I find it hard to imagine that it could be replaced by anything worse.
I don't. I imagine Iran, Saudi Arabia, and China having a say in the operation of the world's biggest experiment in free speech and shudder. As much as I dislike the state of affairs in Washington DC and you dislike ICANN, it could get a LOT worse. Do you want countries that murder people who don't agree with the state religion having a say in DNS? That run over protesters with tanks? In the USA, the only online activity that'll really put you behind bars is one you deserve it for: child porn. In Saudi Arabia or China, suggesting that the wonderful government might possibly not be doing the best job running the country will get you shot.
If we're going to have multilateral control of DNS, then at least everyone who has control should have to sign an Internet Bill of Rights...
Lack of is not equal to against. Do you believe in His Noodly Greatness? No? You must be anti-FSM. "But I don't believe that the Flying Spagetti Monster exists; how can I be 'against' something I don't even believe in?" The world is not black and white, it's shades of gray.
People who do not believe in your religion/are not 'with you' are a lot more likely to be neutral than against. If you are convinced that they ARE against you and take things to their logical conclusion, you end up with the situation depicted in Stargate SG-1 season 9.
Imagine a bug that can convert cellulose to alcohol.
!!! I imagine the horror of having all photographic film (the base is cellulose acetate) disintegrate if it gets out. I also imagine that Rockland Colloid would see a surge in buys of tintype kits that the bugs can't eat.:)
If the experiment succeeds (say, using instead DNA instead of PNA), it proves that life is indeed intelligent design
No, it proves that life can be intelligently designed. If it can be purpose done in a lab, why is so hard to imagine it happening by chance when you have an entire primordial planet covered in organic goo?
Re:Source of creation, or evolution?
on
The Los Alamos Bug
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
Simple - the first life wasn't a cell. It was a bit of DNA or RNA floating in a sea rich in organic chemicals. Eventually the bits of what we'd call genes which created proteins that formed a crude shell were more likely to survive (some insulation against changing conditions). Then this little viruslike thingy got in and started making ATP and the cell ended up using that for fuel; The virus-thingy became a mitochondria. Then these simple cells competed and started adding dongles to help them compete. And then the perpetual arms race began, all the cells trying to 1-up each other with the newest addition or minor tweak.
But for each 'stage' I described I probably left out 20 or 30 others...
What are you talking about? Tamiflu is a drug that you can take shortly after flu symptoms appear to reduce the severity of your illness, 10 pills in 5 days. The only thing that can prevent you from getting H5N1 is a vaccine and several weeks for your immune system to prepare.
I think that if the USA isn't going to retain exclusive control of DNS, then any nation that wants a part in control of the authoritative DNS servers (USA/ICANN included) should have to sign an 'internet bill of rights' acknowledging the following:
A primary purpose of the Internet is freedom of speech. All signatories agree to never attempt to censor the Internet (Yes, France, that includes speech you find detestable like Nazi artifacts on E-Bay). Will be opposed by America's Religious Right in their crusade against evil internet porn, countries that hate freedom like China, North Korea, and Saudi Arabia, and possibly France (see above).
The Internet is a tool for communication. Signatories will never disrupt DNS or Internet service to anyone as a form of retaliation or attack (Yes, USA, that means no breaking Iraq's DNS when you invade it). Will be opposed by the military who want to do exactly that.
The Internet is a tool for peace. Signatories will never engage in 'cyberwarfare' to disrupt services (No, North Korea... BAD dictator... BAD!). Someone get Kim Jong Il some anti-paranoia and anti-psychotic medication...
The Internet is a democratic endeavor. Signatories and nonsignatories alike are free to establish their own DNS service if they wish, without fear of retribution or attack, physical or electronic (If you really hate freedom so much, China, set up your own DNS and leave ours alone). Will be opposed by USA because we like our monopoly.
Signatories who violate the above rules will forfeit their say in control of DNS for a time deemed appropriate by other signatories, not less than 6 months and not more than 10 years.
Although I think that the USA/ICANN have done a good job handling DNS thus far and don't see any reason to change the status quo without a reason, I find that sharing control of DNS is preferable to fracturing DNS.
"Insightful -- An Insightful statement makes you think, puts a new spin on a given story (or aspect of a story). An analogy you hadn't thought of, or a telling counterexample, are examples of Insightful comments."
