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Once again into the breach?
Jan. 3rd, 2007 01:51 amToday was quite the fun experience. Slept in a bit. Then had lunch with ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
blacktigr and mr_kitehead at a greasy spoon diner. It was fantastic and there was much to talk about, silly people to make fun of, and the like. The kind of thing I should probably do more often. It’s just tough to coordinate homework in such a way that everyone actually has free time (silly grad work). And school resumes Thursday. Yay.
Genetic engineering produces non-prion-producing bovines. If this is true, then we could stop it from spreading in cattle, and work on finding some way of getting the bad prions out of other animals and humans. There’s still some tests to be run, apparently, before we’re completely sure that it’s all in order, but this could be a promising development. And if we can kick out vCJD, then we might be able to welcome back some deferred donors.
Calligraphic seal readies the welcome to the new Chinese year. The year of the Boar will arrive next month. We’ll see whether that affords any additional luck or hardship to us all.
Somewhat quietly, Starbucks is getting rid of all trans fats in its U.S. locations and products. Sounds interesting. We’ll see whether this changes taste as well as health. (With the ubiquity of Starbucks, I doubt that this will hurt their business at all. Might even boost their image some.)
Something definitely fun and worthwhile to have a look at is the past’s ideas of the future. And when it comes to 50’s designs of the future, rayguns are the thing. Here's some patent images of toy rayguns, all from year 1953. Yay for the rings that look silly now but were cool or essential then. In more modern times, NewScientistTech takes a look at some of the most interesting patents filed in 2006.
Citing security concerns, the new governor of Nevada was sworn in at midnight of the new year and was fast at making several appointments. I wonder what sort of concerns could prompt such a quick installation. Anyone in the area that could tell me how close the election was? Or something else that might have prompted such a quick maneuver?
Putting two oddities next to each other - apparently the whole “homosexual animals” bit is bigger than we thought. I suspect some anthropomorphism is involved here, where animals are part of the human homosexuality debate by proxy. So it would be no surprise that the announcement that hormone therapyies might be able to get rams with homosexual tendencies to go straight would cause some heated words and possible worry that the technique would be developed for humans and then used on babies. It’s an accusation of “playing God” from a place that one might not immediately expect it. On the other hand, there are organizations that say there are no homosexual instincts in animals, because they’re outlier behaviors compared to the norm. In both cases, anthrocentric thinking is involved, just in different applications.
My own opinion on the matter is that people should be able to develop into the people they want to be. I’d rather have genetic treatments work on older children and adults, so they could make decisions on their own. But I suspect, at least in the beginning, it’s going to be a baby-level decision. The possibilities of choosing the genetic makeup of one’s child makes for some interesting possibilities. There was the article later about deaf parents wanting deaf children. Would gay parents want to enhance the chances of their child being gay? And would others decide that this is the perfect tool to eradicate what they would consider to be the homosexual menace once and for all? Genetic legislation could be a very interesting thing. Would it be something like making sure there are vaccinations, or something more like what we normally expect in dark S.F. - a eugenics program to make perfect people? However it goes, if the gene knowledge expansion continues, we might have to make a definition of genotypical “normality” for medical purposes. (And then, oh the headaches I can hear as people squawk at what should be “normal”.)
A prominent Army general who was on the Joint Chiefs when "don’t ask, don’t tell" was enacted is now reconsidering his position. Some part of that reasoning may be deriving from the need for the military to send ever more people into Iraq and Afghanistan to have their chances of being killed. Most of it, we hope, is that his statement about having met servicepeople who are homosexual and seeing that they’re not actually monsters, but people. Unfortunately, I think the article is also right in that a repeal of such a policy probabyl won’t happen under the Bush administration. If the war drags on past the end of that term, then I think we’re going to have problems regarding that, too. If the war doesn’t last out the Bush Administration, then the policy’s probably not going to be changed. “No need, anymore.”, they might say. Which would be a shame.
blacktigr and mr_kitehead at a greasy spoon diner. It was fantastic and there was much to talk about, silly people to make fun of, and the like. The kind of thing I should probably do more often. It’s just tough to coordinate homework in such a way that everyone actually has free time (silly grad work). And school resumes Thursday. Yay. Genetic engineering produces non-prion-producing bovines. If this is true, then we could stop it from spreading in cattle, and work on finding some way of getting the bad prions out of other animals and humans. There’s still some tests to be run, apparently, before we’re completely sure that it’s all in order, but this could be a promising development. And if we can kick out vCJD, then we might be able to welcome back some deferred donors.
Calligraphic seal readies the welcome to the new Chinese year. The year of the Boar will arrive next month. We’ll see whether that affords any additional luck or hardship to us all.
Somewhat quietly, Starbucks is getting rid of all trans fats in its U.S. locations and products. Sounds interesting. We’ll see whether this changes taste as well as health. (With the ubiquity of Starbucks, I doubt that this will hurt their business at all. Might even boost their image some.)
Something definitely fun and worthwhile to have a look at is the past’s ideas of the future. And when it comes to 50’s designs of the future, rayguns are the thing. Here's some patent images of toy rayguns, all from year 1953. Yay for the rings that look silly now but were cool or essential then. In more modern times, NewScientistTech takes a look at some of the most interesting patents filed in 2006.
Citing security concerns, the new governor of Nevada was sworn in at midnight of the new year and was fast at making several appointments. I wonder what sort of concerns could prompt such a quick installation. Anyone in the area that could tell me how close the election was? Or something else that might have prompted such a quick maneuver?
Putting two oddities next to each other - apparently the whole “homosexual animals” bit is bigger than we thought. I suspect some anthropomorphism is involved here, where animals are part of the human homosexuality debate by proxy. So it would be no surprise that the announcement that hormone therapyies might be able to get rams with homosexual tendencies to go straight would cause some heated words and possible worry that the technique would be developed for humans and then used on babies. It’s an accusation of “playing God” from a place that one might not immediately expect it. On the other hand, there are organizations that say there are no homosexual instincts in animals, because they’re outlier behaviors compared to the norm. In both cases, anthrocentric thinking is involved, just in different applications.
My own opinion on the matter is that people should be able to develop into the people they want to be. I’d rather have genetic treatments work on older children and adults, so they could make decisions on their own. But I suspect, at least in the beginning, it’s going to be a baby-level decision. The possibilities of choosing the genetic makeup of one’s child makes for some interesting possibilities. There was the article later about deaf parents wanting deaf children. Would gay parents want to enhance the chances of their child being gay? And would others decide that this is the perfect tool to eradicate what they would consider to be the homosexual menace once and for all? Genetic legislation could be a very interesting thing. Would it be something like making sure there are vaccinations, or something more like what we normally expect in dark S.F. - a eugenics program to make perfect people? However it goes, if the gene knowledge expansion continues, we might have to make a definition of genotypical “normality” for medical purposes. (And then, oh the headaches I can hear as people squawk at what should be “normal”.)
A prominent Army general who was on the Joint Chiefs when "don’t ask, don’t tell" was enacted is now reconsidering his position. Some part of that reasoning may be deriving from the need for the military to send ever more people into Iraq and Afghanistan to have their chances of being killed. Most of it, we hope, is that his statement about having met servicepeople who are homosexual and seeing that they’re not actually monsters, but people. Unfortunately, I think the article is also right in that a repeal of such a policy probabyl won’t happen under the Bush administration. If the war drags on past the end of that term, then I think we’re going to have problems regarding that, too. If the war doesn’t last out the Bush Administration, then the policy’s probably not going to be changed. “No need, anymore.”, they might say. Which would be a shame.
