This really reminds me of Pfizer- selling all the cash cows off (household products developed in-house- Listerine, etc etc) that were pure profit. Next step, closing down all research (= new prod development).

Final step, call it toasted and done.

Of course, the Senior Management make a profit at each step- clown shoes flapping all the way to the bank.

I had a kidney transplant close to 6 years ago. I have 3 immunosuppresive meds, 2 of which are fairly targeted, one is good old prednisone. And then 3 more to counteract the effects of these meds.

I missed a pre-treatment (too complicated to get into) by about a year that would have let me (without much worry) leave off at least one medication, as I see it, for my situation. This pre-treatment has been available in Europe for quite some time (I'm USA). I have the benefit of being a life sciences researcher, working in the field of immunology (although not transplant medicine) so I get to geek out a bit more than some over published papers.

The paired-unrelated-donor exchange registries available these days are the neatest advance I have seen, statistically. A HUGE difference in real matches.

These days, blood type match is actually more important than many of the histocompatibility complex match categories, but increased antigen matches can't hurt.

_The Face in the Frost_ by John Bellairs


1969, humorous, different, and memorable "fantasy" novel.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Bellairs


I have wanted a weather vane that makes a snurfling sound ever since I read this book.

People with more education than you do, apparently.

RE: this summary. OK, ATM is a thin client. Earth-shaking technologically? no. For this business, perhaps, and "why didn't this succeed earlier".

RE: Diebold and vote-tabulating machines in this regard per the summary:

Are you on something? The same Diebold PR mechanism that produced and sold ATMS that ... wait for it... generated printable paper trails on each transaction stated that their solution for voting booth customers was incapable of this same paper trail.

And you expect at this point sheeple to connect the dots?

on the plus side, there's a chance that some of that "new" Cisco gear bought from that online auction side really is new!

And lets not forget... they have the highest population count of anyplace in the USA also. Want to build a few more uni's in the Dakotas?

I like Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy also. The Alec Guinness one. Although I have hopes for the new movie given those involved.

Mod parent up.

You neglect to mention that now in 2010/ 2011 Pfizer is closing down the sites to which they so "graciously" relocated a small percentage of their researchers (300 of 2200 is a crummy percentage, and that from just ONE site that closed at that time). Small investment in 2008 for a bump in stock price in 2011 for laying off more staff: more stock profit for the suits.

Your points are great, except they don't account for the fact that people aren't going to eat right. Not these days, where all the marketing says to buy your food from a corporation (hey corporations are people too!) in a box of some sort.

Don't buy your food in a box. Cook it yourself.

fuck Pfizer, they never developed much of their own, they bought Warner-Lambert and others to acquire this drug and other drug candidates.

They followed this up by closing down their most productive R& D sites globally.

Vast personal profit for the execs, decades of experienced researchers tossed to the wind, and their "if we screened X million candidates with this robotic platform and got N useful hits, if we screen X^5 million via robotic screen we'll get N^5 final candidates and reap the rewards" strategy didn't work worth a darn. Big surprise.

That's what happens when suits (some hired from companies with a GREAT track record for drug development- like.... McDonalds) take over a scientific company.

A few more rounds of boosting stock price via layoffs and this will be a little has-been of a company.

Nice work there guys. Way to destroy a company. You could have done the same thing by just buying a pizza chain or something and selling off assets for personal gain, and not cost the real human race useful medications.

I am going to bump up an AC post here under a loginID, since AC vs user makes a difference: the students click away copyright.

As someone else said below regarding your post on the implications of this:

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You don't understand the difference between copyright and patent. The fact that this comment could get modded +5 insightful shows why slashdot is so retarded on IP issues.
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I missed that detail, and its a large one.

I don't see any questions in your post, I read it and found a what-if (and using some really interesting choices for examples) and an admonishment: --- Never, ever underestimate the seriousness of requiring someone to surrender intellectual ownership of things written or invented on their own time as a condition of getting an education or a job or anything else. --- I submitted real-world examples of the tool in use, and real-world examples of why the tool is needed in an educational context, and to me the thought experiment doesn't have weight. Interesting thought you have about data being self-righteous. Maybe we should ask it how it feels: )