The ideal purpose of any technology is to do what the people paying for it want it to do. Currently, the people paying for GM foods are not the people in grocery stores, but rather the companies who produce seeds. Pesticide resistant crops don't discourage pesticide use, they encourage it. Most GM crops are similarly geared to serve the needs of the seed producers first, the farmers second, and the consumers a distant third.
Consider how the economy related to seed development works, and has worked for over two generations.
RC Lewontin has pointed out how all the advantages and accolades attributed to hybridization could also have been achieved through open polinization. Hybridization is not a means for improving seed, so much as a means of copy-protecting it and thus forcing the farmers back to the seed producers year after year. Hybrid seeds can't be replanted with the same beneficial effects. Their progeny are typically weaker (with a few exceptions, such as squash. Not sure why they're different.)
Furthermore, plants which are selectivly bred but not hybridized have the advantage of genetic diversity. Having a field of genetically identical plants is an open invitation for insects and disease, and it requires a genetic resevoir from which new plants can be bred ever few years, effecting a sepration of species in time in order to avoid predators and disease in an attempt to replace the natural separation of species in space.
Think of it as a very rough "catherdral vs. the bazaar" type of dichotomy in the botanical sciences.
I agree that genetic modification of organisms, even the gentic modification of food, has the potential to do a great deal of good. And GM organisms certainly will. However as was mentioned currently, there is currently a food surplus. Even during the drought in Ethiopia, when starvation was rife, Ethiopia was a net exporter of food. GM foods are not created to solve the problems of starvation.
Finally, GM foods serve to degrade the 'brand name' associated with different types of foodstuffs. Imagine if having 'apples' on an ingredient label was meaningless. Especially if you were allergic to somthing which might or might not be in those apples. Rigorous testing of GM food will only avoid the worst allergies. Most people naturally avoid foods they're allergic to.
Ask yourself, what would a nation where many people were just slightly allergic to their food look like? What kind of mild, inexplicable symptoms would be more common?
Not to flame. I'm interested in linguistics, but couldn't quite make out what your posting means. What, specifically, is a 'context free' language? What do you mean 'human language is at least context free?'
Specifically, Gold's theorem is about 'learnability in the limit', in other words, precise learning of the exact set of strings that make up the language that the learner is exposed to.
And birds are a heck of a lot easier to work with than small screamy children.
Though they're not as much fun to dissect.
To clarify anyone reading the parent comment;
in cats, the t is non-vocalized. You can have your vocal cords removed and still make the 't' sound.
IN dogs, the g is vocalized. You need vocal cords to make the g sound. If a word ends in a vocalized consonant, the 's' will also be vocalized. A nonvocalized consonant will get a non vocalized 's.'
Thus;
Dogz Cats Rats Bugz Firez Laffs Coffs Hel ps Gunz
I don't know what part of people's brains causes this. Maybe the parent knows. Basically the idea here is that there are rules in our phonetic language which aren't apparent from the spelling of words, but which we still 'know.'
If I put forward the nonsense words
Gartz and Brogs
You'd know that the first is pronounced with a ts sound and the second with a gz sound at the end.
I can't image that any business model which includes losing a ship can be competitive.
Not that I think other nations would let that happen. The US would probably provide some (free) insurance. Which is the problem. These guys are getting protection and not paying for it. The mob...er, I mean most states... should not stand for this.
Well, if you're making fun of me, the helium (i.e. Alpha particles) won't be radioactive.
You could suck the gas through a filter of platinum since Hydrogen and Helium are the only gasses which can go through platinum, so they'd be relativly pure and non-radioactive.
It's the fact that the particles are highly energetic that makes them dangerous. If you slow down the particles and aren't exposed to energetic EM, you'll be out of harm's way.
Why isn't the hydrogen and helium produced at nuclear waste sites harvested and used commercially. Especially the Helium. It's my understanding that eventually we'll run out of helium since it's extracted from oil wells, being the product of long years of radioactive materials releasing alpha particles.
Would it be excessivly expensive to harvest the stuff from nuclear waste sites? They have to have some kind of allowance for offgassing due to the buildup of flammable hydrogen. Why not build somthing to sit at the offgas vents and collect Hydrogen and helium?
