If tomorrow, all the managers, CEO's and stockholders dropped off the face of the planet, the world would function just fine.
You must be insane. You think everyone is just going to show up for work everyday without any sort of management? That it will magically become some self-organized entity? Exactly who is going to make the decision for strategic direction of the company? Who is going to make the decision on what products to keep, and what products to kill? Some bookkeeper? Or perhaps a committee? I've got news for you... this has been tried. Companies run by committee go straight into the toilet.
Or take an army. Do you seriously think an army would be effective without a general? Just having a bunch of troups running around with any strategy?
Is the skill to coercively organize people so wonderful that it is worth 419x more than the skill to produce something?
"Coercively"? Exactly what coercision is taking place? As for "419x", damn right they are. The skill to produce something is 419 times less difficult than the skills to organize and lead people to produce things.
Of course he's going to defend the right of the ruling class to rule, because he's trying so desperately to enter into it.
I love it... "the ruling class". Yes, I've been on both sides of the fence. And when you have too, maybe you will understand exactly what it takes to run a company. Maybe you should also take an economics class. People are paid exactly what they are worth. If anyone could fulfill the CEO of IBM's job, believe me, the shareholders would put in the 20K/year bolt-turner.
But there are specialized skills involved in being a CEO, namely leadership. Just as you can't have an army with only soldiers, you need someone to give direction and vision to the company.
The larger point is that all these issues are arguable, and that even these issues that you state "geeks could agree on" are not that easy to pin down.
I'll just take one of your points, however... Do you think people that spend more time with your kids than you do should make ( probably ) 1/2 your salary?
I'm all for quality teachers, but -- and I know I'm going to get whacked for this, but think it through -- I think teachers are a lot less important than a lot of people think. Bad teachers can make learning impossible, there is no question about it, but I think the difference between "competent" and "very good" is not that wide. I think what makes the biggest difference is the involvement of the parents, and the "atmosphere" of the school. If parents are very involved in making sure the kids take learning seriously, and the environment of the school has a very serious "you are here to learn" attitude, that is what makes the biggest difference.
After all, it's the students that actually do the work, not the teachers. Let's face it... if you have a very motivated students, all you have to do is hand out books, assignments, and grades. Answer a few questions if necessary. I think that modern schools have gotten into the trap that schools and teachers are supposed to be entertainers or something. Now, I think that it's great if a teacher can make learning "fun", but unfortunately, the vast majority of learning is difficult, particularly the subjects the student doesn't happen to be interested in.
This is simply because, we actually produce the products, we actually create the wealth.
No, this is the shocking truth... it's much, much harder and more valuable to society to be an organizer, than a worker. The organizers of society are what create wealth. These are the people who take risks to build companies and hire people. Workers very rarely take risks.
This is key: People are paid based on the rarity of their talent, not on the importance of the work. Sewage workers are incredibly important to society, but they are paid based on the large number of people that can do that work.
The people who have a lot of money, with some exceptions, earned their money and created thousands of jobs and created huge amounts of new wealth. New institutions are not created by the workers.
You're dreaming if you think most geeks agree on those issues.
Patent system reform? There are way too many ways it can be changed in order to get agreement. Just saying "it needs to be changed" is NOT an issue statement. If you put down some details, I guarantee you will have a substantial number of disagreements.
Larger education budgets? I am totally against that. The problem with education is not lack of money. More money == more adminstrators, not better schools. Education needs to be privatized.
reignite science / tech studying in school. more math... That's fine for you, but not everyone needs more math. I agree that it should be available, but again, that's a privatization issue. (Realize that Science or Art is dropped to pay for more administrators).
funding NASA for _real_ missions ( read: making mars a viable goal ) HELL NO!!! NASA needs to be disbanded or folded into the military. Take NASA's budget and apply it to tax cuts for private companies to do business in space. That is the only hope of seeing mankind in space on a consistent basis.
anti-decency acts... Depends on the act. Not everyone is against filters in libraries, despite what some of these silly YRO articles would seem to indicate.
0 net taxes... I sympathize with this, but it is highly impractical. Think about the disadvantage local retailers are operating under, and you will begin to see why 0 net taxes is not only unfair, but is not going to last forever.
Well, last time I looked out my window, the world wasn't infested with intelligent robots.
