Individual Liberty — Individual Responsibility 

Sea Urchins' DNA Code Mapped

An international team of nearly 250 scientists reported Friday that they had determined the exact order of all 814 million letters of DNA code that carry the instructions for making and maintaining a sea urchin.

If you think that's relevant only to scuba divers and sea otters, you're wrong. Among life-forms that lack backbones, these spiky critters -- which are kissing cousins of starfish and can live for more than 100 years -- are our closest relatives. They are more similar to us than fruit flies or worms, those classic laboratory workhorses that for decades have provided insights into human biology and genetics.

Read the rest of the article in the Washington Post.

I think it's pretty cool that scientists have been able to map the DNA of sea urchins. That makes a couple of creatures that they've managed to do this with. It's pretty impressive.

Somehow though, I don't think we're going to see any artificial sea urchins in our aquaria anytime soon. Jurassic Park is still only science fiction.

Scientists have managed to clone various types of animals, but they still need a few things to pull of this modern day miracle. They need living cells from a host animal and living DNA from the animal to be cloned to insert into them. With mammals they need a bit more too. They need a living animal to raise the cloned embryo.

It's sort of like a person installing a software package they bought in the store onto a computer that they also bought in a store, complete with operating system. If the software and the computer are compatible, you end up with a useful result. That doesn't make you a software developer though.

Even taking the source code to a program and building it with a suite of development tools doesn't make you a software developer. Building a program from the source code doesn't require you to understand the source code, but it is a step above being able to install a program from a CD.

I have yet to hear of the scientist that could take the base components of DNA, string them together into the proper sequence and create life, even if they know the entire DNA sequence of an animal. Until they can do that, all they are doing is copying the source code.

They're getting a lot closer to running the compiler though.

I'm not so sure that's a good thing. I've been a software developer for over half of my life. I have yet to meet a software developer or designer that didn't write buggy code, and we have a pretty good understanding of what we're doing when we do that. With biology, we have a long way to go before we get past just copying the code, let alone reading it, understanding it, and knowing how to write it from scratch.

Universal Music Sues MySpace

The recording industry has gotten a lot of bad press in the last couple of years because of the lawsuits it has file against various peer to peer network providers that have allowed the sharing of copyrighted music. Like it or not, the recording industry does hold the copyright to most modern music and has the right to restrict how it can be distributed. This time though, I think Universal has gone too far. 

The Universal Music Group, the world’s largest music company, filed a copyright infringement lawsuit yesterday against MySpace, the popular social networking Web site, for allowing users to upload and download songs and music videos.

The suit, which also names MySpace’s corporate parent, the News Corporation, comes as the recording industry contends with how to exploit its copyrighted material online. The issue has taken on more importance as services built around user-generated content become popular and generate advertising revenue.

The lawsuit, filed in federal court in Los Angeles, is seen as part of a strategy by Universal to test provisions of a federal law that provides a “safe harbor” to Internet companies that follow certain procedures to filter out copyrighted works. The law requires sites to remove such content after being notified by the copyright holder.

OK, that doesn't sound so sinister yet. Why would I think that Universal has gone too far? Is it because I like MySpace? No, that's not it. I think that MySpace has done a tremendous marketing job with it's service. MySpace has a policy in place that prohibits the uploading of content in violation of the copyright.

MySpace also does have a lot of content that is clearly protected by copyright law and that is probably available in violation of the copyright holders rights. It's not the only site with this problem though. YouTube probably has a larger volume of work that has been uploaded in violation of the copyright.

Actually what's wrong here is that MySpace has gone to great lengths to comply with federal law regarding this material, and Universal is fully aware of it. Universal is apparently suing to force MySpace into agreeing with what may be onerous licensing terms.

...

Earlier this year, Universal’s chief executive, Doug Morris, publicly identified the YouTube video-sharing site and MySpace as copyright infringers. Universal successfully negotiated to take a stake in YouTube shortly before it was sold to Google for $1.65 billion, according to executives briefed on the deal who spoke on condition of anonymity. But licensing talks with MySpace recently reached an impasse.

... 

