Dell will step up as soon as we start seeing the articles "Dell factory workers committing suicide". Apple didn't do this out of the kindness of their hearts, they did it because they were getting negative PR from it.
Common geeks, ascii code (hold alt and press 230 then release) - tadum -> Well it doesn't work.. I stand corrected, or slashdot translates it too well and it's just to small to see.
I just realized I typed "kill malaria", but malaria is a disease caused by parasites such as Plasmodium falciparum (which are transmitted by mosquitoes). I guess you could say plasmodiums are the "malaria parasite", then you could 'kill' them...
I'd guess they are also willing to provide samples, but I don't know. Anyhow, in the research world, a picture of a molecule is just as good to an medicinal and/or organic chemist, they can figure out how to synthesize it themselves and perhaps they might even be able to get some help by looking at the patents. Some medicinal chemists make tons of molecules for a purpose, only to find out they don't have any activity. This info would allow them to start with a parent compound they know will have some activity. They can then expand and make analogs potentially discovering new chemistry (tools) in the process. They would then likely try to make 'better' compounds while they or a biologist can try to find out the mechanism of how the compounds kill malaria. Even if this doesn't yield a cure, figuring out these mechanisms can serendipitously progress science, and we can learn even from the misses. In science, it's common to go down a road and find a dead end, but at least then we can put up a sign and tell others to avoid that road, so they can go down a different road in hope of finding whatever it is we are looking for (malaria treatments in this case). The more knowledge we obtain, the better our chances are...
I agree, we should take the facts and be thankful. Whatever their true motives, we do not know (perhaps they just don't think they'll ever profit from malaria drugs, etc). We'll see how many negative comments regarding this are posted... But before that happens, I'd advise readers to always be skeptical, but never cynical.
Speaking of teh suck, follow my logic here: Lucid dreams are more common with gaming, and it seems some of you end up dreaming about the game you were playing. I'm going to download me some Leisure Suit Larry!
Perhaps, but privacy does allow for freedom. If one has privacy then it doesn't matter what they are doing, even if they are doing something illegal, they are likely to not get caught and thus are "free" to do what they please (of course depending on the crime, but I'm thinking nonviolent, not affecting others, such as say drug use).
In Katz v. United States, 389 U.S. 347 , the Supreme Court ruled that the 4th amendment included a person's "reasonable expectation of privacy". What 'reasonable' means, IANAL, but I think the SCOTUS was right that the founding fathers meant the fourth amendment as a kind of privacy. I think that privacy is a strong driving force behind at least a few amendments within the bill the rights, and privacy in many respects is strongly interrelated with various aspects of freedom.
With vaccination, this is known as herd immunity. Basically, even if an individual is not vaccinated (or virus/malware/etc protected in this case), by virtue of others being vaccinated, there is less chance the non-vaccinated will become infected since there are less people who they are coming into contact with who are harboring the virus. Following with this, the greater the number of immune, the less likely the unprotected will become ill.
I strongly suspect the same concepts would apply to computers, and allowing pirates to have this protection would indeed provide greater security to ALL the unprotected windows users. Thus, the choices for MS are 1) increase security for all users (paying or not) by allowing even pirates to download in order to increase the protection via herd immunity or 2) increase company profit by trying to coerce hackers into buying a copy by not allowing them this download. Since the latter will never happen, all MS is really doing is simply missing an opportunity to increase security because they *think* they can increase profit. Alternatively, maybe they think they are simply teaching those pirates a lesson, but sadly it would be at the expense of others.
Re:Do we need the anti-smoking jab
on
A Geek Funeral
·
· Score: 1
I smoke. If this bothers anyone, I suggest you look around at the world in which we live and shut your fuckin' mouth.
-Bill Hicks
I suppose that you're tying to imply there is no American (mainly corporate) influence attempting to impose their financially motivated desires on on sovereign government. I find that very difficult to believe.
