While I agree that there would be considerable benefit from this, I think that there's a whole mess of tinfoil hat issues here. Don't get me wrong, I fully believe that my government is spying on me (not specifically me, but in general). Giving them all the hardware means no more negotiating with service providers (at any level).
No more sneaking around what is or isn't okay. "This is my hardware, and to protect my hardware, I have to install this additional monitoring." There's the whole "If you aren't doing anything wrong..." argument, but let's not assume that giving the government the "means of distribution" is going to be all sunshine and puppy dogs.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not happy that service providers can do whatever they want, but at least then the competition drives them to all be the best (well, we're assuming that "best" and "most profitable" are related). The government has no such goal. It's possible this would even backfire completely and the government would let it languish - they've got dial-up, so our job is done, etc.
The person quoted in the summary appears to have a relatively solid grasp on how to go about being safe on the internet. By that same metric, a large percentage of Slashdot could also be just fine using XP. The problem is that everyone _else_ keeps using XP, and they _don't_ have that same skillset.
I'm happy that Microsoft finally pulled the plug. My goal is that things get bad enough for the small office that I provide support to on a volunteer basis requires them to upgrade. I've had to re-image a bunch of computers already this year because people click things, and companies are taking XP drivers away. Soon enough, I'll be able to say "Too bad, you have to upgrade this time".
If this is a serious commercial adjustment to the organism then I would be working on increasing alcohol tolerance.
If that is a thing you can adjust, I think there are organisms other than the yeast that would be better served by that improvement.
So, no super speed, or strength, or other abilities, no synthesizer music.
For our $6,000,000, all we get is a "yeast endowed with special properties other yeasts don't have"? This will not make a compelling television drama. Perhaps a bland sitcom, but not much more.
Her executives are tutored in techniques like “responsibility transfer” [...] and “rewriting reality,” which involves undoing the anguish of a painful experience by coming up with alternative scenarios that transform the event from distressing to excusable.
When this happens, think of the convenience! All you'll need to do is look at the nearest camera and give a thumbs up, and Facebook will automatically mark that you Liked [whatever you're standing near].
Two people could become friends by finding the nearest Big Brother station and doing a thumbs up together.
One of (many) problems will be how they contextualize all that data. You know, this started as a joke, but seriously, if Facebook had a feed of this kind of data, it would be interesting to see the hypothetical profile they build based on what they would see an individual near vs. what they claim to like on their public page.
If your children hasn't seen enough porn already, I pity both you and your offspring
I've considered all kinds of snarky ways to respond to this, but I have this sinking feeling that the context would be lost, and all people would remember is my comment about how much pornography I force my kids to watch while educating them about quality and relevance.
Oh, crap.
What is research but a blind date with knowledge? -- Will Harvey
