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Engineers are no more rational than anyone else. Maybe even less rational since they tend to have much less experience to draw on outside of their profession and thus are much less able to recognize bullshit.

> An overly religious "engineer" is like a doctor who smokes

Hello? Doctors are notorious for being smokers. Its been coming down in the west as those who got hooked at a young age retire (or die), but in China 60% of doctors still smoke.

only worth between $250,000 and $480,000

dude...in pakistan...that's like Hugh Hufner's mansion.

According to wiki, the minimum wage in pakistan is roughly ~US$ $82.4 per month. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minimum_wage_law#Pakistan)
To put that into perspective....between roughly 253 years to 485 years or if u use the Gross National Income (GNI) per capita, 250 years to 480 years.

Pakistan's GNI is $1000 while the US is $46,360.

more info:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNI_per_capita
http://www.thaindian.com/newsportal/south-asia/pakistans-per-capita-income-rises-to-1027_10050970.html

So, what you're saying is that if we can eliminate a virus to within five nines of total dead, the 0.001% won't be around to cause havoc... The polio vaccine didn't eradicate polio; in fact, new outbreaks in 3rd world countries have occurred, how long until a mutation renders the current vaccines against polio ineffective?

100 years? More? Meh, you won't be alive then, what do you care.

Oh, and Smallpox is totally not a problem anymore.

Those 2010 outbreaks are surely just flukes. No cause for alarm folks, we've got that whole biology thing understood, constrained and conquered.
</sarcasm>

Hint: even your highly esteemed Wikipedia has a list of epidemics. Cholera in 2009? Bubonic Plague in 2008?! WTF!

You're deluding yourself If you think any thing short of tens of generations of world wide quality health care improvements are going to eradicate some of these diseases.

Vaccinating only a percentage of the populous? Don't make me laugh. Chances are, the viruses will evolve faster due to our forcing the hand of natural selection... But who cares, at least you're vaccinated, right?

How come they can't avoid gill nets?

And why do they live in igloos?

and how come I miss typos until after I hit submit?

How come they can't gill nets?

And why do they live in igloos?

The Immaculate Conception refers to the birth of Mary (a child conceived without the taint of original sin). The Virgin Birth refers to the birth of Jesus (a child born to a virgin). They are not at all the same thing. You are approximately the 6,696,844,874th person to get them confused.

For those wondering about the calculation:
6,697,254,041 - world population (from Google)
- 409,166 Catholic priests (source)
- 1 (me)
---------------------
6,696,844,874

the North Korean facebook thing may work along these lines? http://www.thaindian.com/newsportal/tech-news/facebook-privacy-loophole-lets-you-view-the-chats-pending-friend-requests-of-your-friends_100359022.html

Steam Explosion
Manhole Explosion
Crane collapse
Manhole electrocution
Light Pole electrocution
Then there are the construction and scaffolding deaths from stuff falling on peoples heads, not to mention getting hit by a taxi or bus or falling on the subway tracks. Watch your step!

Umm. What is so great about a very large smart phone that can not make a phone call?

Um, because it isn't a very large smart phone? For example, can you run something as sophisticated as Keynote, Pages, or Numbers on any phone, large or small?

I believe that I covered that fact that the Lady looks good and dresses well. That I believe is what all the fanboys are paying for. Right?

So, every single person who purchases an iPad is a "fanboy"? I think you need to up your meds.

You already know Apple is all about the looks and the UI. They do not innovate. They build what has been built before, dumb it down so the stupid can be as useful as the capable then put forth the greatest marketing machine ever built to sell it.

Really? I guess there was no innovation in this, or this, or this, or this, or this. Why are there no examples of those hardware and software products PRIOR to Apple releasing them?. And why oh why do they keep winning industry awards year after year?

Are all those people fanboys, too?

Have fun fuming over this post and try not to spit out your "Half-Caf, No Foam, Soy Latte".

Sorry to disappoint you; but I'm strictly a Folgers/Walmart Half&Half/Splenda (I'm diabetic) sorta guy. Only been in a Starbucks once in my entire life. Don't even get the fake cappuccino at the fast food joints.

I'm not aware of Toyota not respecting warranty on engine problems. Can you please post a link? (I honestly didn't know about that.)

Pedals dont just "turn on", it sticks, in 0.0001% chance probability.

BTW, the U.S. DOJ didint do shit to Toyota, its the DOT (Department of Transportation).

There is NOTHING and I mean NOTHING different here than the dozens of recalls EACH, that FORD, GM and Chrysler (as well as others) do every single year.

