There's a really good documentary on the evolution of cancer treatments on PBS right now, and one stark fact (that I've noticed elsewhere prior as well) made obvious is just how generic the term cancer is. It's really just any of a million specific types of genetic errors that lead to uncontrolled growth.

Even within the same type of tissue, you can have multiple types of mutations that result in the same effect (uncontrolled growth), hence the different "types" of pancreatic cancer for example. The concept of a "cure" has been reduced down to finding compounds, antibodies, organisms, whatever that can identify and trigger some change only in those cells with that specific genetic mutation. Some of them have external markers and make it a bit easier..

This was the one thing that gives me hope about eventually curing cancers en masse, is that they are essential dumb.. they do not evolve like the common cold, it is a specific mutation that one we find a way to reverse, will have cured it forever.

It was quite amazing watching in the last episode, a woman who had left hospital with a death sentence in stage 4 breast cancer, to be called into a stage 1 herceptin trial and be 100% cured and alive twenty years later. This drug was simply based on antibodies which could recognize the specific markers left by her specific mutation, and 100% cured with no side effects.. We, as humanity, can and will find a way.

Sigh.... only on Slashdot.

Really? Have any studies to back that up? Is it kind of like how the "protective" oils that trap bacteria on your face causing infections, and for some, lifelong scarring? Your premise that bathing exposes the organs to invasive organisms doesn't pass a basic logic sniff test, pun fully intended.

I agree, and the long term effects of this on the economy will be interesting. I don't have the specifics (maybe someone can chime in), but California is the majority supplier of agricultural goods to many far flung places. Hell, I live in Canada and most of the produce you find in the grocery store here came from California or Mexico.

Why? It's cheaper - California has a climate that allows for growing fruits/vegetables/nuts year-round at costs we could never do without energy-intensive warming systems. California gets all that for free from the sun. But yes, I think they've been writing a check their ass can't cash when it comes to the water they've been diverting to do so.

Sounds like you're talking about Apple there. In fact, you could probably say the same about any large corporation. Could it be the behaviour of the company is simply reflecting the personalities and behaviour of the real people actually running the company? (Remember, only in the legal world are corporations "real" people.)

The group of executives and C-level people running corps across the world is very much a homogenous group of people, constantly shifting and mixing, so I find it a bit of dissonance to only attribute those qualities to certain companies. I don't even think there's necessarily anything objectively wrong with this intensely competitive (if sometimes cut-throat) aspect of human behaviour. And by competition I mean people competing for resources and position. I also think you'd try the same crap if you were in their position, because I'm assuming you're a human being too.

I agree, Nintendo has to protect their copyright & trademarks for them to remain valid.

However, in a lot of cases I think the lawsuit/legal threat method shows these companies don't have a lot of ingenuity or common sense. Unless it's obviously taking sales away, why not meet with the guy and draw up a license for him to use the content for those purposes? It would be cheaper than any legal action (save perhaps just a threat) and moreover it's likely to generate some goodwill for your company if you support the fans of your products.

Why no one looks for a solution outside of (a) cease and desist permanently and immediately or (b) lawsuit is beyond me.

Not to belittle the experience you went through, but this would happen less if people fought back against the banks. Remember, there is no such thing as identify theft. Nobody can steal a "number" from you.

The actual crime that is taking place is bank fraud. If someone walks into a bank (or online), fraudulently represents themselves, and gets money from the bank - exactly what part of that are you liable for? An appropriate legal threat for any personal ramifications or credit file tampering from fraud they brought on themselves should resolve the situation, and if it doesn't a lawsuit should bring you back to par (and pay for your legal costs too).

If this forces the bank to put in place more serious, even (gasp) inconvenient processes in place to verify someone's identity, so be it. That or suck up the losses they bring onto themselves.

The problem with your whole premise is that most "fossil fuel" or "big oil" companies are usually the largest investors in renewable energy source. If you look at most of the big players, they've rebranded themselves over the past decade as energy companies, and have taken lengths to diversify into as many energy sources as makes sense.

If you think the boards, shareholders, and major pension funds holding these companies are stupid or somehow you see something they don't you're a fool. They are more interested in long term asset preservation and growth, the pension companies could care less if this was from oil or solar. The money from these companies will always flow to where the need is. Ever wonder why "Big Oil" companies frequent the tops of "most sustainable" companies? Another conspiracy perhaps?

Or worse yet, now when I need to connect directly to my home router to figure out why the WiFi isn't working or is abnormally slow, I'd need to go find a real computer.

I don't necessarily agree. I did some reading into drone design lately, and pretty much every single model comes in a quad-copter design these days. The machines (some of them, the more advanced ones) are incredibly stable, can stop on a dime and maintain position and altitude, and take off and land with no effort whatsoever.

They can be very efficiently controlled by computers and GPS, and this had me thinking - there's nothing to prevent a larger model with a central passenger cabin and four shielded outer rotary blades. Seems to me we're already pretty close to meeting #2 and #3 above.

Yes we are left with the energy problem, but power requirements (especially if for short, programmed commutes) may not be that far out of reach and I highly doubt it cannot be done until we perfect fusion.

That's it, no more using words to describe the colors a person sees, only wavelength numbers allowed.

I don't know about all you other crazy people out there, but I clearly see 582 nanometers.

Right, I hear this all the time too, and we still fly airplanes.

This is false, pigs are used for inspection, not flow. Pumps maintain flow. The bitumen is diluted with (actually the term) diluent before injection into the pipe.

The Canadian oil deposits being mined for the source of KXL oil are not shale deposits.

As a Canadian myself, I fully support your right to have the viewpoint you do - as long as you realize you're in the minority and that most Canadians in-the-know don't see investing in additional pipeline infrastructure and new energy technologies as mutually exclusive activities.

Citation needed. (Disclaimer: I work in the pipeline industry, but not for TCPL nor have any stake in KXL).

This simply isn't true and is fear-mongering about pipelines at it's best. Sure, you can point to a few stories, but fact remains pipelines have over a 99.999% safe delivery rate. The vast majority of spills are where there's breaks in the line - eg. pump stations, terminals, manifolds, etc., and those are only are already-contained and monitored property. Opponents like to point to devastating spills, but the unfortunate truth is even in areas where major spills have happened, twenty years after the fact there is little to indicate it ever happened. The earth is very good at cleaning itself up.. not dismissing spills, but the long term effects are SEVERELY overblown, though any suggestion of this truth is impossible to discuss given the politics.