"I disagree, I think that even to people involved with electronics it could look like something threatening."
What is it about LEDs that scare people so much? No one in their right mind that's even remotely involved with electronics would think LEDs, resistors, and a battery would make for a dangerous highly explosive device. It wasn't smart for her to not comment on it when she was asked about it, but neither I nor anyone that I work with would even off handedly think that LEDs resistors and batteries would look threatening to anyone.
IANAL. This might just be a Pennsylvania thing then. I know I always thought it was retarded, but it's how they do things here. I guess I just assumed it was like that everywhere.
The jury is the problem. It is far to easy to have a jury that can't think objectively. That is why it is so important to not allow lawyers to bring in evidence that is not related to the case. Jurys might not be able to distinguish between relavent and irrelavent information. Considering that they aren't allowed to take written notes, they might just forget where a piece of information came from.
The problem is that it cost this company on average $800 million to get that drug to market. If they arn't allowed the opportunity to make a real profit on that investment, then why should they ever develop AIDS drugs? It would seem to me that developing helpful drugs is harmful to their company.
This still does not address the issue of the cost of FDA approval. Don't get me wrong. I would love to see it be unneccesary for drug companies to utilize the cut throat and protectionist tactics that they do. However, it has to be realized that the high amount of regulation of pharmacuticals that we have is at the very least a very significant factor in the high cost of new drugs and the protectionist methods used. No drug company wants to fork out millions of dollars to get a new drug approved that they have developed for millions of dollars only to have a generic come out a year later from a company that spent a small amount figuring out how to manufacture the drug and a fraction of what they paid to get their brand of the drug approved because it had already been approved once. This results in the first to market company getting royally screwed.
I truely would love to see a solution to the problem. Though I personally don't believe that it can be done without downscaling the regulation of the medical industry. Eradication of patents on pharmacuticals in the current state of the industry would just result in a stagnation of development because there would be no reward for being the first with a new treatment.
I suspect that it will be easy for others to cast doubt on his arguments.
You mean how we can either have freely traded scientific knowledge, OR we can have a highly regulated medical industry to prevent bad medicine from making it to patients? We can't have it both ways. The state of the heavily regulated industry makes patents necessary for a drug company or medical devices company to not go bankrupt from trying to get their products approved.
"only looks like an LED cartoon character if you're actually familiar with the character."
LEDs... C4.... Yeah I usually can't tell the difference either.
I'm sure they would love to do so, but FDA approval and charity organizations just don't work like that. FDA approval for drugs needs to be obtained from the one manufacturing the drug. They must have the final product and they must do lots and lots of research studies (though agreeably less in this case due to the drug being approved for something else already). And the FDA will ONLY approve their brand. Other companies will then have an easier time getting theirs approved. Now, for an anti-cancer charity to aid in this process, they will have to chose a single for-profit corporation to give money to to help them push it through the FDA. Last I checked, it was somewhat frowned upon to spend charity dollars that way. I might be wrong and there might be precident for this. But one thing is for certain, it must be the drug company that does all of the work.
Except now that it's been publicly disclosed, you can't patent this way either. This is what's wrong with researchers. They think they're bettering mankind, but so often end up hurting it because they can't get reality through their head. Now because they disclosed what this drug can do, it will likely be a long time before it ever is approved for this use, if it's ever approved at all.
The last I checked, epoxy, LEDs, and batteries don't make an explosive combination. Any moron with binoculars could have realized that there was nothing else attached to them. They were in the right to respond to the report, but about 10 minutes of investigating would have shown that they were harmless. I think they just wanted to use their toys.
The large problem with academic research not making it into commercial products is a lack of an unfair advantage. Researchers need to learn to apply for patents. The fact is that most things people in academia develop would be very costly to bring onto the market. As a result, whoever is doing it wants to make sure that no one else is going to be able to simply reverse engineer their new product and pop out a copy in six months. This is especially an issue with drugs because of the very high cost of getting that initial FDA approval. Some company will shell out the many millions to get FDA approval, and then every generics company in the world will be submiting a generic for FDA approval that will be under less scrutiny because one copy of the same drug had already been approved.