On the other hand, this is California. With all the garbage they've been through with price gouging on electricity recently, running off diesel might not look so bad.
Lets not ask "is this sweatshop labor" but rather "who would come to their rescue if they happened to be attacked?"
If the US gov. protects them, they should be paying taxes. If the US gov doesn't protect them... we can show those suckers what piracy REALLY means. *evil laughter*
Of course, I say this working in the Philippines as a US citizen. But at least I pay a heck of a lot of Philippine taxes.
I'm in the same boat. I'm currently doing elearning for a call center. I'd love to be able to integrate Moodle with the system so we could push content based on call volume. There are some ASP scripts out there that may be able to do this, but I don't know enough about what kind of resources to ask for, and I don't want to screw up the business end of the business.
I think that Knowlagent offers the functionality but it's expensive as heck. Avaya\Lucent might have their own solutions... but noone seems to want to give me the info.
I'm a hands on learner. I need somthing to play with, darn it.
I believe you have to meet all three criteria. It's not multiple definitions.
But even so, yeah, about half the internet is porn.
If you want odd legal standards, though, techically forcing an object into someone's mouth (even if the act is totally nonsexual) would be considered rape according to Illinois Law.
and it's entirely likely that he did, he was Jewish after all and Jewish law encouraged men to breed like rabbits. ...You mean breed like rabbis, right?;)
>>What's the betting that the one that reads "'The Bible' copyright 134AD, Any resemblance to people past or present is purely coincidental" is quickly covered up?
They can if they release a "reduced functionality" version of windows. Or if they assume that earlier versions of windows like 98 are going to remain in free circulation. Imagine if you only had to pay for the most recent OS, but a 4 year old version, which was certain to be cracked by that time anyways, was free.
I keep hearing people assert that telomere shortening was the only thing between an organism and immortality. Does anyone have a dissenting opinion?
I understand that transformed cells are effectivly immortal. These cells could lose a lot of genetic information and still be functional, though. Is it possible that "hayflick's limit" is just much higher for this type of cell and that there's some other method of information loss at work?
For example, isn't there some kind of information loss in the genes of somatic cells caused by transposons, viruses, etc. particularly those cells over a certain age?
Are transposons less active in stem cells, germ line cells or embryonic stem cells? Does anyone know?
And could anyone please explain why differentiated cell types have shortened telomeres while undifferentiated cells seem immune. I understand the existance of telomerase and that it's present in some cells and not in others. But in terms of utility, is deliberate senescence really ONLY a defese against cancer\unregulated cell growth and that's it? Period? Remove cancer and we'd all live as long as redwoods? I keep hearing that line over and again, but it seems odd to think that multicellular life would otherwise be immortal.
Any thoughts on whether mortality is partially related to the existance of an animal's immune system? As cells change and become exposed to virises, they become increasingly "non-self". The existance of a non-chemical immune system is one other difference between mortal humans and effectivly immortal plants.
Slashdot Mirror
The ideal purpose of any technology is to do what the people paying for it want it to do. Currently, the people paying for GM foods are not the people in grocery stores, but rather the companies who produce seeds. Pesticide resistant crops don't discourage pesticide use, they encourage it. Most GM crops are similarly geared to serve the needs of the seed producers first, the farmers second, and the consumers a distant third.
Consider how the economy related to seed development works, and has worked for over two generations.
RC Lewontin has pointed out how all the advantages and accolades attributed to hybridization could also have been achieved through open polinization. Hybridization is not a means for improving seed, so much as a means of copy-protecting it and thus forcing the farmers back to the seed producers year after year. Hybrid seeds can't be replanted with the same beneficial effects. Their progeny are typically weaker (with a few exceptions, such as squash. Not sure why they're different.)
Furthermore, plants which are selectivly bred but not hybridized have the advantage of genetic diversity. Having a field of genetically identical plants is an open invitation for insects and disease, and it requires a genetic resevoir from which new plants can be bred ever few years, effecting a sepration of species in time in order to avoid predators and disease in an attempt to replace the natural separation of species in space.
