Someone took over my well documented code, and thought they understood what it's doing, but they clearly didn't.

They've introduced deadlocks in the mutexes that causes the application to freeze if you catch it just right. The mutex times out, but by then the connection has dropped and the whole thing crashes.

Lucky for them, I'm there to fix it.

Just in case these badly tested GM crops should crash, can be get God's phone tech support number?

Also are GM crops GPL'd? If so can we get the source code? I'd hate to find out we're working from a dissembly.

Lucy,

I am a bit confused.

There are two different news stories that you have confused (conflated?) together.

First of all the increase in GM crops. Ok, this is a fair bit of news journalism. I suppose we should be told about that.

Then you go on to mention the organic study...

What's this got to do with the increase in GM?

The Organic study compared Organic growing methods with 'traditional' industrial farming - not GM.

So why mention both?

Most of these GM crops end up in animal fodder, so I'm sure farmers will be delighted their cows are on low-fat high nutrient diets. Grass is so 20th century.

Note that the surge in GM crops is maize to be fed to cattle. Food which contains GM constituents must be labelled as such, which has a similar effect to labelling it with a skull and crossbones. But dairy produce from cows which have been fed GM maize doesn't have to bear this stigma.

Perhaps the article should be titled "GM usage grows where we can get away with not telling consumers it's GM".

the chickens will rise up and destroy you all!

buwahahahahahah.

Who exactly would buy an item of food marked "Genetically Modified food, Organically Grown"?

Nobody. Your target market is zero. You can barely sell Genetically Modified food to the regular consumer, let alone the people who want to pay more for natural food which is what they're after when the buy 'Bio' stuff.

So that could only ever work if you can disguise the GM nature of the food, mislabeling, non labeling, using some sort of fancy logo that doesn't convey the meaning....

My view on this is clear and simple. Natural genetic changes are small and slow and tested for survival by natural selection. We have a minimal risk with that, the crop has a good chance of survival and likely to have been well tested by nature.

Even so, occasionally a new pest arrives like Potato Blight and nations starve.

GM changes are very much larger, the testing time is much shorter than happens in nature and the selection process is for profit not for survival. Which is great for the companies, but puts our food supply at risk if they've screwed up.

They cause a far higher risk of a surprise failure in our food supply, and that's more important than Monsanto profits.

DAY OF THE TRIFFIDS - they'll kill you all.. RUN!!

... by USDA (U.S. Department of Agriculture) standards, at least as of this writing (i.e., until Monsanto and friends buy enough Congresscritters to get USDA to "adjust" the definition). I believe there is a fraction of a percent of fudge factor to account for the fact that, given windblown pollen from GM crops hither and yon, it is almost impossible to be 100% purely GM-free. Note that traditional hybridization and cross- breeding practices are not considered genetic modification for this purpose (we likes our Marionberries, pluots, and broccoflower). "Organic food is produced without using most conventional pesticides; fertilizers made with synthetic ingredients or sewage sludge; bioengineering; or ionizing radiation." from a USDA info page at http://www.nal.usda.gov/afsic/pubs/ofp/ofp.shtml Also, there are studies to indicate that organic produce is higher in vitamins and minerals than non- organic because organic practices tend to nourish the soil, which better nourishes the plants. While chemical fertilizers do promote growth, they don't necessarily boost nutritional content. Many U.S. arable acres (centiWales) have been stripped of nutritional value over time because the soil has been worked to death, which causes more fertilizer use, which further reduces productivity, and so on in a vicious cycle. But as long as Monsanto makes money coming and going, that will not change any time soon.

Do the organic advocates really think that any crops grown today, organically or otherwise, are in any way natural? They are the result of thousands of generations of selective and cross breading experimentation, and are vastly different to the original wild varieties - far more so than some of the very modest changes made in the labs which are classified as GM.

All living things mutate from time to time, heck the flu virus changes so much that a new jab is needed each year.

So what if we tinker a bit with the crops? Fewer pesticides is a Very Good thing. And is not crossing different strains of plant the same as GM...there goes all your funny coloured roses then...

Personally I don't have a problem with GM.

Welcome our new GM-modified plant overlords!