This is precisely the kind of ignorance I'm talking about. Knowing people who claim to get headaches is not scientific evidence!
First, a few facts:
Glutamate is an amino acid that naturually occurs in the body (as a neurotransmitter, for example).
Eating glutamate does not affect the concentration of this amino acid in the brain (therefore, you can't eat it and cause a headache).
Glutamate occurs naturally in many foods, including tomatoes, milk, mushrooms, peas, parmesean cheese, and seaweed, to name a few.
Glutamate has been shown in scientific studies to help people with poorly functioning taste buds increase their consumption of food (the elderly, for example).
Scientists have shown that taste receptors on the tongue respond only to glutamate and not to any other combination of sweet, salty, sour, or bitter. The taste has been named "umami", or the "savory" flavor.
Glutamate was first identified by a Japanese scientist way back in the early 1900's. Japanese broth (dashi), which is as common as chicken broth in the west, is made from seaweed containing loads of glutamate.
Monosodium glutamate is simply a convenient salt form of this naturally occuring amino acid.
Tongue experiments: Try eating some very, very rich plain tomato sauce. After you swallow, you can taste a lingering flavor on the back of your tongue. It's kind of an earthy, savory, meaty flavor. That's the naturally occuring glutamate in the tomato. A minute later, place a few crystals of monosodium glutamate on your tongue. You will taste the exact same earthy, savory flavor from the MSG.
After you've identified the flavor, you'll be able to easily taste it in mushrooms, good parmesean cheese, meat broth, and milk. If you've ever have miso soup in a Japanese restaurant, you can definitely taste it from the natural seaweed in the dashi broth.
The caveat: Some people have been shown to react negatively to monosodium glutamate (it is not an allergy). It's a very small percent of the population. Saying MSG is bad for everyone would be like saying peanuts were bad for everyone because some people are allergic to peanuts.
Why does monosodium glutamate have such a bad rap? According to the FDA, science has provided no evidence to support the "Chinese Restaurant Syndrome". Since most consider glutamate-trigged "umami" to be the fifth taste after salty, sweet, sour, and bitter, why is poor MSG treated so ignorantly?
Next we'll see paper mache cases that can double as pinatas. Just think, when you're fed up with your old computer, you could hang it from the ceiling and hit it with a baseball bat. Just pick the RAM up off the floor like candy!
It seems to me that a software patent is already like a delayed GNU license. It makes sure that after a time, your idea is freely available for everyone else to use. The GPL makes your idea (code) immediately available for everyone else to use.
One difference, of course, is that the GNU license forces your code (and all future instances of it) open, whereas an expired patent
wouldn't necessarily force you to show your source.
Maybe we can combine these two ideas and shorten the time to come up with a hybrid:
The Delayed Free Software License (DFSL)
- For a short time (say, 18 months) the creator is allowed to keep the source closed and idea under his/her control.
- After the time elapses, the source code and idea are released under the GPL.
It might address these problems:
- Closed-source companies going out of business and taking their code with them.
- Software patents lasting too long
- For-profit software developers complaining that they can't protect their ideas
- Proof of prior art (you could just release anything under the DFSL without having to go through a lengthy process)
This doesn't go as far as using a real desktop through something like VNC, but you might want to check out E-mol for an on-the-go Outlook clone. It's a free Web-based POP3/IMAP client with calendar, address book, file storage, etc.
You can't beat it for how easy it is to get into from any Web browser. It's replaced a lot of my desktop functionality....
Slashdot Mirror
First, a few facts:
Tongue experiments:
Try eating some very, very rich plain tomato sauce. After you swallow, you can taste a lingering flavor on the back of your tongue. It's kind of an earthy, savory, meaty flavor. That's the naturally occuring glutamate in the tomato. A minute later, place a few crystals of monosodium glutamate on your tongue. You will taste the exact same earthy, savory flavor from the MSG.
After you've identified the flavor, you'll be able to easily taste it in mushrooms, good parmesean cheese, meat broth, and milk. If you've ever have miso soup in a Japanese restaurant, you can definitely taste it from the natural seaweed in the dashi broth.
The caveat:
Some people have been shown to react negatively to monosodium glutamate (it is not an allergy). It's a very small percent of the population. Saying MSG is bad for everyone would be like saying peanuts were bad for everyone because some people are allergic to peanuts.
A few references:
FDA MSG - Safe
FDA - Some MSG Findings
Chart of glutamate naturally occurring in foods
Society for Research on Umami Taste
Why does monosodium glutamate have such a bad rap? According to the FDA, science has provided no evidence to support the "Chinese Restaurant Syndrome". Since most consider glutamate-trigged "umami" to be the fifth taste after salty, sweet, sour, and bitter, why is poor MSG treated so ignorantly?
What's your favorite food/beer pairing? (What food, what beer?)
Here's Google's cache of the broken link.
Next we'll see paper mache cases that can double as pinatas. Just think, when you're fed up with your old computer, you could hang it from the ceiling and hit it with a baseball bat. Just pick the RAM up off the floor like candy!
One difference, of course, is that the GNU license forces your code (and all future instances of it) open, whereas an expired patent wouldn't necessarily force you to show your source.
Maybe we can combine these two ideas and shorten the time to come up with a hybrid:
The Delayed Free Software License (DFSL)
- For a short time (say, 18 months) the creator is allowed to keep the source closed and idea under his/her control.
- After the time elapses, the source code and idea are released under the GPL.
It might address these problems:
- Closed-source companies going out of business and taking their code with them.
- Software patents lasting too long
- For-profit software developers complaining that they can't protect their ideas
- Proof of prior art (you could just release anything under the DFSL without having to go through a lengthy process)
You can't beat it for how easy it is to get into from any Web browser. It's replaced a lot of my desktop functionality....