I can't believe that 100% of the mods who read this post can honestly say 'That didn't make me think at all.' Here's a little hint: That you don't agree with something doesn't make it flamebait. This is one of the dangers of the Internet, that it allows people and groups to create 'echo chambers' and only hear what they want to hear. And those fools who do will never learn anything by it.
This apparently was a bird flu strain. probably we are all descended from people who survived the 1918 flu (my great grandmother had it and lived I am hoping I got the right genes from her).
The only people on earth that didn't inhale the 1918 flu were south pacific islanders, so unless you are descended from them then your grand and great grandparents did have to survive it. However, your great grandmother's genes can't help you with H5N1 because flu pandemics only happen when influenza mutates into something unknown to the human immune system, rendering the normal immune response insufficient.
Just to nitpick, there is no cure for Influenza. There is a vaccine (World production capacity enough for ~40 million people per year absolute max), there's Tamiflu (useful if given within 2 days of first symptoms; World supply is barely enough for 2/3 of the USA), and several promising treatments being developed (none of which has gotten to animal tests yet). I think there's one more human treatment I forgot.
It is going to suck so bad when H5N1 goes pandemic...
I didn't imply that there was no waste. I said that any large-scale mining produces lots of nasty tailings. And even if getting 1 ton of uranium makes 1000 tons of tailings, you have to mine 16000 times less of it (bottom of page) than you would coal to get the same amount of energy. I meant that although neither coal nor uranium are much better in terms of environmental damage caused by mining them, spent fuel rods can be dealt with more easily than millions of tons of CO2.
I could likewise ask if those 'pushing' fossil fuel power think about the lakes utterly destroyed by acid rain, the contribution of global warming, and the harmful affects of the pollution on people. There is no such thing as a free lunch. Extracting mass quantities of anything from the ground has unpleasant side effects, be it uranium or coal or borax (I got to visit the mine in Boron, CA once - biggest hole in the ground I've ever seen).
But in the end, a year's spent fuel from a 1 gigawatt nuclear reactor would fit in a little bucket you could do as you wished with (Like, say, bury it in a mountain and forget about it). A year's carbon dioxide from a gigawatt coal plant is released and then uncontrollable.
Yes, yes - compare a one-letter mistake to a translation that's marginally understandable due mainly to amusingly corrupted grammar. Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.
To learn German than try and untangle that horrible babelfish translation. The funny part was that I read about 4 paragraphs before realizing it was a Babelfish translation, and the whole time wondered what incompetant wrote it:P
I read this article on NewScientist.com a few hours ago. Marijuana DOES NOT INDUCE BRAIN CELL GROWTH. When they tried using THC from pot, it did not induce new cell growth regardless of dose or duration.
I'd prefer if you ask ME next time before declaring that I'm a religious fundamentalist, warmongering, ignorant American who hates Europe. Because if you did, you'd know that I'm an atheist, opponent of the War for Oil, able to name and locate most of Europe on a map, and have no particular bias against Europe.
All I was saying is that if you acknowledge that America's handling of DNS isn't 'broken,' you should be wary of those who wish to fix it.
It becomes their obligation when they know that a buyer has no intention of using the positive features positively. If you know that someone buys lots of blank tapes, subscribes to every movie channel in existance, and makes a lot of trips to the Post Office, is it right to sell them a VCR even though you know perfectly well what it will be used for? I don't think it's right to sell something that can be misused to someone who you know will misuse it.
We don't let perverts live near elementary schools, we don't let felons buy guns, so why should we sell censorware to the PRC? Not to say that it will stop any of the above, but isn't it our moral duty to not make it easier?
Because the GNU/Linux community writes software in the general hope that others will find it useful. These companies (TFA not working - 'cyclic link found') are helping those whose stated agenda is to violate freedom of speech and doing it for a profit.
Comparing the OSS community to them is like comparing ChemLabs to an international arms dealer: Sure, you COULD use the information there to synthesize a dozen different explosives and toxins, but that's against the spirit and express intention of the page, and he won't help you with it. An arms dealer will sell you guns, bombs, and nerve gas, and show you exactly how to use them - just bring money.