Mr. Berman said Universal’s case was intended more to press MySpace into a lucrative licensing deal rather than into a real court fight. “It’s a way to get MySpace to the table,” he said. “It’s less about piracy. It’s a lot about control.”

That's whats wrong with this whole thing as far as I'm concerned. Universal is trying to force MySpace to agree to its licensing terms despite the fact that MySpace has complied with federal law in a clear and unambiguous way. MySpace has been incredibly successful with the online communities that have been built by its users. Universal obviously wants a piece of that pie, without having to do any of the development work or helping to build the communities.

Hopefully this time they've bitten off a little more than they can chew. I don't particularly care for MySpace. It has a lot of problems, especially when it comes to protecting minors, and a lot of people abuse the service. Even so, they shouldn't have to pay "protection money" to the recording industry as long as they're complying with the law.

Read the whole article in the New York Times.

Commutes to Bellevue now worse than those to Seattle

I used to commute to and from Redmond to South King County. It didn't take me long to realize that, despite the fact that I had to go an extra ten miles out of my way, my commute was faster if I took surface streets to I-90 and went the long way to SR-18 than if I took I-405. I actually ended up saving 10 to 15 minutes each way. An interesting article in the Seattle Times talks about the problem...

Looking for the worst commute in the entire Puget Sound region? Then get a job in downtown Bellevue and buy a house in Tukwila, Seattle or Everett.

A new state study released this week says trips to and from downtown Bellevue now are generally worse than commutes to and from downtown Seattle.

In fact, the state Department of Transportation's report says, the two worst afternoon freeway commutes in the region both originate in Bellevue: the voyage south down Interstate 405 to Tukwila, and the haul west across Highway 520 to Seattle.

...

"Wherever you are, you've got a problem," said state Transportation Secretary Doug MacDonald. "It is not happy news."

Interestingly enough, the Times article missed a great point. This morning, on my commute to Seattle as I was listening to the news I heard an interesting statement. This is from memory, because I don't have an actual recording, but I think a transportation official sad something to the effect...

If people would just drive better and stop crashing into each other there'd be less congestion.

It sounds blindingly obvious, and it's apparently supported by the congestion study available on-line.

Rear-End Collisions and Congestion
Rear-end collisions on the other hand correlate with congestion. There appears to be a definite link between rear-end collisions and congestion.

So please... watch where you're going!

Cross posted to NW Bloggers

Waiting for a Playstation 3 could be dangerous

PUTNAM, Conn. -- Two armed thugs tried to rob a line of people waiting for the new Playstation 3 game system to go on sale early Friday and shot a man who refused to give up his money, authorities said.

...

The two gunman in Putnam confronted 15 to 20 people standing outside a Wal-Mart store shortly after 3 a.m. and demanded money, said State Police Lt. J. Paul Vance.

"One of the patrons resisted. That patron was shot," Vance said.

...

In Palmdale, Calif., authorities shut down a Super Wal-Mart after some shoppers got rowdy late Wednesday. In West Bend, Wis., a 19-year-old man was injured when he ran into a pole racing with 50 others for one of 10 spots outside a Wal-Mart.

In Lexington, Ky., someone fired BB pellets from a passing vehicle at people waiting outside a Best Buy store, according to WKYT, whose own reporter said she was among four people grazed while she interviewed buyers in line.

Read more in the Seattle Post Intelligencer.

Smart robbers. It's a good bet that people waiting in line for the PS3 are going to have money. The silly thing isn't exactly cheap. It's also a good bet that people waiting in line outside a Wal-Mart aren't going to be armed.

Personally I can't see waiting in line for days to buy a game console. I don't see the sense in it. Wait a while and they'll be a lot less expensive.

I really don't understand people sometimes. The race for ten spots in Wisconsin is just plain silly. It's a toy for goodness' sake.

What are all of these people doing waiting in line outside of Wal-Mart anyway? Haven't they listened to the liberals? Wal-Mart is the epitome of evil! It's the bane of the middle class, what with the everyday low prices and all. Don't these people understand that the Democrats want to drive Wal-Mart out of business?

Besides, standing around outside a Wal-Mart can get you shot.

Linked at The Bullwinkle Blog, Hillbilly White Trash, DragonLady's World, 123Beta.