That the described change is pointless and superfluous is true but it will not stop it happening.
The eggs holder example is perfect - I know nobody that uses it but they still get made and sold. You cannot opt them out.
There are (possibly less developed) countries on this earth where the problem of the noice coming from e.g. dishwasher is taken care off. It is less expensive and less complex than having this remote controlled. I also recall that my dishwasher has a facility to go on washing in some hours time. Given that you will still have to load the dishes yourself (or will web do it for you?) it is maybe better if in your example you turn it on at the point when you go away for a while? Other than that I see no reason why I should put wires or use wireless connections everywhere - it is expensive, produces security risks and adds layer of complexity where I do not appreciate it. As stated in the granparent's post it other than having the house preheated on my arrival (I live in a cold country) and having monitoring systems in place I see possibly one application - plants watering. If I can I still prefer to ask neighbourgs or friends to do so - I have one more reason to talk to them and that is good so. Said all that I think this is inevitable - in few years time all appliances in our houses will have ip-address and will talk with somebody somewhere all the time. Whether we will appreciate it I do not know.
I am not sure how this is done in US but in Europe in majority if not all countries you pay for assigned frequencies. On top of it seems that there is more and more of them (surprisingly) as analogue and military users give them up. You also cannot forget about the billions spent on the infrastructure - had these be only the frequencies that they have there would be no problem with access as there would be no access at all.
What I hate is when everybody is bitching about things that they hate as if we all were in some evil matrix. These companies you talk about are not nice and sometimes to t he point of inflicting losses on themselves. This however doe snot mean that they always have to jump and do whatever some asshole banker asks them to do. If somebody wants to rip off profits from other people's investments then possibly this somebody is as evil and greedy as the companies in question that this somebody wanted to rip off. The fact that I do not like big operators either does not prevent me in seeing what is being tried here. Both sides are evil and greedy. Why should you take sides then?
I think what needs to be discussed why slashdoters either do not read TFA or when they already spent incredible amount of energy on reading do not have any for understanding. Besides that I agree with you fully.
They do not block anything. They just do not respond to proposals by other companies to canibalize their own networks. These other companies that want to do something with ussd so urgently have following choices: 1. give up 2. give more money and agree not to canibalize the incubents' networks (this does not mean that they cannot offer chepaer calls - there are business models that can benefit both operators as such services are usually meant for different target groups) 3. invest billions and bring up their own infrastructure 4. pay their engeeniers to think - after all ussd is comfy but the same if not as fast can be achieved with sms based services or with IN based services etc.
There are other possibilities but in general they all require some effort and that is not something that an average bank (read TFA) wants to do.
have you actually read TFA or original post? It actually said that the court overturned the injuction i.e. in your words 'europe is not ahead of you'.
We are not better than you are although some people here in EU may like to think so.
After all this traveling to get my bread and butter I tend to agree with what has been said about Europe and US in Pulp Fiction - it is just small things that are different but the shit is the same. Alas sucking up the ass of big business by courts and politicians is as advanced here as in USA. Maybe in Germany is even more advanced than in US - for instance: our ex Keiser Gerhard der Grosste Schroeder signs a contract as a Chancellor (cheff of gov.) with a Russian company for which he receives now 300kE a year. The company name is Gasprom and as all other things from this cradle of democracy and human rights that is Russia of today does what mr Putin says is to be done. Now I think this example is better than anything that you, obviously an american citizen, can show us. Indeed we are progressive - American presidents do not do such things (yet?).
I do not know about you but having these many people in direct vicinity is a burden due to noise. OC if majority of co-workers will be fired ooooops offered carrier change possibility then the problem with noise will not occur. One of our subcontractors for the great corporations that I have a chance working for has an open office implemented alreafy - the fact that this is 'cheap' country makes understanding people there quite difficult as for obvious reasons they have heavy accents but as I cannot hear them trough the background noise this is not so bad. Good thing is also that they have no personal phones so I cannot call back because I always land at the reception. Other than that I see this as a great advantage - I hope inventor will get traditional bonus for having such successfull costs reduction plan.