The fact is that it has done a DAMN good job thus far managing DNS, and despite some hiccups, the First Admendment is still in affect here. Freedom of speech must be absolute short of causing immediate physical threat to people like shouting FIRE in the theater. The only way not to start down the slippery slope of censorship, especially when it's as easy as changing a DNS entry, is to not take that first step.
And who exactly is it that wants control of DNS? France, so they can shut down Nazi websites and threaten E-Bay into removing WWII memorabilia listings? China, so they can be absolutely sure that their population is ignorant of anything the Glorious People's Revolution doesn't want them to know about (like say, Tinamannen Square or the Great Leap Backwards)? Iran and Saudi Arabia, so they can block out the evil west and keep their people from finding out that all Westerners are not, in fact, evil blood-crazed monsters who want to destroy them? Cuba and North Korea, so they can block the websites of the Evil Capitalist Exploiters of the Common Man?
In other words, politicians whose agenda involves using DNS to censor the Internet and pervert it into nothing more than a state-controlled interactive TV. Say what you will, but so far the United States has done a remarkably good, fair, and unbiased job of handling DNS. Those who want to take control hate the fact that it's been fair and unbiased because they want to use it against their 'opponents.'
Dear North Korea, Iran, Saudi Arabia, France, China, Russia and co: Leave your meatspace BS in meatspace. I refuse to let your petty bureaucratic empire-building destroy the greatest medium of information exchange ever to exist.
The potential for unlimited donations by paying for candidates' internet advertising opens an enormous loophole for corporations, unions, and the rich to unduly influence the electoral and legislative process. I don't believe that there is much point in trying to regulate it - Just as no code is absolutely secure, no law is absolutely airtight. Companies and CEOs pay their lawyers millions and tens of millions of dollars to find the cracks that allow them to continue funnelling money to Congress. The amount of effort that would be necessary to make the effort to evade the law beyond the return on investment is beyond what we can afford to expend.
If we can't stop it, the next best thing is to make it obvious what's going on. Rather than dicking around trying to regulate campaign financing which really only regulates the average person who can't afford to evade the law, simply require that all candidates for office report who payed them for what and make it available via the internet.
OpenSecrets.org is a good start. But some things need to change. Let's take a look at, oh say, a certain Texas house representative: First, make the 6.6% Undisclosed go away. Then increase the granularity of the information available. Name major business, PAC, and single-issue donors (Say, those whose donations are > N% of the total) so we know specifically who is brib^H^H^H^Hsupporting the good representative. Finally, provide a breakdown of personal donations based on income. Specifically, a pie graph depicting money donated from people with incomes under $50K, from people between 50 and 100K, etc for 100-200K, 200K-1M, 1M-10M, and 10M+ yearly income donors. This information would be provided to OpenSecrets by the candidates themselves, who would in turn have to collect it from donors.
OpenSecrets.org should also be given an amount of money proportional the amount spent by the candidates (say, 5% or 10% thereof) to advertise itself in a nonpartisan way so we can be sure that the information they collect is in fact used.
This way, we'll be able to accurately correlate donations with legislation and know, rather than guess, who is in fact a corporate whore. This will also compel corporate and union donors to keep themselves in check, lest their candidate be branded a sellout to special interests or the rich. Rather than trying to regulate greed, trick it into regulating itself.
"Real photo paper" means it's silver halide and dyes, not ink. Processing it yourself means a home darkroom, chemicals, a processing drum, and an archival washer. Last I heard, the LightJet 5000 printer that does that for you costs a quarter million dollars.
Slashdot Mirror
If we're going to have multilateral control of DNS, then at least everyone who has control should have to sign an Internet Bill of Rights...
Lack of is not equal to against. Do you believe in His Noodly Greatness? No? You must be anti-FSM. "But I don't believe that the Flying Spagetti Monster exists; how can I be 'against' something I don't even believe in?" The world is not black and white, it's shades of gray.
People who do not believe in your religion/are not 'with you' are a lot more likely to be neutral than against. If you are convinced that they ARE against you and take things to their logical conclusion, you end up with the situation depicted in Stargate SG-1 season 9.
How on earth does abiogenesis get involved in that? The Evil Atheist Conspiracy?