I recomend a book by Forest Mims called Getting Started in Electronics. It's a great book for teaching electronics to non Electrical Engineering majors. We actually used it as a text book one year for an Instrumentation class.
"for some reason these people aren't willing to admit that watching horror movies doesn't make you a mass murderer and playing GTA does not cause you to join the mob"
I also forgot to mention the overturning of the CPPA of 1996 by the Supreme Court (as mentioned by someone else) in 2002 for similar reasons. So the legality of virtual child porn changes on a yearly basis right now.
Actually a Supreme Court ruling in 2004 against the COPA act of 1998 declared unconstitutional it's banning of virtual child porn due to the excessive coverage of items under it. The PROTECT Act of 2003 reinstated the illegality of virtual child porn. In April of 2006, the clause banning virtual child porn was also rulled unconstitutionaly broad.
None of the games I mentioned are in Kryn. Phlan boarders the northern shores of the Moonsea and Hillsfar is near the southern shore. The infamous Zhentil Keep lies between to the west. All of this is northeast of Cormyr which is directly east of Baldur's Gate on the Sword Coast.
"This is the same region of the Forgotten Realms that played host to every other D&D CRPGs you've played"
Pools of Radiance was in Phlan and Hillsfar was in... well... Hillsfar. Neither of these are along the Sword Coast. They're east of Cormyr even. I'm pretty sure that Secret of the Silver Blades as more inland as well.
Background checks are not really an issue. I've signed away for a background check for every single company I've worked for, including Burger King, though I doubt they checked it.
"And finally, when you get those 'challenges', be aware that a hell of a lot of worry and hassle go with them. You may end up yearning for the simpler life."
mmm 70 hour work weeks.
"one expert says that the federal government should create contests and prize awards for successful science ideas"
Apparently this "expert" has no idea what the research grant process is like.
Slashdot Mirror
"I disagree, I think that even to people involved with electronics it could look like something threatening."
What is it about LEDs that scare people so much? No one in their right mind that's even remotely involved with electronics would think LEDs, resistors, and a battery would make for a dangerous highly explosive device. It wasn't smart for her to not comment on it when she was asked about it, but neither I nor anyone that I work with would even off handedly think that LEDs resistors and batteries would look threatening to anyone.
IANAL. This might just be a Pennsylvania thing then. I know I always thought it was retarded, but it's how they do things here. I guess I just assumed it was like that everywhere.
The jury is the problem. It is far to easy to have a jury that can't think objectively. That is why it is so important to not allow lawyers to bring in evidence that is not related to the case. Jurys might not be able to distinguish between relavent and irrelavent information. Considering that they aren't allowed to take written notes, they might just forget where a piece of information came from.
This is a good and fair point.
The problem is that it cost this company on average $800 million to get that drug to market. If they arn't allowed the opportunity to make a real profit on that investment, then why should they ever develop AIDS drugs? It would seem to me that developing helpful drugs is harmful to their company.
This still does not address the issue of the cost of FDA approval. Don't get me wrong. I would love to see it be unneccesary for drug companies to utilize the cut throat and protectionist tactics that they do. However, it has to be realized that the high amount of regulation of pharmacuticals that we have is at the very least a very significant factor in the high cost of new drugs and the protectionist methods used. No drug company wants to fork out millions of dollars to get a new drug approved that they have developed for millions of dollars only to have a generic come out a year later from a company that spent a small amount figuring out how to manufacture the drug and a fraction of what they paid to get their brand of the drug approved because it had already been approved once. This results in the first to market company getting royally screwed. I truely would love to see a solution to the problem. Though I personally don't believe that it can be done without downscaling the regulation of the medical industry. Eradication of patents on pharmacuticals in the current state of the industry would just result in a stagnation of development because there would be no reward for being the first with a new treatment.
I suspect that it will be easy for others to cast doubt on his arguments.
You mean how we can either have freely traded scientific knowledge, OR we can have a highly regulated medical industry to prevent bad medicine from making it to patients? We can't have it both ways. The state of the heavily regulated industry makes patents necessary for a drug company or medical devices company to not go bankrupt from trying to get their products approved.