The point is that this particular galaxy has had 13 billion years across billions of planets for it to happen. And since our planet hasn't been sucked up in a galaxy-wide infestation, I conclude that it isn't probable for it to happen.
Postulate: There has been intelligent life in the galaxy besides us.
Postulate: Those beings faced these same issues as us, with the same inevitable march toward intelligent machines.
Postulate: Those intelligent machines would invevitable go out of control and eliminate/enslave/whatever the original species.
Postulate: The intelligent machines would be capable of original thought.
Given these assumptions, then you would have to assume that they would have the "desire" to reproduce as much as possible. Once the resources of the original planet where exhausted, they would naturally look toward moving into space. Presumable time would mean less to a machine, and the idea of sub-light space travel wouldn't be a huge deal.
Therefore, given enough time, they should take over the entire galaxy, if not the universe.
Since this hasn't happened in the approximately 13 billion years this galaxy has existed, I conclude that it is not a very likely occurance.
It would be interesting to see a mathematical analysis of how long it would take robot spaceships to take over the whole galaxy, given some reasonable parameters of how long it would take to subsume a planet, build new spaceships, etc. Of course, it would have to take at least 15,000 years (half the width of the galaxy, assuming they start in the middle), so I would guess about 2-3 times that or 30,000-45,000 years. Double that if they start at one end of the galaxy instead.
My (limited, obviously) understanding of "modulation" was encoding information onto a carrier wave, which I thought wasn't necessary for ISDN (or for that matter, ADSL, but I was less sure there).
This Modem FAQ List mentions under ISDN, "With ISDN, you won't need a modem since no modulation or demodulation will be necessary. You will need an ISDN adapter instead."
All signals are analog.
Well, maybe, but I think there is a difference between "analog electronics" and "digital electronics".
Hmmm. Actually, I think you're right. First of all, I was lazy in my terms. I should have said "conversion to an analog signal" rather than "convert to sound".
Second of all, a cable connection really isn't a "pure" digital signal like ISDN or DSL, it actually is an analog signal, so you're right, "modem" is correct.
Sorry 'bout that.
I think I was originally annoyed when I heard the term "ISDN modem", and the annoyance kind of bleed into "cable modem".:)
I wish we would stop call these "modems". It's a router, not a modem. Modem == "Modulator Demodulator", and there is nothing being modulated (i.e., converted into sound) over a cable connection.
Look who is talking about throwing unfounded accusations around!
Ok, ok, I'm sorry; I take that part back. In fact, I apologize for the tone of my other posts. There is so much stupid cynicism around here sometimes that I think I kind of snapped.:)
You don't have to be a cynic to call that carefully crafted. I didn't have to make up their collusion.
Well, you can call it "collusion" if you want, but you haven't explained why we shouldn't take them at their word: that O'Reilly and Bezos talked together, and Bezos is honestly concerned with the issue. Where's the evidence that it's some phony cover-up or something?
And are you assuming that Bezos publishes letters like that without having his lawyers and PR people help? Such a course would risk a blunder and a huge shareholder lawsuit. And I know that not because I'm a cynic, but because I've actually studied corporate law at the graduate level.
Well, having only created a couple of very successful corporations rather than having studied it in a classroom, I may be at a disadvantage. However, I can tell you that in my experience, yes, sometimes CEOs are actually human beings and not carefully scripted automatons.
That letter to me didn't read like a PR piece, it read like an honest message from someone with honest concerns about the issue. Bezos didn't have to write the letter at all. An incredibly tiny proportion of the public knows or cares about the issue at all.
In fact, by your theories, Bezos will get sued by the shareholders for calling for a short patent period, rather than fighting to keep a 17 year patent on one-click!
The bottom line is this: I see no reason to cast suspicions without any evidence. I think the old Russian saying is apt: "Trust, but verify". I'm not saying that Bezos isn't trying to pull a fast one, only that it's a little premature to build the gallows when he may honestly want to help solve the patent issue once and for all. I think it serves everyone better to give him the benefit of the doubt.
The process that the patent describes was obvious to a practitioner. So what if they were the first to think of it?
Most patents are "obvious" once you see them in practice. The Cotton Gin, which I think most would agree was a revolutionary machine worthy of a patent, was actually a very simple idea.