Simple - the first life wasn't a cell. It was a bit of DNA or RNA floating in a sea rich in organic chemicals. Eventually the bits of what we'd call genes which created proteins that formed a crude shell were more likely to survive (some insulation against changing conditions). Then this little viruslike thingy got in and started making ATP and the cell ended up using that for fuel; The virus-thingy became a mitochondria. Then these simple cells competed and started adding dongles to help them compete. And then the perpetual arms race began, all the cells trying to 1-up each other with the newest addition or minor tweak.
But for each 'stage' I described I probably left out 20 or 30 others...
What are you talking about? Tamiflu is a drug that you can take shortly after flu symptoms appear to reduce the severity of your illness, 10 pills in 5 days. The only thing that can prevent you from getting H5N1 is a vaccine and several weeks for your immune system to prepare.
Although I think that the USA/ICANN have done a good job handling DNS thus far and don't see any reason to change the status quo without a reason, I find that sharing control of DNS is preferable to fracturing DNS.
"Insightful -- An Insightful statement makes you think, puts a new spin on a given story (or aspect of a story). An analogy you hadn't thought of, or a telling counterexample, are examples of Insightful comments."
I can't believe that 100% of the mods who read this post can honestly say 'That didn't make me think at all.' Here's a little hint: That you don't agree with something doesn't make it flamebait. This is one of the dangers of the Internet, that it allows people and groups to create 'echo chambers' and only hear what they want to hear. And those fools who do will never learn anything by it.
Just to nitpick, there is no cure for Influenza. There is a vaccine (World production capacity enough for ~40 million people per year absolute max), there's Tamiflu (useful if given within 2 days of first symptoms; World supply is barely enough for 2/3 of the USA), and several promising treatments being developed (none of which has gotten to animal tests yet). I think there's one more human treatment I forgot.
It is going to suck so bad when H5N1 goes pandemic...
I didn't imply that there was no waste. I said that any large-scale mining produces lots of nasty tailings. And even if getting 1 ton of uranium makes 1000 tons of tailings, you have to mine 16000 times less of it (bottom of page) than you would coal to get the same amount of energy. I meant that although neither coal nor uranium are much better in terms of environmental damage caused by mining them, spent fuel rods can be dealt with more easily than millions of tons of CO2.
I could likewise ask if those 'pushing' fossil fuel power think about the lakes utterly destroyed by acid rain, the contribution of global warming, and the harmful affects of the pollution on people. There is no such thing as a free lunch. Extracting mass quantities of anything from the ground has unpleasant side effects, be it uranium or coal or borax (I got to visit the mine in Boron, CA once - biggest hole in the ground I've ever seen).
But in the end, a year's spent fuel from a 1 gigawatt nuclear reactor would fit in a little bucket you could do as you wished with (Like, say, bury it in a mountain and forget about it). A year's carbon dioxide from a gigawatt coal plant is released and then uncontrollable.
Yes, yes - compare a one-letter mistake to a translation that's marginally understandable due mainly to amusingly corrupted grammar. Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.
To learn German than try and untangle that horrible babelfish translation. The funny part was that I read about 4 paragraphs before realizing it was a Babelfish translation, and the whole time wondered what incompetant wrote it :P
Anyway, here's a better(or at least another) translation done by ImTranslator.
I read this article on NewScientist.com a few hours ago. Marijuana DOES NOT INDUCE BRAIN CELL GROWTH. When they tried using THC from pot, it did not induce new cell growth regardless of dose or duration.
I'd prefer if you ask ME next time before declaring that I'm a religious fundamentalist, warmongering, ignorant American who hates Europe. Because if you did, you'd know that I'm an atheist, opponent of the War for Oil, able to name and locate most of Europe on a map, and have no particular bias against Europe.
All I was saying is that if you acknowledge that America's handling of DNS isn't 'broken,' you should be wary of those who wish to fix it.
It becomes their obligation when they know that a buyer has no intention of using the positive features positively. If you know that someone buys lots of blank tapes, subscribes to every movie channel in existance, and makes a lot of trips to the Post Office, is it right to sell them a VCR even though you know perfectly well what it will be used for? I don't think it's right to sell something that can be misused to someone who you know will misuse it.
