Comment Re:I won't hold my breath (Score 1) 688
Google "Monsanto Soybean Patent Monopoly" - there's a host of credible articles.
Comment Re:I won't hold my breath (Score 1) 688
Wait, exactly how is my view "warped"? Because it doesn't jibe with your own opinion? Please, cite examples.
Oh, and they don't WANT to patent them...that's the whole point. In a society where we own very little, very few things are unique and 'ours', and we're surrounded by people who don't even think twice about what they consume throughout the day, this is one thing that is THEIRS. They don't want to put it into the system. Sure, the average person will color that as being paranoid, laughing it off as being a typical stoner. However, this is their community and they don't want corporations coming in and destroying it.
Oh, by the way, I love your comment: "Some will want to go to small shops and delude themselves it's better." I really have no idea what the fuck you think that you mean. Are you that brainwashed by Big Money or just stupid?
Comment Re:I won't hold my breath (Score 1) 688
Monsanto can and does. Sure, they patent their own strains, but they also go and buy strains from 'small potatoes' and then invoke strict policies on usage. Check out Food, Inc.
Yes, you certainly can buy artisan bread at the store, but tell me something - have you ever had a "real" loaf of bread? I'm not talking about something that your local mega-supermarket's bakery slapped an "artisan" label on. Hell, how about even baking your own bread? There's a huge difference. And sure, there are some who still make their own bread nowadays, but it's the overall degredation of standards that is the most disconcerting. Most people go and buy their pre-packaged loaves without even thinking about what's in them, how it tastes, or that they're made up of mostly air so that the manufacturer can get away with using less ingredients per loaf.
Comment Re:I won't hold my breath (Score 1) 688
I didn't bother to look at the breakdown of the votes, but I do know that some in the stoner community were dead set against it. Why? Because laws against pot weren't enforced where they were, so they weren't seeing any direct benefit, while legalizing it would make it taxable and open up competition. Nevermind that people elsewhere in the state were being arrested for it, nevermind that kids were losing their ability to get financial aid, nevermind that they have a responsibility to pay taxes. Those dumb fucks voted against it.
I can only conclude that pot smokers are too dumb to get pot legalized.
Well, your ham-fisted, highly-biased opinion is half-right. Yes, the 'stoner' community was against it but not for the reasons that you mentioned...aside from competition. And even then, the competition that you mention isn't a benefit. That, from my understanding, was the biggest point of dissention within the community. They don't want corporations coming, getting access to all of the strains, patenting them (a la Monsanto), forcing out everyone from using seeds without paying royalties, and then ultimately turning the wonderful loaf of artisan bread that you got at the local bakery into a package of Wonder-crap.
So yeah, get to know the community before you start bashing them, ok? We don't all sit around watching Beevis and Butthead, eating Cheetos.
Comment Re:We liked it (Score 1) 201
Agreed - I wouldn't read Dora the Explorer to my kids, let alone admit that that's the sort of guilty pleasure that I would pay to indulge in. If you want to turn your brain off, take a nap - it's free, easy, and better for you.
Submission + - LexisNexis open sources Hadoop competitor (networkworld.com)
Julie188 writes: "Look out Hadoop, there is a (sort of) new kid in town that promises to handle the big data problem better than you can. HPCC (High Performance Computing Cluster) Systems from LexisNexis has been evolving over the past 10 years in the pressure cooker environment of LexisNexis, handling terabytes and sometimes petabytes of data. Now that engine is being open sourced by LexisNexis and made available to everyone."
Submission + - Hospital Turns To Palm Reading To ID Patients (computerworld.com)
CWmike writes: "NYU Langone Medical Center said it is the first hospital in the Northeast to use a biometric infrared scanning system that converts a digital palm image into a unique patient ID. The technology, called PatientSecure, is a biometric reader that uses an infrared light to map an image of the blood-flow pattern through the veins in a person's palm. That digital image is then converted into a unique patient ID that can be used with the medical center's electronic health record (EHR) system.
The technology has been deployed at about 10 other U.S. hospitals. More than 8,000 patients Langone patients have agreed to use PatientSecure. 'Vein patterns are 100 times more unique than fingerprints,' said Dr. Bernard A. Birnbaum, senior vice president of hospital operations at NYU Langone. 'It not only protects privacy and enhances quality, but will transform the patient experience.' Research shows that patient identification errors are not uncommon, and the failure to correctly identify a patient can result in serious treatment errors."
The technology has been deployed at about 10 other U.S. hospitals. More than 8,000 patients Langone patients have agreed to use PatientSecure. 'Vein patterns are 100 times more unique than fingerprints,' said Dr. Bernard A. Birnbaum, senior vice president of hospital operations at NYU Langone. 'It not only protects privacy and enhances quality, but will transform the patient experience.' Research shows that patient identification errors are not uncommon, and the failure to correctly identify a patient can result in serious treatment errors."