Now, I'm not necessarily defending one-click as a patent, but what I'm saying is that you are describing valid metrics for patents. As I understand it, "prior art" is an important part of the standard for "obviousness" (which is obviously very subjective).
The point is that you would only enable one-click on a computer that has reasonable physical security.
Other than that, there is no security problem. It's not as if you can order a bunch of books and have them sent to other than your own address. Even if someone orders a bunch of books, all you have to do is send them back.
I suppose what could happen is some l33t hacxhor could hack into his neighbor's computer, order some books (or install the cookie into his own computer, perhaps), and then intercept the package when it's delivered.
Fortunately, my world is happier and less paranoid than that.
Investor information is not perfect, but it's not marketing garbage either. They can't make exaggerated claims, or the FTC will nail their butt (or they open themselves to a shareholders lawsuit). In fact, I'm reminded of something I saw in the stamps.com investor information...
"We have a history of losses and expect to incur losses in the future, and we may never achieve profitability."
You're not going to normally see that in marketing literature.:)
First of all, while I'll admit investor information is not a perfect source of information, it isn't normally complete marketing crap due to FTC regulations. That said...
FYI, the technique used by CRA is called shotgun sequencing, and it has been debated before, but until recently was thought too resource intensive for use on very large genomes.
My understanding was that that is one of the innovations that CRA has brought to the table. Not just the resource intensiveness, but many thought that assembly wouldn't be possible using that technique.
According to this New York Times Article, CRA has also developed computer software to solve the assembly problem.
Look, the point of all this is that you claim that there is nothing new that CRA is doing except spending money, and that is simply not true. As the saying goes, if it were that easy, everyone would do it.
There is certainly a lot of questions still surrounding CRA's business model, but I think you're being a little hard on them.
CRA may only patent 300 or so of the thousands of genes they have preliminary patents on, but these 300 will have been carefully picked over by CRA and the drug companies so that no one else gets access to anything of serious value. Now, explain to me how this sort of behavior is supposed to encourage calculated risk and entrepreneurism in the biotech community?
For the same reason that we allow drug patents... it's not that easy, and it's very expensive to do analysis and produce drugs. The only way it can happen is to allow a drug company to recoup the investment in discovering, testing and producing the drug. Otherwise, you have a drug company investing 100s of millions to develop a drug, only to see it manufactured overseas by anyone and everyone. That does not foster innovation.
We already knew who they were, but fearing cookie compromises and concerned about the user's security, we would decide on certain occasions to make the user prove who they were. [...] They decided to call this compromise of user security "one-click".
At least try and know what your talking about. One-click has to be enabled by the user, and is disabled by default.
He throws out accusations with absolutely no evidence. Not taking someone at their word when they have no history of disingenuous, just because they happen to be more successful than him is basic cynicism.
In most countries, there are long waiting lists for elective surgery, and sometimes even for major surgeries. Advanced medical equipment like CAT scanners are rare, and again there are waiting lists. There is a reason that people who can afford it come to the US for treatment.
But you will be treated even if you have no money and happen to get sick or have an accident.
Same in the US. Anyone can walk into a hospital and get emergency treatment by law.
But why should everything have a price? Especially those innovations which are good for everyone.
Because that's what works. Innovations happen because someone works very hard to create them, and the best incentive to innovation is giving someone a path to a better life through hard work.
I mean, why was agriculture in the Soviet Union such a disaster, when food is even more important than medical care? You would think that farmers would recognize their obligation to feed the country, and work their hardest. Well, it didn't happen that way. There was no point in working hard, because hard work or easy work gave you exactly the same day-to-day result.
You think CRA innovates? I've got news--they're using off-the-shelf machinery to do a brute-force assembly of the human genome.
A quote from their investor information: "To map all 80,000 human genes and find our SNPs, Celera is using Whole Genome Sequencing, a technique pioneered by several of Celera's scientists who were formerly at The Institute for Genomic Research. Using sound waves, a chromosome sample is dispersed into small DNA fragments that can be sequenced, then mapped back together based on their unique base-pair coding. In many cases, a 500-base-pair overlap at the end of a fragment is sufficient to determine that a particular piece of DNA belongs on a particular chromosome."
In other words, there is a reason that they've been able to do it so fast. They are years ahead of the Human Genome Project.