Hell, in October FORD recalled 4.5 million cars because they could catch FIRE. (Remind you of the Pinto????@?!??!?!)

http://www.thaindian.com/newsportal/business/ford-recall-2009-affects-45-million-vehicles_100260633.html

These kinds of recalls, and delay tactics until its absolutely necessary (its a numbers game) are exactly the way the whole industry has been functioning for 40 years.

Why smear Toyota all of a sudden?
I explained that in my post above.

And yes Americans will fight in hand-to-hand combat using their hunting rifles if that's what it takes. As Churchill said in the last war: "We shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender."

Funny thing, Churchill said that in Europe. You should visit a major European city and see how well they're defending, both their own (I mean physically) and their own values. Even Churchill's own London. But France, and specifically Paris. Some days you would say it's under siege (you see the flames burning every night in a whole lot of cities).

I hope you're right, that in the US it's not happening everywhere like in Europe.

I seriously doubt Obama will *let* Americans fight though, he'll set the army on the people defending themselves, not on the enemy. At least if the choice is between pretending nothing's wrong while people die and being politically incorrect.

Anyone spotted him at Fort Hood yet ? No ? Oh but at the celebration of the fall of the Berlin wall then ? No again ? At the remembrance of the ardens offensive then ? No ?

He did, of course, defend, even praise, the "tolerant" lack of judgement and general idiocy that made the army ignore all warning signs for the Fort Hood massacre though. But don't worry, Obama's made sure that we'll see more of that tolerance. You know that tolerance that lead to at least 13 corpses.

And if you think it's unfair that shooting is caused by islam, blame the shooter. He FIRST shouted "allahu akbar", then started killing randomly.

Not that there's any doubt all "progressives" will punish me for saying this. It's funny how people who are supposedly comitted to destroying dogma do that. You know, when it violates their dogma.

Our president loves political correctness more than he loves life. Too many Americans "secretly" (ahem) hate our military and in fact support the killing.

--
"muslims love death more than you love life, and that's why we will win"
Major Nidal Hasan - 2007, Walter Reed Hospital. He was making a presentation about how muslim soldiers in the American military must not be forced to fight other muslims. He included the reason : if they didn't "adverse events would happen" (his words, not mine)

Salient detail : this is a quote that was originally made by the (paedophilic thief and massmurderer) muslim prophet muhammad, in a letter to the emperor of the eastern roman empire. Whatever your beliefs are, in this specific comment, history would prove him right.

What, didn't you hear about the butt-bomb? Link. They damn near assassinated the head of the Saudi antiterror squad.

It's just as likely they would have told you:

"I don't want to shovel all that shit.
"I don't want to build a barn and hire a boy to stable, feed and maintain a horse."

"I'm a country doctor on call.
I can't be spending half an hour hitching up a buggy."

"I'm a farmer.
I need a practical tractor for field work. Something with a PTO for a harvester or baler."

The first company that realizes the obvious, and sticks a power efficient screen in an ergonomic form factor, ignores all Microsoft attacks and bribes to make it run 7, and makes it almost disposable cheap... ...will have a product that the whole world will stampede to buy.

The XO had confirmed sales of about 1 million units before being modified to run Windows and MS Office.

3 million XO laptops running Windows and Office are being distributed to rural India. The first mass deployment of the XO in Asia. US-based outfit to distribute three million laptops to poor rural kids To rub salt in the geek's wounds, the deployment is being sponsored in part by Google and Red Hat - and Linux scarcely rates a mention.

The world didn't stampede to buy the Linux Simputer. It didn't stampede to buy the Linux netbook.

You could argue - with a touch of malice, to be sure - that it will be the geek who gets trampled this time around the track as well.

They don't feel a need to obey speed limits

What percentage of motorised vehicle drivers don't feel a need to obey speed limits? Two thirds? 80%? 87%? As subgroups of vehicle operator go, cyclists are not the problem - the majority of cyclists would have difficulty breaking the limit in a 15mph zone, nevermind anything higher.

Comedians are introverts.

Constant smiling is bad for you:

http://www.thaindian.com/newsportal/health/wearing-smile-masks-all-day-at-work-may-lead-to-depression_10016884.html

I wear my scowl with pride.

The album, which cost millions and took 17 years to complete, was released November 23 and reached No. 3 in the charts. The sentence being sought -- including the calculation of damages based on the illegal activity of as many as 1,310 websites that disseminated the music after Cogill released it -- underscores how serious the government is about punishing those for uploading pre-release material.