First, see this http://torrentfreak.com/mpaa-begged-sweden-to-take-down-the-piratebay/ and reference therein.
"As I am sure you are aware, the American Embassy has sent entreaties to the Swedish government urging it to take action against The Pirate Bay and other organizations operating within Sweden that facilitate copyright theft."
Note that many of the companies suing are the Swedish counterparts of American founded and headquartered corporations.
From your wikipedia reference:
"The raid, alleged by The Pirate Bay to be politically motivated and under pressure from the Motion Picture Association of AMERICA (MPAA),[14] was reported as a success by the MPAA in the immediate aftermath but with the website being restored within days and file sharing now firmly in focus in the Swedish media, The Pirate Bay considered the raid "highly unsuccessful" for the site's operation.[15]" (emphasis mine)
You're joking at the end there, but that has at least some degree a truth to it. As a molecular biologist, I have a very negative connotation of Kansas due to their intelligent design/evolution fiasco. And as such, I would never consider moving and raising children there. I'm sure I'm an over-reactor, but I'd bet some other scientists feel the same way too.
It is certainly not perfect, but I don't believe that is a fault with the system, but a fault with the people running it.
Therein lies the inherent problems with socialism in general. Their principles sound great, and socialism probably could be alright in a perfect world, but this world is so very very far from perfect. IMO, socialism is more prone to greater amounts of bureaucracy, inefficiency, and corruption.
You're making it sound quite difficult and expensive, but I don't think it's really that expensive or difficult. You laugh at water baths, but that would work just fine for PCR, and Taq Polymerase really isn't that expensive (~$100 for lots of rxns). Sure all the kits us biologists use are easy and expensive, but if someone is doing it for a hobby, they can bypass kits and do things "old school" style (where one actually knows what they are doing instead of adding reagent A to reagent B). Also, if someone knew that they are able to this, they could just ask a lab for a plasmid, which the lab might gladly send for shipping cost only (they may have to pretend or imply they have a PhD and lab though). A sequencer is not needed for cloning, you could simply use agarose gels and go by size for cloning (agarose=cheap and a power source could be made easy). You can get pipettes (ul) on ebay for not too expensive (few hundred). Bacteria do NOT need to be shaken either, or even grown at 37C... I've commonly grown e.coli at room temp without shaking (sometimes even to *optimally* express a protein), they just won't grow as fast. Ampicillin and LB isn't very expensive...
My university has a surplus store where old or broken equipment goes to be sold for pretty cheap. One could get a fair amount of specialty equipment there, especially if another hobby was fixing equipment. I would guess you could do a cloning for less than $2000 easy (which is cheaper then some computers)...
Well, if you're American, statistically heart disease is most likely to kill you. And the liver is one of the most resilient organs. So I'd say you're correct, booze is good for most, but never say always...
I'm part of the "small percentage" (rarely watch TV - antenna only) and I have seen the "irritating ad" about the change only once or twice. I don't remember when the changeover is though. In general, I usually mute commercials and just don't pay attention to them. Plus I usually watch PBS, which doesn't have much commercials, although they probably do have that ad before and after programs. So I could see someone not knowing about the change over at all.
On a side note - even though I know about the change over, I'm not ready for it. I got the coupon, but left in the envelope for a while, then finally opened it and put it my wallet, and by the time I remembered to buy a converter box, it expired. I emailed the converter box people and they responded that I'm SOL. My rare TV usage doesn't warrant $50 in my mind, so I'll be without... Thanks government for killing my TV, and thanks for messing up my auto time setting alarm clock with the DST change too...
Slashdot Mirror
Dell will step up as soon as we start seeing the articles "Dell factory workers committing suicide". Apple didn't do this out of the kindness of their hearts, they did it because they were getting negative PR from it.
Those who sacrifice liberty for security deserve neither
Maybe the next study should be on how we are becoming more cynical. The underlying cause of our cynicism is perhaps the same as our lack of empathy...