First off, CRA isn't *doing* squat with the sequence data they collect. They are neither equipped nor staffed to do the science that will determine the function of the genes that they sequence. What CRA *is* doing is what pundits call "prospecting the genome." I call it genome squatting.
Why don't you read their investor statements before spouting off about which you know nothing. Their entire business model is based on selling analysis of the information to drug companies. They already have several large firms signed to use them.
I think there's a more general point to be made about this, beyond the matter of Gene Patents. When I read these articles, I sense an attitude of "we need to get the profit out of medicine, so we can help more people." This is just ludicrious, and is one of the reasons that socialized medicine is a failure wherever it's tried. There's a reason that the US has by far the best health care in the world, and by far the best medical research in the world.
It's called profit. Sure, we could force CRA to throw away the millions of dollars they've spent in indexing the genome faster than anyone else. But that would not be in the best interest of society, because that sets a precedent that anyone who comes up with an innovation will have it deemed in "society's best interest" and be pressured to put in the public domain. Who needs the abuse?
We are far better off letting the market be efficient, and letting companies like CRA and others do what they do best -- which is innovate in the area of genetics. CRA is not going to hoard the information, they are going to license it.
We will get results far, far faster letting the free market do the work with normal economic incentives, rather than letting a bunch of government researchers take decades to do something with the information.
Come on... at least the Apache config files use keywords, and have a comprehensible structure. Sendmail uses single letter commands with an insane structure.
They [the CIA] are big and powerful and well armed, and they keep secrets from the very people they purport to protect. They cannot be trusted to have humanity's best interests first and foremost in their minds.
Just out of curiosity, if they're so big, powerful and particularly, secret, how do you know so much about their "murder, rape and destruction"?
Slashdot Mirror
If tomorrow, all the managers, CEO's and stockholders dropped off the face of the planet, the world would function just fine.
You must be insane. You think everyone is just going to show up for work everyday without any sort of management? That it will magically become some self-organized entity? Exactly who is going to make the decision for strategic direction of the company? Who is going to make the decision on what products to keep, and what products to kill? Some bookkeeper? Or perhaps a committee? I've got news for you... this has been tried. Companies run by committee go straight into the toilet.
Or take an army. Do you seriously think an army would be effective without a general? Just having a bunch of troups running around with any strategy?
Is the skill to coercively organize people so wonderful that it is worth 419x more than the skill to produce something?
"Coercively"? Exactly what coercision is taking place? As for "419x", damn right they are. The skill to produce something is 419 times less difficult than the skills to organize and lead people to produce things.
Of course he's going to defend the right of the ruling class to rule, because he's trying so desperately to enter into it.
I love it... "the ruling class". Yes, I've been on both sides of the fence. And when you have too, maybe you will understand exactly what it takes to run a company. Maybe you should also take an economics class. People are paid exactly what they are worth. If anyone could fulfill the CEO of IBM's job, believe me, the shareholders would put in the 20K/year bolt-turner.
But there are specialized skills involved in being a CEO, namely leadership. Just as you can't have an army with only soldiers, you need someone to give direction and vision to the company.
--
The larger point is that all these issues are arguable, and that even these issues that you state "geeks could agree on" are not that easy to pin down.
I'll just take one of your points, however... Do you think people that spend more time with your kids than you do should make ( probably ) 1/2 your salary?
I'm all for quality teachers, but -- and I know I'm going to get whacked for this, but think it through -- I think teachers are a lot less important than a lot of people think. Bad teachers can make learning impossible, there is no question about it, but I think the difference between "competent" and "very good" is not that wide. I think what makes the biggest difference is the involvement of the parents, and the "atmosphere" of the school. If parents are very involved in making sure the kids take learning seriously, and the environment of the school has a very serious "you are here to learn" attitude, that is what makes the biggest difference.
After all, it's the students that actually do the work, not the teachers. Let's face it... if you have a very motivated students, all you have to do is hand out books, assignments, and grades. Answer a few questions if necessary. I think that modern schools have gotten into the trap that schools and teachers are supposed to be entertainers or something. Now, I think that it's great if a teacher can make learning "fun", but unfortunately, the vast majority of learning is difficult, particularly the subjects the student doesn't happen to be interested in.
--
This is simply because, we actually produce the products, we actually create the wealth.
