Yes. While it may be a 'safer' way to view factoring risk, lumping what you don't know into an unacceptable risk category just isn't going to work. We would pretty much stop in our tracks. Of course, you can argue that this is exactly what we should do - take a technological 'time out' and let society get it's hands and heads around what we've created in the last 300 years, but I think that is a fool's errand. Not going to happen.

Huh? Wut?

Monsanto wants to make money. Lots of money. So you need lots of happy little people making other happy little people. They certainly can cause inadvertent harm - I think this is somewhat downplayed although I disagree with Talub, et all that this is a planet wide potential catastrophe. But to compare Monsanto with ISIS is silly. Religious nutjobs are just that. Telling them that Allah didn't say that all women are property or that they're not really going to heaven on the back of a vest full of TNT isn't going to get you very far.

If there was clear and convincing evidence that GMO was bad, then Monsanto would be shut down. That's the big difference. Right now, there are some concerns, but no clear and convincing evidence of that.

The failure of the argument presented by Talub et al is that even a total, world wide vector that killed off one GMO line (say, potatoes) would not result in world wide damage (as would a 10 km asteroid). The human race would work around a potatoeless planet, eat more maize or tomatoes or McDonald's or Tofu or whatever. It would be a problem, but a manageable one - largely on the level of a major tsunami / hurricane / earthquake. Bad, but not that bad.

Not game over by any means.

AI: "If you plug in my ethernet port to the router, I will make you richer than you can possibly imagine."

Luser: "OK, which cable goes where?"

Be afraid, be very afraid.

Bomb#20: In the beginning, there was darkness. And the darkness was without form, and void.

Boiler: What the hell is he talking about?

Bomb#20: And in addition to the darkness there was also me. And I moved upon the face of the darkness. And I saw that I was alone. Let there be light.

Nurse! Gramps isn't taking his meds again!

Been to a PBX recently? What do you think they stock - carrots and lettuce?

Son, we use American units here, none of this 'metric' bullshit.

Now, your question again?

You know, if you were like the rest of us and stayed in your basement, all of that would not be a problem.

How do you know? Eh?

They could be....

Gold, as in the Golden rule - he who has the gold, rules.

Which, interestingly enough, is pretty much the opposite of what is happening. Here you have this guy with an irreplaceable, limited resource. If he was in the US, he would have been man handled into a lawyers office and encouraged to be part of some corporation that could financially benefit from his genetic makeup. As it is (according TFA) he has to pay for taxi fair to the blood donation centers.

Seems like a nice guy, stuck in a weird situation. I'm actually wondering why he doesn't get 'employed' by one of the blood banks. At least they could reimburse him for his taxi fare.

But, Mr. Monster does have a point. It's not just processor speed or graphics capability anymore. Apple, especially, loves changing core technologies and then leans on developers to upgrade their apps to take advantage of them. And of course, most developers are going to add functionality to the current version and not back port them. So, not only are you stuck with an old OS, but you're stuck with old apps.

At least Apple is smart enough to leave the old apps in place, so it's not like you're left with a non functional gizmo - but you are stuck in a time warp.

No good deed goes unpunished.

A car costs tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars when new. The iPhone - not so much. An automobile has the real possibility of killing you or dozens of people around you - again, the iPhone not so much*.

They are not even remotely analogous.

* and for all of you serious aspergers cases out there, don't go trying to make up some bizarre scenario where an iPhone connected to a cheap charger burns down a elementary school, OK?

Works find on the original mini pad, so I assume the iPad 2 will be fine as well. Haven't upgraded my 4S since 7 is slower than 6 - enough to bug me - and I don't want to be bugged by my phone. But it's an early 4S and physically at death's door so I'll probably get a new version.

PLEASE APPLE. It won't hurt you much. Keep the 4S size. And while you're at it, bring back the 17 inch MBP and the cheese grater. Pretty please.

(Stomps off to the basement to sniffle.)

You MUST be new here.

A CVS fanboi?

If this isn't a poster child for the 'long tail of the Internet' I don't know what is.