Think of it as a very rough "catherdral vs. the bazaar" type of dichotomy in the botanical sciences.
I agree that genetic modification of organisms, even the gentic modification of food, has the potential to do a great deal of good. And GM organisms certainly will. However as was mentioned currently, there is currently a food surplus. Even during the drought in Ethiopia, when starvation was rife, Ethiopia was a net exporter of food. GM foods are not created to solve the problems of starvation.
Finally, GM foods serve to degrade the 'brand name' associated with different types of foodstuffs. Imagine if having 'apples' on an ingredient label was meaningless. Especially if you were allergic to somthing which might or might not be in those apples. Rigorous testing of GM food will only avoid the worst allergies. Most people naturally avoid foods they're allergic to.
Ask yourself, what would a nation where many people were just slightly allergic to their food look like? What kind of mild, inexplicable symptoms would be more common?
Not to flame. I'm interested in linguistics, but couldn't quite make out what your posting means. What, specifically, is a 'context free' language? What do you mean 'human language is at least context free?'
Specifically, Gold's theorem is about 'learnability in the limit', in other words, precise learning of the exact set of strings that make up the language that the learner is exposed to.
What does that mean?
And birds are a heck of a lot easier to work with than small screamy children.
l ps
Though they're not as much fun to dissect.
To clarify anyone reading the parent comment;
in cats, the t is non-vocalized. You can have your vocal cords removed and still make the 't' sound.
IN dogs, the g is vocalized. You need vocal cords to make the g sound. If a word ends in a vocalized consonant, the 's' will also be vocalized. A nonvocalized consonant will get a non vocalized 's.'
Thus;
Dogz
Cats
Rats
Bugz
Firez
Laffs
Coffs
He
Gunz
I don't know what part of people's brains causes this. Maybe the parent knows.
Basically the idea here is that there are rules in our phonetic language which aren't apparent from the spelling of words, but which we still 'know.'
If I put forward the nonsense words
Gartz
and
Brogs
You'd know that the first is pronounced with a ts sound and the second with a gz sound at the end.
This may also be taken as evidence that "intelligence" is overrated.
:p
So should I mod your comment overrated or should I call you unintelligent?
I can't image that any business model which includes losing a ship can be competitive.
Not that I think other nations would let that happen. The US would probably provide some (free) insurance. Which is the problem. These guys are getting protection and not paying for it. The mob...er, I mean most states... should not stand for this.
Well, if you're making fun of me, the helium (i.e. Alpha particles) won't be radioactive.
You could suck the gas through a filter of platinum since Hydrogen and Helium are the only gasses which can go through platinum, so they'd be relativly pure and non-radioactive.
It's the fact that the particles are highly energetic that makes them dangerous. If you slow down the particles and aren't exposed to energetic EM, you'll be out of harm's way.
Why isn't the hydrogen and helium produced at nuclear waste sites harvested and used commercially. Especially the Helium. It's my understanding that eventually we'll run out of helium since it's extracted from oil wells, being the product of long years of radioactive materials releasing alpha particles.
Would it be excessivly expensive to harvest the stuff from nuclear waste sites? They have to have some kind of allowance for offgassing due to the buildup of flammable hydrogen. Why not build somthing to sit at the offgas vents and collect Hydrogen and helium?
Of course IANANE (I am not a nuclear engineer)
It's possible for corporations to write various ethics into their charters, in which case the corp. would have an interest aside from profits.
However Microsoft, to the best of my knowledge, has not done this. If a person is going to buy stock, it's fair to let them know what they're buying.
*sings*
In the navy
all day you'll be writing code
in the navy "I can't get this thing to load!"
In the navy
in the navy
In the navy
you can almost see the sand
in the navy
help exploit our motherland
in the navy
in the navy
On the other hand, this is California. With all the garbage they've been through with price gouging on electricity recently, running off diesel might not look so bad.
Lets not ask "is this sweatshop labor" but rather "who would come to their rescue if they happened to be attacked?"