No, this is the shocking truth... it's much, much harder and more valuable to society to be an organizer, than a worker. The organizers of society are what create wealth. These are the people who take risks to build companies and hire people. Workers very rarely take risks.
This is key: People are paid based on the rarity of their talent, not on the importance of the work. Sewage workers are incredibly important to society, but they are paid based on the large number of people that can do that work.
The people who have a lot of money, with some exceptions, earned their money and created thousands of jobs and created huge amounts of new wealth. New institutions are not created by the workers.
--
You're dreaming if you think most geeks agree on those issues.
Patent system reform? There are way too many ways it can be changed in order to get agreement. Just saying "it needs to be changed" is NOT an issue statement. If you put down some details, I guarantee you will have a substantial number of disagreements.
Larger education budgets? I am totally against that. The problem with education is not lack of money. More money == more adminstrators, not better schools. Education needs to be privatized.
reignite science / tech studying in school. more math... That's fine for you, but not everyone needs more math. I agree that it should be available, but again, that's a privatization issue. (Realize that Science or Art is dropped to pay for more administrators).
funding NASA for _real_ missions ( read: making mars a viable goal ) HELL NO!!! NASA needs to be disbanded or folded into the military. Take NASA's budget and apply it to tax cuts for private companies to do business in space. That is the only hope of seeing mankind in space on a consistent basis.
anti-decency acts... Depends on the act. Not everyone is against filters in libraries, despite what some of these silly YRO articles would seem to indicate.
0 net taxes... I sympathize with this, but it is highly impractical. Think about the disadvantage local retailers are operating under, and you will begin to see why 0 net taxes is not only unfair, but is not going to last forever.
--
uh-huh, How do YOU know?
Well, last time I looked out my window, the world wasn't infested with intelligent robots.
The point is that this particular galaxy has had 13 billion years across billions of planets for it to happen. And since our planet hasn't been sucked up in a galaxy-wide infestation, I conclude that it isn't probable for it to happen.
--
And did anyone notice that Bill was called 'phlegmatic'? I thought they meant 'pragmatic', but that's one helluva typo.
From dictionary.com ...
phlegmatic adj.
1. Of or relating to phlegm; phlegmy.
2. Having or suggesting a calm, sluggish temperament; unemotional.
--
Postulate: There has been intelligent life in the galaxy besides us.
Postulate: Those beings faced these same issues as us, with the same inevitable march toward intelligent machines.
Postulate: Those intelligent machines would invevitable go out of control and eliminate/enslave/whatever the original species.
Postulate: The intelligent machines would be capable of original thought.
Given these assumptions, then you would have to assume that they would have the "desire" to reproduce as much as possible. Once the resources of the original planet where exhausted, they would naturally look toward moving into space. Presumable time would mean less to a machine, and the idea of sub-light space travel wouldn't be a huge deal.
Therefore, given enough time, they should take over the entire galaxy, if not the universe.
Since this hasn't happened in the approximately 13 billion years this galaxy has existed, I conclude that it is not a very likely occurance.
It would be interesting to see a mathematical analysis of how long it would take robot spaceships to take over the whole galaxy, given some reasonable parameters of how long it would take to subsume a planet, build new spaceships, etc. Of course, it would have to take at least 15,000 years (half the width of the galaxy, assuming they start in the middle), so I would guess about 2-3 times that or 30,000-45,000 years. Double that if they start at one end of the galaxy instead.
--
My (limited, obviously) understanding of "modulation" was encoding information onto a carrier wave, which I thought wasn't necessary for ISDN (or for that matter, ADSL, but I was less sure there).
This Modem FAQ List mentions under ISDN, "With ISDN, you won't need a modem since no modulation or demodulation will be necessary. You will need an ISDN adapter instead."
All signals are analog.
Well, maybe, but I think there is a difference between "analog electronics" and "digital electronics".
--
Please don't hate me because I'm beautiful. You can be beautiful, too.
--
Hmmm. Actually, I think you're right. First of all, I was lazy in my terms. I should have said "conversion to an analog signal" rather than "convert to sound".
Second of all, a cable connection really isn't a "pure" digital signal like ISDN or DSL, it actually is an analog signal, so you're right, "modem" is correct.
Sorry 'bout that.