Common geeks, ascii code (hold alt and press 230 then release) - tadum ->
Well it doesn't work.. I stand corrected, or slashdot translates it too well and it's just to small to see.
This could be just what geeks with alopecia need!
I just realized I typed "kill malaria", but malaria is a disease caused by parasites such as Plasmodium falciparum (which are transmitted by mosquitoes). I guess you could say plasmodiums are the "malaria parasite", then you could 'kill' them...
I'd guess they are also willing to provide samples, but I don't know. Anyhow, in the research world, a picture of a molecule is just as good to an medicinal and/or organic chemist, they can figure out how to synthesize it themselves and perhaps they might even be able to get some help by looking at the patents. Some medicinal chemists make tons of molecules for a purpose, only to find out they don't have any activity. This info would allow them to start with a parent compound they know will have some activity. They can then expand and make analogs potentially discovering new chemistry (tools) in the process. They would then likely try to make 'better' compounds while they or a biologist can try to find out the mechanism of how the compounds kill malaria. Even if this doesn't yield a cure, figuring out these mechanisms can serendipitously progress science, and we can learn even from the misses. In science, it's common to go down a road and find a dead end, but at least then we can put up a sign and tell others to avoid that road, so they can go down a different road in hope of finding whatever it is we are looking for (malaria treatments in this case). The more knowledge we obtain, the better our chances are...
I agree, we should take the facts and be thankful. Whatever their true motives, we do not know (perhaps they just don't think they'll ever profit from malaria drugs, etc). We'll see how many negative comments regarding this are posted... But before that happens, I'd advise readers to always be skeptical, but never cynical.
Speaking of teh suck, follow my logic here: Lucid dreams are more common with gaming, and it seems some of you end up dreaming about the game you were playing. I'm going to download me some Leisure Suit Larry!
Any way to make your 'igoogle' page search have this feature?
Or if you're in Australia, just patent the wheel itself
Australia is like the Arkansas of the world
I'm not understanding how this thing works. Can someone please use a car analogy?
"privacy != freedom"
Perhaps, but privacy does allow for freedom. If one has privacy then it doesn't matter what they are doing, even if they are doing something illegal, they are likely to not get caught and thus are "free" to do what they please (of course depending on the crime, but I'm thinking nonviolent, not affecting others, such as say drug use).
In Katz v. United States, 389 U.S. 347 , the Supreme Court ruled that the 4th amendment included a person's "reasonable expectation of privacy". What 'reasonable' means, IANAL, but I think the SCOTUS was right that the founding fathers meant the fourth amendment as a kind of privacy. I think that privacy is a strong driving force behind at least a few amendments within the bill the rights, and privacy in many respects is strongly interrelated with various aspects of freedom.
"I'm a great believer in luck, and I find the harder I work, the more I have of it." - Thomas Jefferson
or Androme / Andromeos...
With vaccination, this is known as herd immunity. Basically, even if an individual is not vaccinated (or virus/malware/etc protected in this case), by virtue of others being vaccinated, there is less chance the non-vaccinated will become infected since there are less people who they are coming into contact with who are harboring the virus. Following with this, the greater the number of immune, the less likely the unprotected will become ill.
I strongly suspect the same concepts would apply to computers, and allowing pirates to have this protection would indeed provide greater security to ALL the unprotected windows users. Thus, the choices for MS are 1) increase security for all users (paying or not) by allowing even pirates to download in order to increase the protection via herd immunity or 2) increase company profit by trying to coerce hackers into buying a copy by not allowing them this download. Since the latter will never happen, all MS is really doing is simply missing an opportunity to increase security because they *think* they can increase profit. Alternatively, maybe they think they are simply teaching those pirates a lesson, but sadly it would be at the expense of others.
I smoke. If this bothers anyone, I suggest you look around at the world in which we live and shut your fuckin' mouth. -Bill Hicks
I suppose that you're tying to imply there is no American (mainly corporate) influence attempting to impose their financially motivated desires on on sovereign government. I find that very difficult to believe.