Are they trying to insinuate that because this album cost millions of dollars more to develop than most albums should, that pirating it is in some way worse because it will take even longer for them to recuperate such losses?

News flash big business: if you spend 10x as long, and 10x as much money as anyone else in that industry would on creating a product, it is not society's responsibility to compensate you. You deserve to lose money, and probably deserve to go out of business over the project.

Besides the ridiculous cost and timeline for developing the album, it seems the primary stakeholders were determined to tank this project regardless (see: http://www.thaindian.com/newsportal/india-news/axl-rose-blamed-for-band-missing-no-1-album_100126311.html/). Blaming piracy for any financial difficulties this album has suffered is more ridiculous than usual.

Dubai doesn't have a long history of using its secret agencies to overthrow democratically elected governments and replace them with dictators more favorable to its interests, so I strongly doubt they're going to have problems with "terrorists" like Western nations have had.

Which is why, say, Muslim-ruled Saudi Arabia hasn't had any terrorist attacks. There have been no attacks on foreign workers, nor on resident families.

I doubt we'll ever know the true motivations of the scumbags who committed mass murder in India recently

You can accuse the perperators of many things, but a lack of clarity in their message isn't one of them:

LeT head Hafiz Saeed said at a rally in Karachi in 2000: "There canâ(TM)t be any peace while India remains intact. Cut them, cut them â" cut them so much that they kneel before you and ask for mercy."

That "they" (and I mean the greater "non-state" nexus using Islam as an excuse) hate _India_ and want to "liberate" previously Muslim-ruled states isn't conjecture anymore; it was amply clear, and indeed, was the stated goal of the so-called Deccan Mujahideen, who purportedly carried out the attacks. That Muslim mohallas across South Asia have become drastically radicalized is also not a matter of conjecture anymore; there are Islamicist "sleeper cells" even in otherwise idyllic, Muslim-majority Maldives. One of the most peaceful places in the world, the mostly uninhabited Lakshadweep archipalego which until recently had a mere 100 police constables, now needs augmented anti-terrorism monitoring stations. It's all very scary for all peace-loving, broad-minded citizens; I think the sheer fact is that governments across the region, both in Muslim-majority nations and otherwise, simply don't know what to do with it all. All our armies are trained to fight each other, not this.

I'll also say this:- I'm very very cynical about all this, but I do think we're past a certain tipping-point now, and the world in general, is on course for a collision of sorts. I don't see _any way_ in which things are tapering down at all; if anything, in this hyper-connected world where local crime-beat news makes international headlines, things tend to have a bigger impact than before. All news is global, all causes inter-linked; governments and societies simply don't know how to deal with all this.

see the recent article about how cartography can get you terrorism charges in India

Heightened times, people _are_ scared especially in the western border regions, but they were fully cleared by the Ministry of Defence beforehand. The local police has already given them a clean chit, although the state's Anti-Terrorism Squad is proceeding cautiously.

I'm actually more bothered about the Public interest litigation in Bombay High Court against Google maps. Citizens not connected with the executive have decided for themselves that Google maps needs to be censored. That is a worrying development; while the state can and will always try to increase regulation, in a democratic society, informed citizenry can and will fight back. It'll be a scary day when citizenry themselves start falling for the crap.

.

Since services like S&P began to define it as an industrial.

The six AAA rated industrial companies are Automatic Data Processing, Exxon Mobil Corporation, General Electric, Johnson & Johnson, Pfizer Inc and Microsoft. In the early 1980s, there were more than 30 industrial companies with 'AAA' ratings. Microsoft joins select industrial club with S&P's AAA rating

S&P defines and tracks the performance of dozens of sub-sectors in the economy: Standard & Poors (S&P) Sector Indexes

S&P doesn't care if Spacely Space Sprockets employs only one visible engineer or technician. It doesn't even care what a sprocket is - or does - beyond a general sense of how it is produced and distributed and the role it plays in the economy.

They employ more lawyers than programmers!

More on a janitorial as well. Big Whoop.

Microsoft employs 94,000 people. It owns or leases 677 sites world-wide, 29 million square feet of real estate. It has subsidiaries in every country from A to Z. The programmer is never going to dominate the headcount in an organization that operates on such a scale. Fast Facts About Microsoft

How much outsourced programming staff could they have when they employ legal to bully 3rd party hardware companies to develop drivers for their new OS's?

Dear lord, spare me this.

You do not have to bully anyone to produce drivers for the OS that has 90% of your potential market - and Apple has a lock on damn near 10% of what remains.