Ah these odours - I like the idea immediatelly. Instead of my office roommate I will have a whole bunch complaining about my farts - outstanding!!! The only thing which I do not like in this open space office is the fact that discussing merits the managment actually have may endanger your job security.
Considering the vocabulary (for instance 'ruling clique; was used 5 times in this not so long article) this is not a very objective article nore it is wiki/friendly. I am sure it is all due to conspiracy of some admins that it seems so to me.
You forgot also about number of other things that are not right with this system. For instance provided that the addicts (of eg heroin) can get their habit satisfied in an orderly way they can even live more or less organized and common life. Experiments in Switzerland and UK seem to confirm that as long as addicts have enough resources for drugs they tend to behave. Not all of them do but then again there are people that are committing crimes without using drugs too. Then there is violence associated with DEA and security services or overcrowded prisons or with the fact that once you realize that you have become a criminal you may chose to behave in more risky way - you have nothing to lose but something to gain.
Yet to change current situation is almost impossible. There are people that would not believe a word of what is stated here. There plenty of them. There are people that have power (DEA agents) and they would never give it away - why should they - if the drugs get legalized they may lose their jobs and it is easier to get joint smoker charged than bank robber. Then there is a problem with current levels of corruption and criminality - this is not going away by itself - in other words once the drug mafia gets organized it will not dismantle itself so easily.
The article is very interesting - it seems that using wrong assumptions about reality is screwing results i.e. if you are wrongly convinced that being smart is imprinted in genes _only_ then this will have adverse effect on a child subdued to policies based on such wrong assumption and either fail because it will not even try ('you are dumb by nature') or fail because it will be convinced of own superiority without a need for hard work ('you do not need to learn because you are so smart').
There is maybe no direct connection but I cannot fail to notice that there is a country (Germany) where authorities charged with education of young people do similarly 'good' job based on false premises about children abilities - they sort out 'less' able on ground of social status of their parents already in the 4th grade and send the less fortunate to worse schools ('you are dumb so you need no education'). This has continuation in the professional life as germans quite rightly refuse to employ such 'worthless' people.
'Strangely' children of Beamtenbeamter have their chances granted almost without efforts.
This still does not mean that a bunch of well prepared lunatics cannot do a serious damage in a single act of violent stupidity. These do not have to be low tech (although flying an aeroplane is not exactly low tech) actions and even if they were then the result counts. This however has nothing to do with the infant mortality though even if it is a bad thing too.
That may be important for you. For me important is that I spent some part of my life testing sense into some RT applications that had to take into account these damned leap seconds. It justified some nice invoices I sent to my corporate customers. Let it be changed and I can do it again. I love when somebody thinks of an improvement that can save some cents (or seconds here) and I can earn some thousands in a process. I think these change is fantastic!
A belief that economic improvements in a country (like China) may have influence on political life in it is of course reasonable. Assuming that this influence can be leading to democratisation and more human rights is just naive however. Even if it does we may be not there to see it happen when it eventually does.
come to think of it - Mr Stanislaw L. (the author of the story) has invented many things. One of the inventions which I am still waiting for are washing machines you can have sex with. When this becomes true mr. Stanislaw can be officially pronounced as a (_working_) oracle.
where is the surprise here? The forces of market together with the forces of human stupidity and ignorance are so powerful that nothing can stop them. I wonder what that means to freedom of speech and other such basic rights however - to paraphrase what agent Smith once famously asked: 'what good is freedom of speach if you are unable to speak? I wonder how well the private blogs will do against such freedom of speech as to be seen coming. Or is it my depression obscuring the rose picture of reality?