"only looks like an LED cartoon character if you're actually familiar with the character." LEDs... C4.... Yeah I usually can't tell the difference either.
I'm sure they would love to do so, but FDA approval and charity organizations just don't work like that. FDA approval for drugs needs to be obtained from the one manufacturing the drug. They must have the final product and they must do lots and lots of research studies (though agreeably less in this case due to the drug being approved for something else already). And the FDA will ONLY approve their brand. Other companies will then have an easier time getting theirs approved. Now, for an anti-cancer charity to aid in this process, they will have to chose a single for-profit corporation to give money to to help them push it through the FDA. Last I checked, it was somewhat frowned upon to spend charity dollars that way. I might be wrong and there might be precident for this. But one thing is for certain, it must be the drug company that does all of the work.
Secondly, governments, charities, and drug companies that make their living producing generics could fund this easily.
But why would they? Contrary to popular belief, many of us dont get that warm and fuzzy feeling for helping people with no return expected.
Except now that it's been publicly disclosed, you can't patent this way either. This is what's wrong with researchers. They think they're bettering mankind, but so often end up hurting it because they can't get reality through their head. Now because they disclosed what this drug can do, it will likely be a long time before it ever is approved for this use, if it's ever approved at all.
The last I checked, epoxy, LEDs, and batteries don't make an explosive combination. Any moron with binoculars could have realized that there was nothing else attached to them. They were in the right to respond to the report, but about 10 minutes of investigating would have shown that they were harmless. I think they just wanted to use their toys.
The large problem with academic research not making it into commercial products is a lack of an unfair advantage. Researchers need to learn to apply for patents. The fact is that most things people in academia develop would be very costly to bring onto the market. As a result, whoever is doing it wants to make sure that no one else is going to be able to simply reverse engineer their new product and pop out a copy in six months. This is especially an issue with drugs because of the very high cost of getting that initial FDA approval. Some company will shell out the many millions to get FDA approval, and then every generics company in the world will be submiting a generic for FDA approval that will be under less scrutiny because one copy of the same drug had already been approved.
Actually from what I heard, the real problem was that the studios just didn't like working with eachother.
Coffee. Black.
I recomend a book by Forest Mims called Getting Started in Electronics. It's a great book for teaching electronics to non Electrical Engineering majors. We actually used it as a text book one year for an Instrumentation class.
"for some reason these people aren't willing to admit that watching horror movies doesn't make you a mass murderer and playing GTA does not cause you to join the mob"
They arn't?
I also forgot to mention the overturning of the CPPA of 1996 by the Supreme Court (as mentioned by someone else) in 2002 for similar reasons. So the legality of virtual child porn changes on a yearly basis right now.
Actually a Supreme Court ruling in 2004 against the COPA act of 1998 declared unconstitutional it's banning of virtual child porn due to the excessive coverage of items under it. The PROTECT Act of 2003 reinstated the illegality of virtual child porn. In April of 2006, the clause banning virtual child porn was also rulled unconstitutionaly broad.
I'm ordering this video game right now. This is the most offensively awsome thing to ever come out.
None of the games I mentioned are in Kryn. Phlan boarders the northern shores of the Moonsea and Hillsfar is near the southern shore. The infamous Zhentil Keep lies between to the west. All of this is northeast of Cormyr which is directly east of Baldur's Gate on the Sword Coast.
"This is the same region of the Forgotten Realms that played host to every other D&D CRPGs you've played"
Pools of Radiance was in Phlan and Hillsfar was in... well... Hillsfar. Neither of these are along the Sword Coast. They're east of Cormyr even. I'm pretty sure that Secret of the Silver Blades as more inland as well.
Background checks are not really an issue. I've signed away for a background check for every single company I've worked for, including Burger King, though I doubt they checked it.
"And finally, when you get those 'challenges', be aware that a hell of a lot of worry and hassle go with them. You may end up yearning for the simpler life." mmm 70 hour work weeks.
"one expert says that the federal government should create contests and prize awards for successful science ideas" Apparently this "expert" has no idea what the research grant process is like.