I think I was originally annoyed when I heard the term "ISDN modem", and the annoyance kind of bleed into "cable modem". :)
--
I wish we would stop call these "modems". It's a router, not a modem. Modem == "Modulator Demodulator", and there is nothing being modulated (i.e., converted into sound) over a cable connection.
--
Look who is talking about throwing unfounded accusations around!
Ok, ok, I'm sorry; I take that part back. In fact, I apologize for the tone of my other posts. There is so much stupid cynicism around here sometimes that I think I kind of snapped. :)
You don't have to be a cynic to call that carefully crafted. I didn't have to make up their collusion.
Well, you can call it "collusion" if you want, but you haven't explained why we shouldn't take them at their word: that O'Reilly and Bezos talked together, and Bezos is honestly concerned with the issue. Where's the evidence that it's some phony cover-up or something?
And are you assuming that Bezos publishes letters like that without having his lawyers and PR people help? Such a course would risk a blunder and a huge shareholder lawsuit. And I know that not because I'm a cynic, but because I've actually studied corporate law at the graduate level.
Well, having only created a couple of very successful corporations rather than having studied it in a classroom, I may be at a disadvantage. However, I can tell you that in my experience, yes, sometimes CEOs are actually human beings and not carefully scripted automatons.
That letter to me didn't read like a PR piece, it read like an honest message from someone with honest concerns about the issue. Bezos didn't have to write the letter at all. An incredibly tiny proportion of the public knows or cares about the issue at all.
In fact, by your theories, Bezos will get sued by the shareholders for calling for a short patent period, rather than fighting to keep a 17 year patent on one-click!
The bottom line is this: I see no reason to cast suspicions without any evidence. I think the old Russian saying is apt: "Trust, but verify". I'm not saying that Bezos isn't trying to pull a fast one, only that it's a little premature to build the gallows when he may honestly want to help solve the patent issue once and for all. I think it serves everyone better to give him the benefit of the doubt.
The process that the patent describes was obvious to a practitioner. So what if they were the first to think of it?
Most patents are "obvious" once you see them in practice. The Cotton Gin, which I think most would agree was a revolutionary machine worthy of a patent, was actually a very simple idea.
Now, I'm not necessarily defending one-click as a patent, but what I'm saying is that you are describing valid metrics for patents. As I understand it, "prior art" is an important part of the standard for "obviousness" (which is obviously very subjective).
--
The point is that you would only enable one-click on a computer that has reasonable physical security.
Other than that, there is no security problem. It's not as if you can order a bunch of books and have them sent to other than your own address. Even if someone orders a bunch of books, all you have to do is send them back.
I suppose what could happen is some l33t hacxhor could hack into his neighbor's computer, order some books (or install the cookie into his own computer, perhaps), and then intercept the package when it's delivered.
Fortunately, my world is happier and less paranoid than that.
--
Investor information is not perfect, but it's not marketing garbage either. They can't make exaggerated claims, or the FTC will nail their butt (or they open themselves to a shareholders lawsuit). In fact, I'm reminded of something I saw in the stamps.com investor information...
"We have a history of losses and expect to incur losses in the future, and we may never achieve profitability."
You're not going to normally see that in marketing literature. :)
--
First of all, while I'll admit investor information is not a perfect source of information, it isn't normally complete marketing crap due to FTC regulations. That said...
FYI, the technique used by CRA is called shotgun sequencing, and it has been debated before, but until recently was thought too resource intensive for use on very large genomes.
My understanding was that that is one of the innovations that CRA has brought to the table. Not just the resource intensiveness, but many thought that assembly wouldn't be possible using that technique.
According to this New York Times Article, CRA has also developed computer software to solve the assembly problem.
Look, the point of all this is that you claim that there is nothing new that CRA is doing except spending money, and that is simply not true. As the saying goes, if it were that easy, everyone would do it.
There is certainly a lot of questions still surrounding CRA's business model, but I think you're being a little hard on them.
CRA may only patent 300 or so of the thousands of genes they have preliminary patents on, but these 300 will have been carefully picked over by CRA and the drug companies so that no one else gets access to anything of serious value. Now, explain to me how this sort of behavior is supposed to encourage calculated risk and entrepreneurism in the biotech community?
For the same reason that we allow drug patents... it's not that easy, and it's very expensive to do analysis and produce drugs. The only way it can happen is to allow a drug company to recoup the investment in discovering, testing and producing the drug. Otherwise, you have a drug company investing 100s of millions to develop a drug, only to see it manufactured overseas by anyone and everyone. That does not foster innovation.