If the US gov. protects them, they should be paying taxes. If the US gov doesn't protect them... we can show those suckers what piracy REALLY means. *evil laughter*
Of course, I say this working in the Philippines as a US citizen. But at least I pay a heck of a lot of Philippine taxes.
We bought a company out of fear and called in Macradobe!
...and noone will complete this song cause they're all smoking doobies?
I know that somebody can figure out more lyrics on this. It is 4/20 after all.
I don't think that most web users are as tehcnically discerning as you are.
I changed a static website selling custom tailored clothing into a flash site. Still user driven, but looks much nicer. Sales have improved tenfold.
As long as people keep their flash sites low bandwidth and user driven, it can be a fine tool.
I'm in the same boat. I'm currently doing elearning for a call center. I'd love to be able to integrate Moodle with the system so we could push content based on call volume. There are some ASP scripts out there that may be able to do this, but I don't know enough about what kind of resources to ask for, and I don't want to screw up the business end of the business.
I think that Knowlagent offers the functionality but it's expensive as heck. Avaya\Lucent might have their own solutions... but noone seems to want to give me the info.
I'm a hands on learner. I need somthing to play with, darn it.
I believe you have to meet all three criteria. It's not multiple definitions.
But even so, yeah, about half the internet is porn.
If you want odd legal standards, though, techically forcing an object into someone's mouth (even if the act is totally nonsexual) would be considered rape according to Illinois Law.
- opens the possibility that obscene materials could be banned in email if that email were read at a correctional facility or truck stop.
... Caesar controls.
Of course, this seems to open the possibility that obscene materials could also be banned in email. Or am I misreading things?
I like this section;
(e) This section does not apply to a university system or
institution of higher education as defined by Section 61.003,
Education Code.
So at least college kids can still look at porn and med students won't have the breasts filtered out of their diagrams.
and it's entirely likely that he did, he was Jewish after all and Jewish law encouraged men to breed like rabbits.
>>What's the betting that the one that reads "'The Bible' copyright 134AD, Any resemblance to people past or present is purely coincidental" is quickly covered up?
Those are called "gnostic gospels".
'Who the hell wants to hear actors talk?' --Samuel Goldwyn
I've heard Ronald Reagan.
I've heard Arnold Schwarzenegger.
I've heard Richard frigging Gere.
I think Mr. Goldwyn was about 70 years ahead of his time.
They can if they release a "reduced functionality" version of windows. Or if they assume that earlier versions of windows like 98 are going to remain in free circulation. Imagine if you only had to pay for the most recent OS, but a 4 year old version, which was certain to be cracked by that time anyways, was free.
I thought it was supposed to eliminate excessive reliance on trade secrets and move information into the public domain.
I keep hearing people assert that telomere shortening was the only thing between an organism and immortality. Does anyone have a dissenting opinion?
I understand that transformed cells are effectivly immortal. These cells could lose a lot of genetic information and still be functional, though. Is it possible that "hayflick's limit" is just much higher for this type of cell and that there's some other method of information loss at work?
For example, isn't there some kind of information loss in the genes of somatic cells caused by transposons, viruses, etc. particularly those cells over a certain age?
Are transposons less active in stem cells, germ line cells or embryonic stem cells? Does anyone know?
And could anyone please explain why differentiated cell types have shortened telomeres while undifferentiated cells seem immune. I understand the existance of telomerase and that it's present in some cells and not in others. But in terms of utility, is deliberate senescence really ONLY a defese against cancer\unregulated cell growth and that's it? Period? Remove cancer and we'd all live as long as redwoods? I keep hearing that line over and again, but it seems odd to think that multicellular life would otherwise be immortal.
Any thoughts on whether mortality is partially related to the existance of an animal's immune system? As cells change and become exposed to virises, they become increasingly "non-self". The existance of a non-chemical immune system is one other difference between mortal humans and effectivly immortal plants.
>I now have a 14" long penis
>(though >I'm a bit concerned about the side effects I've been >having from that the last batch of aspirin)
Perhaps there's a connection?
Huh? It's emasculating to call someone a person?
"Chairperson" is worse because it dehumanises the position
Because we all know that people aren't human.