I hope she gets it. She is totally correct. It is systematically unfair that she be not given her lost royalties.
There are similar issues with tobacco settlements. How can states not give compensation to the victims of the large tobacco settlements? They didn't even consider the victims in these cases and instead put the money into lump protection programs. It is completely unfair, IMO.
These are awesome developments for both molecular engineering and the high tech. Remember, though, that many new developments never see commercialization, because they just can't be made faster, cheaper, better. There are so many dead technologies that were promising once. Memory such as 3d protein gels (read and written with lasers), holograms and others just haven't seen their full potential, and possibly never will.
-- Moondog
Check out the C obfuscated contest from the 90's. If you haven't seen any of the winning programs before, you will be amazed, shocked and left in wonder (Like I wonder what the day job of these developers is...)
I agree that Napster isn't looking out for anybody but Napster, I don't agree that it isn't helping. Having napster be free and readily available adds competition to the music market. Competition is good, it keeps the big companies from getting to arrogant. Anyways, perhaps artists will have to live off of live music returns and merchandise sales. Linux has been doing that for years now....
If users have your source code early, they can get a feel for the programs structure and your style of programming. This means that as you release later versions, they will be better at making good decisions on how to tailor that code to their needs or even how to port that code to a new system.
The only thing to remember is, that it can be very annoying to developers if the code undergoes major changes. Sometimes API's change considerably killing legacy code, for example. This version of code rot is some of the most frustrating, because it can be often difficult to find.
Unfortunately (or fortunately depending on your perspective), no where on earth even comes close to reproducing the martian landscape. Pressure, temperature, atmosphere, gravity, light, length of day, seasons, etc are all not reproduced adequately there. Just because it looks like mars doesn't mean that the reality makes it like mars. Sounds like a PR stunt to make a show for Discovery channel. A PR stunt isn't a bad thing, necessarily, it just doesn't make for good science. Remember that biosphere, thing?
Although it is great that they aren't gathering some statistics anymore, I think that we need regulations that tell them what they CAN DO with the statistics, not which statistics they collect. Privacy IMO deals with where the statistics go, who can view them, who they can sell to. I don't care if doubleclick knows what ads I view, I care if my boss can find out what ads I view at home or my neighbor.
I'm not sure I see the benefits that will drive people to migrate. OSX will have a nice user interface, but MS windoze already serves the market for the plug and chug servers.
Linux is far ahead of the game on the unix side, and apple will have a lot of catching up to do. I'm surprised a little that Jobs didn't learn much from the NeXT fiasco....
I suggest the posters of the original questions find someone from a country that doesn't have such restrictions to sponser them. Your only problem is the exchanging of goods and services across the borders of your home country. If the site and management of the site is abroad the amount of stuff that needs to be transfered (money, emails, intellectual property, etc) is minimized.
Movies are restricted by age, porn is restricted by age, tobacco is restricted by age, alcohol is restricted by age. As the video game generation grows up, some video games are going to fall into the catagory of "adult". What has been done here is not illogical, but perhaps a bit extreme (and expensive), considering most people who frequent arcades (IMO) are under 18. It is really too bad the many americans think that video games are the problem with our society.
Using scheme isn't the best solution for a lot of things. I think its biggest hinderance is its obscurity, nobody but serious hacks and cs majors knows anything about it. Anything I write in scheme, I have to deal with, cause no one else can. For my purposes it really doesn't do anything a lot of other languages can do just as well. And other people can hack at my c or python code.
Dunno if this is all over the country, but PacBell sends us here in California a list of legal notifications to have your phone tapped. They include beeping every 10 or so seconds, a verbal notification, and others.
Email, of course, doesn't need any notification of saving the conversation if it is the send or receiving party that is doing it. But if there is a third party tapping your email line, they don't have to notify you. I'm curious if it is easier for the FBI to wiretap email than it is phone conversations, ie do they have to install remote hardware near the point of the tap for phone conversations?
Geomagnetic Storms are cool. There should be great northern lights this week for the northerners. Does anyone know why power grids are specificallly affected?
This is the domain name copyright/trademark infringement largest lawsuit I can remember. If they succeed, it will truely be a dark day for freedom and the internet. Baseball (mlb), football (nfl) and other professional sports are probably going to watch this one real close. They might be inclined to prevent 'fan sites' from throwing around their trademarked names as well. It seems that web sites are becoming the 'bootlegs' of the new millenia.