How right. One vote does not matter. Two votes do not matter etc But there is a limit to greed, stupidity, laziness and ignorance which when stepped over may prove disastrous to the republic and to its people. There is v. small value in voting. The same goes to not voting i.e. this or the other way you let others know what you are ready to do. If there are many that are not willing to vote then this will be noted too and possibly abused. OC participation does not prevent corrupt politicians from being elected: Berlusconi in Italy and Schroeder in Germany are good examples - first bought his way into office (and cleaned up his legal record in a process) second capitalized on his position and now is a puppet of Russia's Zar Mr Putin (this allegedly costs 300kE a year).
I suppose what this all means that from time to time any system gets off the track and needs some kind of shake-up. Maybe american republic does it already.
"Gehry breached its duties by providing deficient design services and drawings," says the suit
"An executive at Skanska's Boston office yesterday blamed Gehry for problems with the project and said Gehry ignored warnings from Skanska and a consulting company prior to construction that there were flaws in his design of the amphitheater."
In other words - he screwed it up which is not that bad but he refused to face the reality and possibly instead of watching out he was counting money and that is worse. Or maybe he outsourced the project to china? Considering their building practices like this one:http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/low/asia-pacific/6945301.stm this may explain the failure.
how many is few? Why limit the experiments to medicin and why exclude social engineering experiments like the red khmer did? After all "to keep you is no benefit. To destroy you is no loss" may still be valid.
Yet as agen smith put it: it is anavoidable. Our resistance is futile.
I cannot recall which of the authorities we have here in Germany did the study - we have so many authorities that sometimes it appears that the whole population works there except me - they figured out that the single person cannot really do much as the vaccines and antiviral drugs will be either not working or in limited supply (otherwise there most likely would not be any pandemic). They stated that most efficient way to prevent the spread of pandemic would be quarantine plus antiviral drugs and vaccines if available for the emergency services and of course our masters. They did not say however how this would be enforced. I suppose old fashionable military would be called up. This of course assumes that the authorities would know fast enough and chose to act instead of running away.
What I find interesting here is the following: 1. it is the banks that did the study - I wonder why - did have want to find out who should not get a credit or what? I think they should team up with lawyers so that they can sue the survivors too. 2. I wonder what the banks are good at - apparently they do not know who they give the credit and cannot do predictions in the area of their expertise so how come they know anything about pandemics? Well let's look, from TFA: "If a pandemic strikes the U.S., it will.. hospitalize 9 million, exhaust antiviral medications and reduce basic food supplies". YOu do not need muchbains to get that result. At least basic reasoning functions there. I wonder only how much the study cost - and I wonder still more - why did I not have such idea - this could secure my pension I suppose.
this is not the job that sucks but his language skills that do. This may indicate what happened to the industry (if you can call it that) lately. People without major brain power took up the job related to computers, software and modern technology in general as this was cool thing to do especially if you were 20 and still a virgin. Observing that a bunch of morons we call them manager and investors etc. took up the idea that any body can do such a job as no special machinery to be operated so no special skill and more importantly no brain power were needed. This led to outsourcing pressures and other such things and now we have this can-write-mails-and-set-up-basic-webpage-tech-savvy-kids. Whether this is good or wrong I do not know. Maybe it is good. I find it worrying however that people have so much misconceptions about technology. Majority does not even bother to try to understand how and why things function in the way they do. This of course does not have to be bad but if majority does not even bother to think what to do for supper because (standardized) food is delivered to their tv coaches and brought over their bellies directly to their automatically opened mouths (all possibly done in coordinated way thanx to the fact that almost anything today has an electronic address and talks in some way to other devices) then democracy dies and the republic with it. It will do so not because we have bellies and spend most of the time connected to some entertainment device but because may not be able to wake up when it will be necessary (like when a decision will be made to stop maintenance on these mouth opening devices or such thing). OTOH maybe we face a challenge every day and as long as we do we develop and continue removing the problems as they come. When we stop we die. In any case good thing about potatos on the coaches is that they do not go to war. Bad thing is that they may partake in one with their remotes.
What brings hope on days like this is that already ancient Greeks had kids outsmarting the elderly and new developments that changed their lives. So in a a sense we face the same ultimate chalange as always. Only means (and speed) change.
