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Comment Re:More ambiguous cruft (Score 4, Insightful) 514

I'd like to know who first got the public all excited about the terminator gene. It's obviously a self-regulating problem; if the terminator gene somehow crosses over into another population, those plants don't breed and they don't carry the gene forward.

Scenario: terminatored corn is widely succesful and replaces regular corn. Something bad happens to stop Monsanto from delivering more seends. What will the farmers plant? They can't use seeds from terminatored corn since they're infertile, and they can't plant regular corn seeds since they no longer have any. Mass starvation follows.

Planned obsolescence in vital systems is a really bad idea.

Comment Re:What could possibly go wrong? (Score 2) 265

That's the beauty of this. While the anti-GMO folks are railing on about imagined long-term consequences, this shows that there really aren't any. It takes out a vast majority of the population for one generation. If you run this program for one year and then stop, these mosquitoes will either come back on their own or their niche will be taken over by other mosquito species. (Remember that not all mosquitoes are the same. There are 80 different mosquito species in Florida. This program is only targeting one of them.) Either way, the ecosystem survives even if this particular species doesn't and if this species survives, the GMO gene doesn't.

Comment Re:What could possibly go wrong? (Score 1) 265

The problem is that people see "GMO", think "what's the worst thing that could happen" (whether or not that outcome is likely or even possible), and then assume that this has a strong chance of happening. At the vary least, they assume that scientists haven't ruled it out because the article they are reading online didn't specifically address what they thought of.

For example:

If a female mosquito mates with a GMO mosquito the genetic reactions could cause the next generation of mosquitoes to be twice as big!!!! (You need to include many exclamation points to make it scarier.) Now, the article doesn't specifically say that this can't happen so this means that it's not only possible but likely. If they release these GMO mosquitoes, we'll be overrun with giant, blood-sucking mosquitoes!!!!!!

(Never mind that this isn't genetically possible. It's likely because someone somewhere thought of it.)

Comment Re:Government Intervention (Score 5, Insightful) 495

Actually, Google has shown that you need to have deep pockets to get over incumbant efforts to keep you out. Many municipal broadband efforts have fizzled because the incumbents muscled them out (sometimes without even serving the area that the municipal broadband network would have covered).

Comment Re:That doesn't sound bad (Score 1) 430

I'd raise the question of price. Just because you have a 25 Mbps option doesn't mean it is priced in an affordable fashion. If your local ISP offers 25 Mbps a month for $300 a month it is available but not affordable. I'm not saying that it needs to be extremely inexpensive, but merely rolling out an "option" and then pricing it such that you know you'll rarely need to deploy it shouldn't give the ISPs the right to claim all of those users have this as an option.

Comment Re:What are the practical results of this? (Score 1) 430

Do you know how much tax payer money has been given to the telecoms for the very purpose of implementing broadband nationwide? We've already paid them and so far got very little in return.

We got exactly what they promised us*.

* Promises retroactively changed after the telecoms lobbied the government to declare the promises retroactively fulfilled even when they weren't really.

Comment Re:What are the practical results of this? (Score 1) 430

In many cases, these government sanctioned monopolies are the result of the dominant corporation buying influence in the local or state government and getting a law passed that outlaws competition (or places so many hurdles in front of it that it might as well be outlawed). For example, the state laws that say that local governments can't launch their own municipal broadband initiatives even if the big corporations don't serve these local areas. The state laws were bought and paid for by the corporations who simply don't want to compete against anyone else (especially not municipal broadband) even if "compete against" means the municipal broadband serves and area that they don't serve. (If they ever decide to one day serve that area then they'll have to compete and that can't be allowed!)

Comment Re:What are the practical results of this? (Score 1) 430

Either that or they'll add "Broadband Improvement Tax" to their below the fold charges. Of course, it won't really be a tax and the money won't really go to improving their broadband access. You can rest assured, though, that your price won't go up!*

* The advertised price, that is. Not counting all of the below the fold "taxes" and fees that they add in.

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