M$ used to make fun of this when IBM was bragging that you could format a disk in OS/2 and still do other things, but I think they had a point. I hate it when an OS makes me sit while it is doing something stupid or nothing at all! (Like dialog boxes on Macs). Sometimes on Macs I get a dialog that doesn't allow me to switch windows, but I need to see another window to know that answer it wants.... Arghh. There is no excuse in this day and age to not have an interface that allows you to click between windows and objects seemlessly.
Training conferences in the biotech (and the rest of the tech/scientific community as well, I suspect) are a great way to meet people in the field. As a grad student in biotech, I've been to a number of these training conferences and found them very useful to network and figure out what's going on.
Attendees, though, I suspect should have some training in a technical field to actually get something out of the conference.
Wow, It continues to suprise me on the versatility of linux. I would have thought that a UNIX base would be too bulky for appliance like things. In the past we have seen very specific hardware for appliances, now that hardware is becoming more general (Like a computer) and therefore the software is becoming more normal OS like. The reason I'm suprised is that they can do that and still make a profitable product, with all that overhead.
Although I'm putting it on my radar, I think that a little skepticism is in order. Remember bacteriorhodopsin memory devices? Probably not. They came along a few years ago as a memory chip that could store huge amounts of memory in a 3d bio-organic array. Problem was (as I recall) that they couldn't make the laser accurate enough to read it at useable densities.
Anyway, my point is, we see alot more new technology storage devices in development than we actually see come to market. Its a little like drug design (a field I'm familiar with), where only a very small percentage of potential drugs actually make it to market.
Its funny, in the lab I work in, we still have those big floppies (you know, the ones that were as big as lp's) lying around. Or how 'bout those optical drives on NeXT Cubes? I've got one at home (although I never use it). They were so slow writing that you have to wait forever. Oh, well... -- Moondog
You know, its funny, really, that government thinks there are enough laws to fight cybercrime. I'm sure that this isn't a statement about the laws that exist, but a statement about the ones that don't. Does anyone know of good laws that fight cybercrime without throwing privacy out the window? Neither does government, and this is just a reflection of that. Punishment is certainly harsh enough, when someone who just mentions an attack can make front page world news. -- Moondog
I agree with the original poster on all points. I also argue that there is a difference between in theory and in practice.
It's true that genes are not patentable. In general, though, genes are patented on their (fairly obvious) uses.
Also, to say that someone needs to do something with a sequence to patent is it is almost silly these days. The height one has to jump to get a gene patented really depends on the cost of the patent lawyer.
As to Celera, they haven't been around long. But shotgunning the genome makes them a competiter to the genome project, longstanding or not. They said they were going to do the easy parts of the fly, they did. They say they will do the easy parts of the human, well....
There are a couple of issues to gene patents that aren't being addressed here. (I'm generally against the patenting of genetic material, especially when someone patents a sequence and doesn't give credit to the 30 researchers who spent their lives researching that sequence's product.)
Those issues are: How are sequencers going to protect their businesses. This isn't like open source where some 25 year old can do it in the evenings. This costs bucks. If they can't patent the sequences they wont *publish* the sequences limiting research on the sequences. They, in general, don't want to limit research, they want to make money. How do big public genome projects get done? Through government funding, which is certainly not going to sequence everything...
Also, If a gene is patented, often times it is to protect the researcher's interest in that sequence out of fear that someone else (like Venter's Celera) will do it for them. Personally, I think this is driving a good part of patents today.
Protection of intellectual property is important in biotech. These companies cost millions to start up and run. They run for years without a product. Like I said, it really isn't much like startup internet companies being started by a couple of people working evenings and weekends. Lab space is expensive, techs and employees for biotechs often start at higher wages than internet co's and require a lot more resources.
Slashdot Mirror
I hope she gets it. She is totally correct. It is systematically unfair that she be not given her lost royalties.
There are similar issues with tobacco settlements. How can states not give compensation to the victims of the large tobacco settlements? They didn't even consider the victims in these cases and instead put the money into lump protection programs. It is completely unfair, IMO.
-- Moondog
These are awesome developments for both molecular engineering and the high tech. Remember, though, that many new developments never see commercialization, because they just can't be made faster, cheaper, better. There are so many dead technologies that were promising once. Memory such as 3d protein gels (read and written with lasers), holograms and others just haven't seen their full potential, and possibly never will.