As for science of things - I recall that there was a time when it was proven (scientifically) that no object heavier than air can fly.
If the technology is so perfect why not publish all the results from existing trials - how about doing a proper research on effects of Bt Cotton and bollworm's Bt resistance for instance? If the history were to teach us anything it is the following: if an individual can privatize the profits and nationalize the costs and risks then the individual will do it and the society will pay the price. Till now in extreme cases survivors from failing societies had usually a chance to settle somewhere else. Now that the earth is all occupied this option is not as available as it used to be. If we fuck it up (and you must admit that monsanto record is not very good) there may be nowhere to go. The problem can and most likely will not be as drastic as that but judging on the way things are the tax payer will pay for damages and profits will be limited to Monsanto owners and bosses.
Of course I appreciate the progress in food production, medicine development etc and I think that GM technology is there to stay and maybe even necessary if we all are to continue to lead our comfortable lives. But I see no need for another 100 types of tomato that tastes nothing but looks good on the shelves especially if possible costs and risks are not assessed properly. It would be useful if we had full information so that we could have a meaningful discussion about merits of the technology. As it is now we are not going to get it. For me this is sufficient reason to ban the company and send its managers to Guantanamo Bay or shoot them and send their kidneys on the spare parts market.
If one does not want to spend more than 1 talar on one's mobile eq. waiting for a gift from the operator than one should not complain. After all there is nothing stopping you from buying your own equipment - the market is full of them. It is yet another very fascinating sight - a lot of 'free' people complain and whine about their lost freedom, the one that they gave away for a handfull of glass pearls.
Some other maybe more important questions would be: do I need to do things like reading my mails while I am on the way and if so how usefull a mobile phone may in such situation be. I chose to answer NO to the first question which by default makes the second one superfluous. The decision is yours of course. At least for so long as it takes to develop and install mind controlling wires into the mobile phones. I am not saying that this ever will happen, it may not be needed - after all people do what is wanted of them anyway. How handy...
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That the described change is pointless and superfluous is true but it will not stop it happening. The eggs holder example is perfect - I know nobody that uses it but they still get made and sold. You cannot opt them out.
There are (possibly less developed) countries on this earth where the problem of the noice coming from e.g. dishwasher is taken care off. It is less expensive and less complex than having this remote controlled. I also recall that my dishwasher has a facility to go on washing in some hours time. Given that you will still have to load the dishes yourself (or will web do it for you?) it is maybe better if in your example you turn it on at the point when you go away for a while?
Other than that I see no reason why I should put wires or use wireless connections everywhere - it is expensive, produces security risks and adds layer of complexity where I do not appreciate it. As stated in the granparent's post it other than having the house preheated on my arrival (I live in a cold country) and having monitoring systems in place I see possibly one application - plants watering. If I can I still prefer to ask neighbourgs or friends to do so - I have one more reason to talk to them and that is good so.
Said all that I think this is inevitable - in few years time all appliances in our houses will have ip-address and will talk with somebody somewhere all the time. Whether we will appreciate it I do not know.
I am not sure how this is done in US but in Europe in majority if not all countries you pay for assigned frequencies. On top of it seems that there is more and more of them (surprisingly) as analogue and military users give them up. You also cannot forget about the billions spent on the infrastructure - had these be only the frequencies that they have there would be no problem with access as there would be no access at all.
What I hate is when everybody is bitching about things that they hate as if we all were in some evil matrix. These companies you talk about are not nice and sometimes to t he point of inflicting losses on themselves. This however doe snot mean that they always have to jump and do whatever some asshole banker asks them to do. If somebody wants to rip off profits from other people's investments then possibly this somebody is as evil and greedy as the companies in question that this somebody wanted to rip off. The fact that I do not like big operators either does not prevent me in seeing what is being tried here. Both sides are evil and greedy. Why should you take sides then?
Me thinks.
I think what needs to be discussed why slashdoters either do not read TFA or when they already spent incredible amount of energy on reading do not have any for understanding. Besides that I agree with you fully.