--
By the way, beyond your silly cynicism...
We already knew who they were, but fearing cookie compromises and concerned about the user's security, we would decide on certain occasions to make the user prove who they were. [...] They decided to call this compromise of user security "one-click".
At least try and know what your talking about. One-click has to be enabled by the user, and is disabled by default.
--
He throws out accusations with absolutely no evidence. Not taking someone at their word when they have no history of disingenuous, just because they happen to be more successful than him is basic cynicism.
--
Being as cynical as possible does not make you look intelligent and wise.
--
In what way "a failure wherever it's tried"?
In most countries, there are long waiting lists for elective surgery, and sometimes even for major surgeries. Advanced medical equipment like CAT scanners are rare, and again there are waiting lists. There is a reason that people who can afford it come to the US for treatment.
But you will be treated even if you have no money and happen to get sick or have an accident.
Same in the US. Anyone can walk into a hospital and get emergency treatment by law.
But why should everything have a price? Especially those innovations which are good for everyone.
Because that's what works. Innovations happen because someone works very hard to create them, and the best incentive to innovation is giving someone a path to a better life through hard work.
I mean, why was agriculture in the Soviet Union such a disaster, when food is even more important than medical care? You would think that farmers would recognize their obligation to feed the country, and work their hardest. Well, it didn't happen that way. There was no point in working hard, because hard work or easy work gave you exactly the same day-to-day result.
--
You don't know what you're talking about.
You think CRA innovates? I've got news--they're using off-the-shelf machinery to do a brute-force assembly of the human genome.
A quote from their investor information: "To map all 80,000 human genes and find our SNPs, Celera is using Whole Genome Sequencing, a technique pioneered by several of Celera's scientists who were formerly at The Institute for Genomic Research. Using sound waves, a chromosome sample is dispersed into small DNA fragments that can be sequenced, then mapped back together based on their unique base-pair coding. In many cases, a 500-base-pair overlap at the end of a fragment is sufficient to determine that a particular piece of DNA belongs on a particular chromosome."
In other words, there is a reason that they've been able to do it so fast. They are years ahead of the Human Genome Project.
First off, CRA isn't *doing* squat with the sequence data they collect. They are neither equipped nor staffed to do the science that will determine the function of the genes that they sequence. What CRA *is* doing is what pundits call "prospecting the genome." I call it genome squatting.
Why don't you read their investor statements before spouting off about which you know nothing. Their entire business model is based on selling analysis of the information to drug companies. They already have several large firms signed to use them.
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On the other hand, it might be too reasonable a voice for Slashdot, in which case you better moderate it down to "Troll". :)
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Disclaimer: I'm a shareholder in CRA.
I think there's a more general point to be made about this, beyond the matter of Gene Patents. When I read these articles, I sense an attitude of "we need to get the profit out of medicine, so we can help more people." This is just ludicrious, and is one of the reasons that socialized medicine is a failure wherever it's tried. There's a reason that the US has by far the best health care in the world, and by far the best medical research in the world.
It's called profit. Sure, we could force CRA to throw away the millions of dollars they've spent in indexing the genome faster than anyone else. But that would not be in the best interest of society, because that sets a precedent that anyone who comes up with an innovation will have it deemed in "society's best interest" and be pressured to put in the public domain. Who needs the abuse?
We are far better off letting the market be efficient, and letting companies like CRA and others do what they do best -- which is innovate in the area of genetics. CRA is not going to hoard the information, they are going to license it.
We will get results far, far faster letting the free market do the work with normal economic incentives, rather than letting a bunch of government researchers take decades to do something with the information.
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Come on... at least the Apache config files use keywords, and have a comprehensible structure. Sendmail uses single letter commands with an insane structure.
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I agree. Even with the m4 macros, it's just plain stupidly designed.
Why doesn't someone rip out the configuration part of sendmail, and replace it with something apache-style? It can't be that difficult.
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They [the CIA] are big and powerful and well armed, and they keep secrets from the very people they purport to protect. They cannot be trusted to have humanity's best interests first and foremost in their minds.
Just out of curiosity, if they're so big, powerful and particularly, secret, how do you know so much about their "murder, rape and destruction"?
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