-- Moondog
Check out the C obfuscated contest from the 90's. If you haven't seen any of the winning programs before, you will be amazed, shocked and left in wonder (Like I wonder what the day job of these developers is...)
International Obfuscated C page and the amazing and confounding winners.
My favorite is the tic tac toe game that is both the game and the code! (recompile to play next move...)
-- Moondog
I agree that Napster isn't looking out for anybody but Napster, I don't agree that it isn't helping. Having napster be free and readily available adds competition to the music market. Competition is good, it keeps the big companies from getting to arrogant. Anyways, perhaps artists will have to live off of live music returns and merchandise sales. Linux has been doing that for years now....
-- Moondog
If users have your source code early, they can get a feel for the programs structure and your style of programming. This means that as you release later versions, they will be better at making good decisions on how to tailor that code to their needs or even how to port that code to a new system.
The only thing to remember is, that it can be very annoying to developers if the code undergoes major changes. Sometimes API's change considerably killing legacy code, for example. This version of code rot is some of the most frustrating, because it can be often difficult to find.
-- Moondog
Unfortunately (or fortunately depending on your perspective), no where on earth even comes close to reproducing the martian landscape. Pressure, temperature, atmosphere, gravity, light, length of day, seasons, etc are all not reproduced adequately there. Just because it looks like mars doesn't mean that the reality makes it like mars. Sounds like a PR stunt to make a show for Discovery channel. A PR stunt isn't a bad thing, necessarily, it just doesn't make for good science. Remember that biosphere, thing?
-- Moondog
Although it is great that they aren't gathering some statistics anymore, I think that we need regulations that tell them what they CAN DO with the statistics, not which statistics they collect. Privacy IMO deals with where the statistics go, who can view them, who they can sell to. I don't care if doubleclick knows what ads I view, I care if my boss can find out what ads I view at home or my neighbor.
-- Moondog
I'm not sure I see the benefits that will drive people to migrate. OSX will have a nice user interface, but MS windoze already serves the market for the plug and chug servers.
Linux is far ahead of the game on the unix side, and apple will have a lot of catching up to do. I'm surprised a little that Jobs didn't learn much from the NeXT fiasco....
-- Moondog
Descent was always my favorite. The full 3D movement was fun, and the controls were very challenging. How fast is it on un 3D accelerated linux?
-- Moondog
I suggest the posters of the original questions find someone from a country that doesn't have such restrictions to sponser them. Your only problem is the exchanging of goods and services across the borders of your home country. If the site and management of the site is abroad the amount of stuff that needs to be transfered (money, emails, intellectual property, etc) is minimized.
-- Moondog
Movies are restricted by age, porn is restricted by age, tobacco is restricted by age, alcohol is restricted by age. As the video game generation grows up, some video games are going to fall into the catagory of "adult". What has been done here is not illogical, but perhaps a bit extreme (and expensive), considering most people who frequent arcades (IMO) are under 18. It is really too bad the many americans think that video games are the problem with our society.
-- Moondog
Using scheme isn't the best solution for a lot of things. I think its biggest hinderance is its obscurity, nobody but serious hacks and cs majors knows anything about it. Anything I write in scheme, I have to deal with, cause no one else can. For my purposes it really doesn't do anything a lot of other languages can do just as well. And other people can hack at my c or python code.
-- Moondog
Dunno if this is all over the country, but PacBell sends us here in California a list of legal notifications to have your phone tapped. They include beeping every 10 or so seconds, a verbal notification, and others.
Email, of course, doesn't need any notification of saving the conversation if it is the send or receiving party that is doing it. But if there is a third party tapping your email line, they don't have to notify you. I'm curious if it is easier for the FBI to wiretap email than it is phone conversations, ie do they have to install remote hardware near the point of the tap for phone conversations?
-- Moondog
Geomagnetic Storms are cool. There should be great northern lights this week for the northerners. Does anyone know why power grids are specificallly affected?
-- Moondog
This is the domain name copyright/trademark infringement largest lawsuit I can remember. If they succeed, it will truely be a dark day for freedom and the internet. Baseball (mlb), football (nfl) and other professional sports are probably going to watch this one real close. They might be inclined to prevent 'fan sites' from throwing around their trademarked names as well. It seems that web sites are becoming the 'bootlegs' of the new millenia.