First, see this http://torrentfreak.com/mpaa-begged-sweden-to-take-down-the-piratebay/ and reference therein. "As I am sure you are aware, the American Embassy has sent entreaties to the Swedish government urging it to take action against The Pirate Bay and other organizations operating within Sweden that facilitate copyright theft."
Note that many of the companies suing are the Swedish counterparts of American founded and headquartered corporations.
From your wikipedia reference: "The raid, alleged by The Pirate Bay to be politically motivated and under pressure from the Motion Picture Association of AMERICA (MPAA),[14] was reported as a success by the MPAA in the immediate aftermath but with the website being restored within days and file sharing now firmly in focus in the Swedish media, The Pirate Bay considered the raid "highly unsuccessful" for the site's operation.[15]" (emphasis mine)
You're joking at the end there, but that has at least some degree a truth to it. As a molecular biologist, I have a very negative connotation of Kansas due to their intelligent design/evolution fiasco. And as such, I would never consider moving and raising children there. I'm sure I'm an over-reactor, but I'd bet some other scientists feel the same way too.
It is certainly not perfect, but I don't believe that is a fault with the system, but a fault with the people running it.
Therein lies the inherent problems with socialism in general. Their principles sound great, and socialism probably could be alright in a perfect world, but this world is so very very far from perfect. IMO, socialism is more prone to greater amounts of bureaucracy, inefficiency, and corruption.
You're making it sound quite difficult and expensive, but I don't think it's really that expensive or difficult. You laugh at water baths, but that would work just fine for PCR, and Taq Polymerase really isn't that expensive (~$100 for lots of rxns). Sure all the kits us biologists use are easy and expensive, but if someone is doing it for a hobby, they can bypass kits and do things "old school" style (where one actually knows what they are doing instead of adding reagent A to reagent B). Also, if someone knew that they are able to this, they could just ask a lab for a plasmid, which the lab might gladly send for shipping cost only (they may have to pretend or imply they have a PhD and lab though). A sequencer is not needed for cloning, you could simply use agarose gels and go by size for cloning (agarose=cheap and a power source could be made easy). You can get pipettes (ul) on ebay for not too expensive (few hundred). Bacteria do NOT need to be shaken either, or even grown at 37C... I've commonly grown e.coli at room temp without shaking (sometimes even to *optimally* express a protein), they just won't grow as fast. Ampicillin and LB isn't very expensive... My university has a surplus store where old or broken equipment goes to be sold for pretty cheap. One could get a fair amount of specialty equipment there, especially if another hobby was fixing equipment. I would guess you could do a cloning for less than $2000 easy (which is cheaper then some computers)...
And I'm sure people are trying to bioengineer better microbes to degrade the plastic. This kid won the science fair on that basic principle. http://www.motherjones.com/blue-marble/2008/05/teenagers-science-fair-project-may-deliver-us-plastic
Well, if you're American, statistically heart disease is most likely to kill you. And the liver is one of the most resilient organs. So I'd say you're correct, booze is good for most, but never say always...
I'm part of the "small percentage" (rarely watch TV - antenna only) and I have seen the "irritating ad" about the change only once or twice. I don't remember when the changeover is though. In general, I usually mute commercials and just don't pay attention to them. Plus I usually watch PBS, which doesn't have much commercials, although they probably do have that ad before and after programs. So I could see someone not knowing about the change over at all.
On a side note - even though I know about the change over, I'm not ready for it. I got the coupon, but left in the envelope for a while, then finally opened it and put it my wallet, and by the time I remembered to buy a converter box, it expired. I emailed the converter box people and they responded that I'm SOL. My rare TV usage doesn't warrant $50 in my mind, so I'll be without... Thanks government for killing my TV, and thanks for messing up my auto time setting alarm clock with the DST change too...