They do not block anything. They just do not respond to proposals by other companies to canibalize their own networks. These other companies that want to do something with ussd so urgently have following choices:
1. give up
2. give more money and agree not to canibalize the incubents' networks (this does not mean that they cannot offer chepaer calls - there are business models that can benefit both operators as such services are usually meant for different target groups)
3. invest billions and bring up their own infrastructure
4. pay their engeeniers to think - after all ussd is comfy but the same if not as fast can be achieved with sms based services or with IN based services etc.
There are other possibilities but in general they all require some effort and that is not something that an average bank (read TFA) wants to do.
have you actually read TFA or original post? It actually said that the court overturned the injuction i.e. in your words 'europe is not ahead of you'. We are not better than you are although some people here in EU may like to think so. After all this traveling to get my bread and butter I tend to agree with what has been said about Europe and US in Pulp Fiction - it is just small things that are different but the shit is the same. Alas sucking up the ass of big business by courts and politicians is as advanced here as in USA. Maybe in Germany is even more advanced than in US - for instance: our ex Keiser Gerhard der Grosste Schroeder signs a contract as a Chancellor (cheff of gov.) with a Russian company for which he receives now 300kE a year. The company name is Gasprom and as all other things from this cradle of democracy and human rights that is Russia of today does what mr Putin says is to be done. Now I think this example is better than anything that you, obviously an american citizen, can show us. Indeed we are progressive - American presidents do not do such things (yet?).
I do not know about you but having these many people in direct vicinity is a burden due to noise. OC if majority of co-workers will be fired ooooops offered carrier change possibility then the problem with noise will not occur. One of our subcontractors for the great corporations that I have a chance working for has an open office implemented alreafy - the fact that this is 'cheap' country makes understanding people there quite difficult as for obvious reasons they have heavy accents but as I cannot hear them trough the background noise this is not so bad. Good thing is also that they have no personal phones so I cannot call back because I always land at the reception.
Other than that I see this as a great advantage - I hope inventor will get traditional bonus for having such successfull costs reduction plan.
Ah these odours - I like the idea immediatelly. Instead of my office roommate I will have a whole bunch complaining about my farts - outstanding!!! The only thing which I do not like in this open space office is the fact that discussing merits the managment actually have may endanger your job security.
Considering the vocabulary (for instance 'ruling clique; was used 5 times in this not so long article) this is not a very objective article nore it is wiki/friendly. I am sure it is all due to conspiracy of some admins that it seems so to me.
You forgot also about number of other things that are not right with this system. For instance provided that the addicts (of eg heroin) can get their habit satisfied in an orderly way they can even live more or less organized and common life. Experiments in Switzerland and UK seem to confirm that as long as addicts have enough resources for drugs they tend to behave. Not all of them do but then again there are people that are committing crimes without using drugs too. Then there is violence associated with DEA and security services or overcrowded prisons or with the fact that once you realize that you have become a criminal you may chose to behave in more risky way - you have nothing to lose but something to gain.
Yet to change current situation is almost impossible. There are people that would not believe a word of what is stated here. There plenty of them. There are people that have power (DEA agents) and they would never give it away - why should they - if the drugs get legalized they may lose their jobs and it is easier to get joint smoker charged than bank robber. Then there is a problem with current levels of corruption and criminality - this is not going away by itself - in other words once the drug mafia gets organized it will not dismantle itself so easily.
The article is very interesting - it seems that using wrong assumptions about reality is screwing results i.e. if you are wrongly convinced that being smart is imprinted in genes _only_ then this will have adverse effect on a child subdued to policies based on such wrong assumption and either fail because it will not even try ('you are dumb by nature') or fail because it will be convinced of own superiority without a need for hard work ('you do not need to learn because you are so smart'). There is maybe no direct connection but I cannot fail to notice that there is a country (Germany) where authorities charged with education of young people do similarly 'good' job based on false premises about children abilities - they sort out 'less' able on ground of social status of their parents already in the 4th grade and send the less fortunate to worse schools ('you are dumb so you need no education'). This has continuation in the professional life as germans quite rightly refuse to employ such 'worthless' people. 'Strangely' children of Beamtenbeamter have their chances granted almost without efforts.