-- Moondog
M$ used to make fun of this when IBM was bragging that you could format a disk in OS/2 and still do other things, but I think they had a point. I hate it when an OS makes me sit while it is doing something stupid or nothing at all! (Like dialog boxes on Macs). Sometimes on Macs I get a dialog that doesn't allow me to switch windows, but I need to see another window to know that answer it wants.... Arghh. There is no excuse in this day and age to not have an interface that allows you to click between windows and objects seemlessly.
-- Moondog
Training conferences in the biotech (and the rest of the tech/scientific community as well, I suspect) are a great way to meet people in the field. As a grad student in biotech, I've been to a number of these training conferences and found them very useful to network and figure out what's going on.
Attendees, though, I suspect should have some training in a technical field to actually get something out of the conference.
-- Moondog
Wow, It continues to suprise me on the versatility of linux. I would have thought that a UNIX base would be too bulky for appliance like things. In the past we have seen very specific hardware for appliances, now that hardware is becoming more general (Like a computer) and therefore the software is becoming more normal OS like. The reason I'm suprised is that they can do that and still make a profitable product, with all that overhead.
-- Moondog
Although I'm putting it on my radar, I think that a little skepticism is in order. Remember bacteriorhodopsin memory devices? Probably not. They came along a few years ago as a memory chip that could store huge amounts of memory in a 3d bio-organic array. Problem was (as I recall) that they couldn't make the laser accurate enough to read it at useable densities.
Anyway, my point is, we see alot more new technology storage devices in development than we actually see come to market. Its a little like drug design (a field I'm familiar with), where only a very small percentage of potential drugs actually make it to market.
-- Moondog
Its funny, in the lab I work in, we still have those big floppies (you know, the ones that were as big as lp's) lying around. Or how 'bout those optical drives on NeXT Cubes? I've got one at home (although I never use it). They were so slow writing that you have to wait forever. Oh, well...
-- Moondog
Congrats on the Webbie Nom. You guys deserve it. I'm sure you will win
/.'ers trying to hack the system.) :)
(Especially with all the
-- Moondog
Yes I'm now patenting the warp drive:
A device that will be used for interstellar travel at speeds greater than light. (details ignored).
Prior Art: First there was sneakers. Then Henry Ford made the car and the piston engine. Now Rolls Royce has jet engines.
Too bad it costs and avg of US 20K to patent something. I could be rich some day.....
-- Moondog
You know, its funny, really, that government thinks there are enough laws to fight cybercrime. I'm sure that this isn't a statement about the laws that exist, but a statement about the ones that don't. Does anyone know of good laws that fight cybercrime without throwing privacy out the window? Neither does government, and this is just a reflection of that. Punishment is certainly harsh enough, when someone who just mentions an attack can make front page world news.
-- Moondog
I agree with the original poster on all points. I also argue that there is a difference between in theory and in practice.
It's true that genes are not patentable. In general, though, genes are patented on their (fairly obvious) uses.
Also, to say that someone needs to do something with a sequence to patent is it is almost silly these days. The height one has to jump to get a gene patented really depends on the cost of the patent lawyer.
As to Celera, they haven't been around long. But shotgunning the genome makes them a competiter to the genome project, longstanding or not. They said they were going to do the easy parts of the fly, they did. They say they will do the easy parts of the human, well....
-- Moondog
There are a couple of issues to gene patents
that aren't being addressed here. (I'm generally against the patenting of genetic material, especially when someone patents a sequence and doesn't give credit to the 30 researchers who spent their lives researching that sequence's product.)
Those issues are: How are sequencers going to protect their businesses. This isn't like open source where some 25 year old can do it in the evenings. This costs bucks. If they can't patent the sequences they wont *publish* the sequences limiting research on the sequences. They, in general, don't want to limit research, they want to make money. How do big public genome projects get done? Through government funding, which is certainly not going to sequence everything...
Also, If a gene is patented, often times it is to protect the researcher's interest in that sequence out of fear that someone else (like Venter's Celera) will do it for them. Personally, I think this is driving a good part of patents today.
Protection of intellectual property is important in biotech. These companies cost millions to start up and run. They run for years without a product. Like I said, it really isn't much like startup internet companies being started by a couple of people working evenings and weekends. Lab space is expensive, techs and employees for biotechs often start at higher wages than internet co's and require a lot more resources.
-- Moondog