Comment Re:Two dirty words harry reid (Score 1) 340
I'm curious, what would eat away the aluminum?
Vein Grown From Her Own Stem Cells Saves 10-Year-Old 169
An anonymous reader writes in with a story about a milestone in stem cell medicine. "A ten year old girl became the first person in the world to get a major blood vessel replaced by one grown using her own stem cells. The 10-year-old from Sweden had a blockage of a vein from her liver. The doctors decided to give her a new vein instead of a liver transplant or giving her a vein from her own body, Associated Press reported. The team from University of Gothenburg first took 9 cm vein segment from a dead man and stripped all living cells from it, leaving behind only a protein structure. They later reconstructed the vein by using cells from the girl's own bone marrow. The new graft was then put in the girl's body two weeks later."
Comment Re:Change schools. (Score 1) 416
I have a hunch that she has an empathy for children which is what drove her to pursue the education thing. While it might be more practical to choose a different career, it is unlikely that she would ever be happy with anything less than engaging young minds.
Oh, how I wish I had mod points right now. This is an excellent point that is missing from almost all of the comments here.
Congress: The TSA Is Wasting Hundreds of Millions In Taxpayer Dollars 199
TheGift73 writes with a Techdirt story about a House Oversight Committee report that is very critical of the TSA's handling of money. "The House Oversight Committee has come out with a report slamming the TSA for tremendous amounts of waste, specifically in the 'deployment and storage' of its scanning equipment. Basically, it sounds like the TSA likes to go on giant spending sprees, buying up security equipment and then never, ever using it." Earlier this month Rand Paul laid out his plan for dealing with the TSA.
Comment Re:The war on terror is over (Score 5, Insightful) 811
The war is over. We lost.
Comment Re:Just WHO is on the other end? (Score 1) 308
You leave the World Health Organization out of this.
Neal Stephenson Says Video Games Are the Metaverse 176
An anonymous reader writes "In an interview with Forbes Magazine, Neal Stephenson says the 'Metaverse' he created in his seminal novel Snow Crash missed the point — and that video games like World of Warcraft are the true future of cyberspace."
Forbes writer David Ewalt seems taken with Stephenson's new book, REAMDE, which I'm looking forward to getting my hands on.
Comment Re:Obi, anyone? (Score 1) 178
You're thinking of Oobi?
Comment Misread MPG as MPH (Score 4, Funny) 220
Still really cool, but my original reality was much more awesome. I would have loved to break the sound barrier when I was 11.
Comment Questioning the constitutionality... (Score 5, Insightful) 247
I'd like to question the constitutionality of a lot more than just how it was signed.
Comment Re:Maybe a BIT sensationalistic... (Score 1) 250
0100010001010011 = DS?
I don't get it (DropShip?), but it doesn't seem like coincidence (multiple of 8 bits, both uppercase ASCII chars).
Comment Re:Wikipedia says 2012 - 2017 (Score 1) 453
If you're just implementing a MP3 decoder (which is all Firefox would need to do to play MP3 files) then you might not have patent issues even today: http://lwn.net/Articles/166346/
It's a shame the Slashdot article didn't link to any sources.
It's a shame the Slashdot article didn't link to any sources.
Comment Re:Steve Jobs on video codecs and patents (Score 1) 149
Variable-lifetime patents already exist to a certain extent (utility patents vs. design patents). But it would be interesting to extend the idea further.
As long as we can make arbitrary changes to patent law, I think the most valuable thing you could do is to mandate a periodic investigation into whether or not the current policies encourage innovation. Are algorithm patents slowing down innovation? Shorten their duration by a few years/be stricter about what you accept.
As long as we can make arbitrary changes to patent law, I think the most valuable thing you could do is to mandate a periodic investigation into whether or not the current policies encourage innovation. Are algorithm patents slowing down innovation? Shorten their duration by a few years/be stricter about what you accept.
- Frivolous lawsuits would be severely discouraged. And I mean severely.
- The patent process now involves wrestling with a live bear. Anyone who successfully survives the experience is awarded the patent.
I can only imagine the punishment you have in mind for a frivolous lawsuit.
Comment They *do* realize this, right? (Score 1) 386
They're only giving credibility to the tinfoil hat (underwear?)-wearing crowd.
Comment Re:Same time? (Score 1) 365
Off topic, but the aegidian.org link in your sig seems to be down. http://www.oolite.org/ appears to be the current webpage (fellow fan of oolite here).