This still does not mean that a bunch of well prepared lunatics cannot do a serious damage in a single act of violent stupidity. These do not have to be low tech (although flying an aeroplane is not exactly low tech) actions and even if they were then the result counts.
This however has nothing to do with the infant mortality though even if it is a bad thing too.
That may be important for you. For me important is that I spent some part of my life testing sense into some RT applications that had to take into account these damned leap seconds. It justified some nice invoices I sent to my corporate customers. Let it be changed and I can do it again.
I love when somebody thinks of an improvement that can save some cents (or seconds here) and I can earn some thousands in a process. I think these change is fantastic!
A belief that economic improvements in a country (like China) may have influence on political life in it is of course reasonable. Assuming that this influence can be leading to democratisation and more human rights is just naive however. Even if it does we may be not there to see it happen when it eventually does.
come to think of it - Mr Stanislaw L. (the author of the story) has invented many things. One of the inventions which I am still waiting for are washing machines you can have sex with. When this becomes true mr. Stanislaw can be officially pronounced as a (_working_) oracle.
where is the surprise here? The forces of market together with the forces of human stupidity and ignorance are so powerful that nothing can stop them. I wonder what that means to freedom of speech and other such basic rights however - to paraphrase what agent Smith once famously asked: 'what good is freedom of speach if you are unable to speak?
I wonder how well the private blogs will do against such freedom of speech as to be seen coming. Or is it my depression obscuring the rose picture of reality?
How right.
One vote does not matter. Two votes do not matter etc But there is a limit to greed, stupidity, laziness and ignorance which when stepped over may prove disastrous to the republic and to its people.
There is v. small value in voting. The same goes to not voting i.e. this or the other way you let others know what you are ready to do. If there are many that are not willing to vote then this will be noted too and possibly abused.
OC participation does not prevent corrupt politicians from being elected: Berlusconi in Italy and Schroeder in Germany are good examples - first bought his way into office (and cleaned up his legal record in a process) second capitalized on his position and now is a puppet of Russia's Zar Mr Putin (this allegedly costs 300kE a year).
I suppose what this all means that from time to time any system gets off the track and needs some kind of shake-up. Maybe american republic does it already.
Ah so now the fact that id did not happen makes it impossible to happen? How nice for us is it not.
In other words - he screwed it up which is not that bad but he refused to face the reality and possibly instead of watching out he was counting money and that is worse. Or maybe he outsourced the project to china? Considering their building practices like this one:http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/low/asia-pacific/6945301.stm this may explain the failure.
maybne he did not fart strong enough to inflate them properly?
how many is few? Why limit the experiments to medicin and why exclude social engineering experiments like the red khmer did? After all "to keep you is no benefit. To destroy you is no loss" may still be valid.
Yet as agen smith put it: it is anavoidable. Our resistance is futile.
I cannot recall which of the authorities we have here in Germany did the study - we have so many authorities that sometimes it appears that the whole population works there except me - they figured out that the single person cannot really do much as the vaccines and antiviral drugs will be either not working or in limited supply (otherwise there most likely would not be any pandemic). They stated that most efficient way to prevent the spread of pandemic would be quarantine plus antiviral drugs and vaccines if available for the emergency services and of course our masters. They did not say however how this would be enforced. I suppose old fashionable military would be called up. This of course assumes that the authorities would know fast enough and chose to act instead of running away.
.. hospitalize 9 million, exhaust antiviral medications and reduce basic food supplies". YOu do not need muchbains to get that result. At least basic reasoning functions there. I wonder only how much the study cost - and I wonder still more - why did I not have such idea - this could secure my pension I suppose.
