years.
I have my own gripes about my iPhone, but the positives outweigh the minuses, and no other phone I've seen comes close as far as what matters the most to me featurewise. If the cost/benefit analysis doesn't add up for you in favor of the iPhone, that is fine. I'd just appreciate it if you'd (and I mean "You" in terms of the complainers, not you specifically) stop trying to convince me that I need to care about what you want in a phone, or that somehow my math is wrong. Buy the phone that best suites you, suggest it to like minded individuals, and shut up already. Complaining to everyone that you can't have your cake and eat it too just makes you (again, not necessarily YOU specifically) sound like they are 9 and throwing a temper tantrum.
I'll defer to the judgment of the IP lawyers at FSF as to the Open Source Credentials of Darwin, over some guy with an axe to grind against Apple on /.
Really? Because I'm not seeing the option to compile it and allow it to run on any hardware I want. Can you direct me to that part of the source code?
Can you direct me to a copy of the MS source code that isn't blanketed with NDA's??? [sarcasm] No access to source is definitely better than unrestricted access to some source with limits on what it can be used for. [/sarcasm]
Openness is not a radio button, either completely open or completely closed. Different companies have different attitudes toward Openness, based on how they see it benifiting them. Neither company is in business to give stuff away if they don't believe they'll get something of benefit back.
Apples OS is closed to the hardware, and the user-space is closed source, but the hardware is open to OS (windows, linux, etc.), and the kernel is open source (darwin), as are many of the technologies they've developed since moving to OSX (Grand Central for example).
Windows is not locked to hardware, but the entire OS is closed source, and the hoops they make paying customers jump through in order to prove they've paid is hardly in the spirit of open (in comparison to the complete lack of enforcement with regards to installing the single user license on every mac you come across).
NO, he's saying that having an open source kernel and a closed source user space is MORE OPEN than having a closed source kernel AND a closed source user space. It's not an "all or nothing" argument, neither is completely open, but OSX is simply more open.
There are plenty of legitimate gripes one can make about Apple (I've got my own list as an exclusively Mac person at home), and we all know the relevant ones for MS. Claiming that Apple is less open than MS is just plain stupid, and will be so until MS starts open sourcing large portions of its key OS technology (user space or kernel).
On the Apple platform, if you really want to hack, they always make it relatively easy to jailbreak. I doubt this is an accident.
Correction... They don't make it easy to jailbreak, but it is fairly cheap and simple to get a Developers License and add as many of your own apps to your iPhone OS powered device (iPod Touch, iPhone, iPad) as you like. They actually seem to be putting a fair amount of effort into making Jailbreaking more hassle than it's worth (they can't actually make it impossible, no matter how hard they try, IHO).
I agree, but it does imply causation. Sociology is a science built almost entirely on correlations detected in large sets of observational data. Since you can't control society under rigidly controlled conditions, correlation is all that is left. Conclusions are then drawn on the repeatability, and reliability of those correlations for predicting future behavior. It's not as cut and dry as a 2 x 2 factorial with an alpha of 0.05, but it can get the job done, eventually.
Your grandmother was probably much more emotionally mature at 19 than you or I were. It's not that 16 or 17 year old are incapable of being mature enough for sex, but that our culture is discouraging that development until much later in our lives. Physical maturity cannot be pushed back, but we've managed to make 20 year olds that are completely incapable of handling a pregnancy the norm. With that kind of stunted development, the average teenage mother is more teen than mother, no matter what her biology says.