We don't let perverts live near elementary schools, we don't let felons buy guns, so why should we sell censorware to the PRC? Not to say that it will stop any of the above, but isn't it our moral duty to not make it easier?
Because the GNU/Linux community writes software in the general hope that others will find it useful. These companies (TFA not working - 'cyclic link found') are helping those whose stated agenda is to violate freedom of speech and doing it for a profit.
Comparing the OSS community to them is like comparing ChemLabs to an international arms dealer: Sure, you COULD use the information there to synthesize a dozen different explosives and toxins, but that's against the spirit and express intention of the page, and he won't help you with it. An arms dealer will sell you guns, bombs, and nerve gas, and show you exactly how to use them - just bring money.
The fact is that it has done a DAMN good job thus far managing DNS, and despite some hiccups, the First Admendment is still in affect here. Freedom of speech must be absolute short of causing immediate physical threat to people like shouting FIRE in the theater. The only way not to start down the slippery slope of censorship, especially when it's as easy as changing a DNS entry, is to not take that first step.
And who exactly is it that wants control of DNS? France, so they can shut down Nazi websites and threaten E-Bay into removing WWII memorabilia listings? China, so they can be absolutely sure that their population is ignorant of anything the Glorious People's Revolution doesn't want them to know about (like say, Tinamannen Square or the Great Leap Backwards)? Iran and Saudi Arabia, so they can block out the evil west and keep their people from finding out that all Westerners are not, in fact, evil blood-crazed monsters who want to destroy them? Cuba and North Korea, so they can block the websites of the Evil Capitalist Exploiters of the Common Man?
In other words, politicians whose agenda involves using DNS to censor the Internet and pervert it into nothing more than a state-controlled interactive TV. Say what you will, but so far the United States has done a remarkably good, fair, and unbiased job of handling DNS. Those who want to take control hate the fact that it's been fair and unbiased because they want to use it against their 'opponents.'
Dear North Korea, Iran, Saudi Arabia, France, China, Russia and co: Leave your meatspace BS in meatspace. I refuse to let your petty bureaucratic empire-building destroy the greatest medium of information exchange ever to exist.
Interesting - very interesting. Didn't know that...
Steel wasn't discovered until the mid 19th century.
The potential for unlimited donations by paying for candidates' internet advertising opens an enormous loophole for corporations, unions, and the rich to unduly influence the electoral and legislative process. I don't believe that there is much point in trying to regulate it - Just as no code is absolutely secure, no law is absolutely airtight. Companies and CEOs pay their lawyers millions and tens of millions of dollars to find the cracks that allow them to continue funnelling money to Congress. The amount of effort that would be necessary to make the effort to evade the law beyond the return on investment is beyond what we can afford to expend.
If we can't stop it, the next best thing is to make it obvious what's going on. Rather than dicking around trying to regulate campaign financing which really only regulates the average person who can't afford to evade the law, simply require that all candidates for office report who payed them for what and make it available via the internet.
OpenSecrets.org is a good start. But some things need to change. Let's take a look at, oh say, a certain Texas house representative: First, make the 6.6% Undisclosed go away. Then increase the granularity of the information available. Name major business, PAC, and single-issue donors (Say, those whose donations are > N% of the total) so we know specifically who is brib^H^H^H^Hsupporting the good representative. Finally, provide a breakdown of personal donations based on income. Specifically, a pie graph depicting money donated from people with incomes under $50K, from people between 50 and 100K, etc for 100-200K, 200K-1M, 1M-10M, and 10M+ yearly income donors. This information would be provided to OpenSecrets by the candidates themselves, who would in turn have to collect it from donors.
OpenSecrets.org should also be given an amount of money proportional the amount spent by the candidates (say, 5% or 10% thereof) to advertise itself in a nonpartisan way so we can be sure that the information they collect is in fact used.
This way, we'll be able to accurately correlate donations with legislation and know, rather than guess, who is in fact a corporate whore. This will also compel corporate and union donors to keep themselves in check, lest their candidate be branded a sellout to special interests or the rich. Rather than trying to regulate greed, trick it into regulating itself.
"Real photo paper" means it's silver halide and dyes, not ink. Processing it yourself means a home darkroom, chemicals, a processing drum, and an archival washer. Last I heard, the LightJet 5000 printer that does that for you costs a quarter million dollars.