What I find interesting here is the following:
1. it is the banks that did the study - I wonder why - did have want to find out who should not get a credit or what? I think they should team up with lawyers so that they can sue the survivors too.
2. I wonder what the banks are good at - apparently they do not know who they give the credit and cannot do predictions in the area of their expertise so how come they know anything about pandemics? Well let's look, from TFA: "If a pandemic strikes the U.S., it will
this is not the job that sucks but his language skills that do. This may indicate what happened to the industry (if you can call it that) lately. People without major brain power took up the job related to computers, software and modern technology in general as this was cool thing to do especially if you were 20 and still a virgin. Observing that a bunch of morons we call them manager and investors etc. took up the idea that any body can do such a job as no special machinery to be operated so no special skill and more importantly no brain power were needed. This led to outsourcing pressures and other such things and now we have this can-write-mails-and-set-up-basic-webpage-tech-savvy-kids. Whether this is good or wrong I do not know. Maybe it is good. I find it worrying however that people have so much misconceptions about technology. Majority does not even bother to try to understand how and why things function in the way they do. This of course does not have to be bad but if majority does not even bother to think what to do for supper because (standardized) food is delivered to their tv coaches and brought over their bellies directly to their automatically opened mouths (all possibly done in coordinated way thanx to the fact that almost anything today has an electronic address and talks in some way to other devices) then democracy dies and the republic with it. It will do so not because we have bellies and spend most of the time connected to some entertainment device but because may not be able to wake up when it will be necessary (like when a decision will be made to stop maintenance on these mouth opening devices or such thing).
OTOH maybe we face a challenge every day and as long as we do we develop and continue removing the problems as they come. When we stop we die.
In any case good thing about potatos on the coaches is that they do not go to war. Bad thing is that they may partake in one with their remotes.
What brings hope on days like this is that already ancient Greeks had kids outsmarting the elderly and new developments that changed their lives. So in a a sense we face the same ultimate chalange as always. Only means (and speed) change.
Well done. And if you want something from your staff (other than what is done on 'normal' day) then then you learn Cantonese?
As for science of things - I recall that there was a time when it was proven (scientifically) that no object heavier than air can fly.
If the technology is so perfect why not publish all the results from existing trials - how about doing a proper research on effects of Bt Cotton and bollworm's Bt resistance for instance? If the history were to teach us anything it is the following: if an individual can privatize the profits and nationalize the costs and risks then the individual will do it and the society will pay the price. Till now in extreme cases survivors from failing societies had usually a chance to settle somewhere else. Now that the earth is all occupied this option is not as available as it used to be. If we fuck it up (and you must admit that monsanto record is not very good) there may be nowhere to go. The problem can and most likely will not be as drastic as that but judging on the way things are the tax payer will pay for damages and profits will be limited to Monsanto owners and bosses.
Of course I appreciate the progress in food production, medicine development etc and I think that GM technology is there to stay and maybe even necessary if we all are to continue to lead our comfortable lives. But I see no need for another 100 types of tomato that tastes nothing but looks good on the shelves especially if possible costs and risks are not assessed properly. It would be useful if we had full information so that we could have a meaningful discussion about merits of the technology. As it is now we are not going to get it. For me this is sufficient reason to ban the company and send its managers to Guantanamo Bay or shoot them and send their kidneys on the spare parts market.
If one does not want to spend more than 1 talar on one's mobile eq. waiting for a gift from the operator than one should not complain. After all there is nothing stopping you from buying your own equipment - the market is full of them.
It is yet another very fascinating sight - a lot of 'free' people complain and whine about their lost freedom, the one that they gave away for a handfull of glass pearls.
Some other maybe more important questions would be: do I need to do things like reading my mails while I am on the way and if so how usefull a mobile phone may in such situation be. I chose to answer NO to the first question which by default makes the second one superfluous. The decision is yours of course. At least for so long as it takes to develop and install mind controlling wires into the mobile phones. I am not saying that this ever will happen, it may not be needed - after all people do what is wanted of them anyway. How handy...