Submission + - Microsoft, Google, Twitter debate HTML5 (networkworld.com)
jbrodkin writes: "The annual USENIX conference featured an all-star lineup of engineers from Microsoft, Google, Twitter and Flipboard debating whether HTML5 is the "holy grail" for building next-generation Web applications, and whether mobile developers should build websites or apps. The promise of HTML5 is "write once, run everywhere," but the panelists did not agree on whether the technology is good enough to make browser applications feel "native." There was general agreement that HTML5 is lacking on mobile devices, and that for better or worse the move toward apps instead of websites is being driven less by technology than the imperative to make money."
Submission + - DARPA offers "Star Trek Prize" 1
mcgrew writes: "First DARPA had Star Wars, now they have Star Trek. They're offering half a million bucks for someone to find a way to get people to neighboring stars.
"the nearest star beyond our sun is 25 trillion miles away. The fastest rocket man has built would take more than 4,000 years to get there. This isn't just about thinking new rocket methods, Neyland said. It's also about coping with extended life in space, raising issues of medicine, agriculture, ethics and self-reliance, he said.
Comment Re:Evil overlord's minions demand more evil. (Score 1) 580
Yeah, I'm going to chime in with you here. I have *never* encountered any sort of problem with Netflix on either my MBP or my iMac. What, specifically, is being referred to with "it's been crashing so much that..."?
Comment People listen to Finnish music? (Score 1) 144
Other than "How's it hangin', Grandma?", I thought that Fins don't even listen to their own music.
Comment It's a 2-way street (Score 1) 311
Gadgets (technology) have the ability to do two things in relation to society - take over the lives of those who can't/won't think for themselves or enhance the lives of those who do.
Thousands of Blackbirds Fall From Sky Dead 577
Dan East writes "In a fashion worthy of a King or Hitchcock novel, blackbirds began to fall from the sky dead in Arkansas yesterday. Somewhere between 4,000 and 5,000 birds rained down on the small town of Beeb, Arkansas, with no visible trauma. Officials are making wild guesses as to what happened — lightning strike, high-altitude hail, or perhaps trauma from the sound of New Year's fireworks killed them."
Comment Re:Maybe People Just Want to Play (Score 1) 516
...the impetus to start a LGBT guild was because of the language in the game at large.
Why do we have to start a cause because we feel like we've been wronged in a game? I played WoW for about 6 months straight. I was seriously addicted to it...yet, I was willing to quit overnight. Why? I was tired of the 10-13 year olds who were too busy talking about each others mom's to just shut up and play the game. This is the proper response. You can't expect to form a faction and have these same people take it seriously. You can't reason with them. Either jump to a Role-Playing server and shut up, ignore the comments, or just quit outright.
I'm not GLBT so I can't personally relate to how it would feel if something dumb happens (apologies to the IQ deficient) and someone said "OMFG that's so gay!" However, as a Christian, it did irk me when people would say "OMFG!" or "Christ!" or anything like that...but that's it...it irked me, but it didn't cause me to want to stop playing. What was the final straw for me is when we'd be deep in a dungeon and all of sudden we'd lose two of your members, their last line being, "My mom's home! I'm supposed to be in bed! CYA!" Or when a guy in our group would get bored and decide to aggro a whole bunch of mobs on us just for the fun of it. Or, my personal favorite, when our healer was too busy trash talking one of our members to heal us.
It's a pity that people have the power to ruin a game, but it is a massively multiplayer game. I, personally, wasn't about to start an 25+ year olds guild to combat my horrible experiences with young punks - besides, that would be age discrimination and, in reality, those people were probably the same age as me anyhow. The bottom line is that it is just a game and your life doesn't depend on your continual playing. I mainly play single player games now...
Why do we have to start a cause because we feel like we've been wronged in a game? I played WoW for about 6 months straight. I was seriously addicted to it...yet, I was willing to quit overnight. Why? I was tired of the 10-13 year olds who were too busy talking about each others mom's to just shut up and play the game. This is the proper response. You can't expect to form a faction and have these same people take it seriously. You can't reason with them. Either jump to a Role-Playing server and shut up, ignore the comments, or just quit outright.
I'm not GLBT so I can't personally relate to how it would feel if something dumb happens (apologies to the IQ deficient) and someone said "OMFG that's so gay!" However, as a Christian, it did irk me when people would say "OMFG!" or "Christ!" or anything like that...but that's it...it irked me, but it didn't cause me to want to stop playing. What was the final straw for me is when we'd be deep in a dungeon and all of sudden we'd lose two of your members, their last line being, "My mom's home! I'm supposed to be in bed! CYA!" Or when a guy in our group would get bored and decide to aggro a whole bunch of mobs on us just for the fun of it. Or, my personal favorite, when our healer was too busy trash talking one of our members to heal us.
It's a pity that people have the power to ruin a game, but it is a massively multiplayer game. I, personally, wasn't about to start an 25+ year olds guild to combat my horrible experiences with young punks - besides, that would be age discrimination and, in reality, those people were probably the same age as me anyhow. The bottom line is that it is just a game and your life doesn't depend on your continual playing. I mainly play single player games now...
