Slashdot Mirror
SARS and the Internet
AndroidCat writes "In this story scientists who cracked SARS' genetic code credit the Internet as a key: 'The Internet has had a profound impact on how this data has been shared and how scientists have collaborated.' The Internet has also been useful in containing the outbreak by facilitating online discussion by ER doctors. Not mentioned in the stories is that Toronto researchers who were in quarantine were able to stay in touch. Slashdot has also covered Distributed Computing Attacking SARS. Go Internet!"
It is a shame that though a large number of the Internet community will altruistically join the fight against SARS, voluteering thier computer's processing power and the electricity used to keep it running, while the likely (pecuniary) beneficiary will be a giant biotechnology firm, which will quickly patent any findings that are uncovered by the distributed computing program.
Since you volunteer your computer, I would bet that this fact does not need to be stated in any EULA.
For the same reason that people backpat each other about television...a great number of people say there's nothing but trash on television, but when an event like 9/11 occurs and television is the only outlet for information because all the freakin phones are tied up, people suddenly realize that there is a reason, other than watching Survivor, for having a television.
A great many of our 'innovations' come from entertainment sources...optics, radio, computing, to name a few. You don't, on a daily basis, hear people extolling the virtues of entertainment devices, but every once in awhile we remember that there ARE non-recreational uses for them.
--trb
One of the major problems facing us with regard to pandemics thesedays is air travel. In the past, SARS would not have spread directly from Hong Kong to Toronto for example.
The Internet also provides help in this area by making it less necessary to make physical trips to do business or keep in touch with friends and family.
One of the recent trends in Business Continuity Planning for example is considering the idea of a the virtual workplace as a hot site. How useful is a physical backup location if your workers can't sit in the same room together for medical reasons? For this reason, I suspect the Internet will continue to play an increasingly important role in emergency management.
I often here friends and collegues disgusted by the Internet, or simply bored by it. There's nothing to do on it they claim except play some games, check a few popular web sites, instant message, etc.
I think a lot of people are taking the Internet for granted. E-Mail, in spite of SPAM, has revolutionized business (it's like a phone call with automatic transcription, very useful). Sites like Slashdot, in spite of trolls, stupid people, and repeat articles, are informative with quick feedback about problems with articles (taken as a whole, it is decent journalism when read properly). Websites are now the de facto method for distributing product documentation, user manuals, and catalogs (no more waiting 6 weeks for a lost user manual). Google can provide instant answers to questions (what kind of snake did we see at the park? what are the unofficial jumper settingss for my mobo? what are common experiences with product X?).
There is one downside to the internet: volume. Try searching for a particular type of software and find 1000 companies selling their "solution" for all your problems. Try searching for a job and realize that there are literally thousands of job websites out there.
Sometimes, the Internet makes me feel big; other times, it makes me feel really really small.
Healthcare article at Kuro5hin
You're not crazy, I live in Toronto, don't know anyone with SARS. I don't even know anyone who knows anyone who has SARS. Everyone at the office howls with laughter when we get an e-mail from overseas asking if we're ok and how the situation is.
Find any great deals, go for them! You've got nothing to worry about.
I'll have something intelligent to add one of these days...
Are you saying in your post that you'd rather they didn't do this research?
keep trolling with your leftist agenda. it's sad that a post like that passes for insightful or interesting. The fact is, this is a good thing. I'm sure if you spent the time creating what they're doing, you'd want something in return.
This helps everyone. From people in toronto to china to the US. Finding a cure for sars will restore confidence in travel and economies. I know toronto in particular has had a bad hit from the bad publicity.
Anti-establishment, anti-capitalism types push this off as a bad thing that only helps corporations. Clearly they haven't though it thorugh, or they're just living in lala land.
Flame from a few weeks ago.
You can go fuck yourself too. Want evidence for that? You're a prick. There, that's your evidence.
It still happens. There are some idiots here on slashdot, and despite best efforts to exterminate them with a flame thrower, they keep on popping up. We hope to eradicate them by modding them down and such, but they are very immature. Our hopes are that they will go back to their room in their mom's house and play Mario Sunshine or Yu Gi Oh instead of wasting our time.
Wow, I just flamed flamers. I feel dirty.
Problem is usually nobody sees them because they post anonymously and are under most people's threshhold, so moderators don't see it and therefore don't mod them down.
I think someone should be given a bunch of mod points, then sent every day to type in all the insults into the search and look through all the comments to see which ones are flames, and mod em down.
Although you couldn't pay me enough.
While I get the distinct feeling that governments fear free and unmolested communications, and to a lesser extent corperations, they must also realize it's importance.
In the United States of America, durring it's forming, we included free and open communication as part of the supreem law of the land. Nothing can trump it.
By voicing ideas, by communicating there is no problem that cannot be solved. Sure a good right can also be used by a bad person to some evil ends. That happens. But that is a price of this freedom.
Still the benefits always out weigh any problems.
Help keep alive the right of free and open communication, the right of the people to gather peaceably assemble(online or in person). If you don't have this right where you live. I firmly believe you should have it. Do what you can to insure you keep or gain this right.
Know you rights...
First Amendment
Crongress shall make no law respecing an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free excercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press, or the right of the people to peacably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
-- Prepared at the direction of, or to be sent to Legal Counsel, in anticipation of litigation. Attorney Client Pri
Right now, the response to SARS can be considered to be disproportionate. However, SARS seems to have been a recent member of human-infecting virii and may refine its infectiousness through rapid mutation/evolution. Stopping it now can save many lives later on.
Just imagine if the first hundred people with AIDS were quarantined. How many lives would that have saved?
A NYC lawyer blogs. http://www.chuangblog.com/
Experts say SARS virus mutating quickly Happy happy..
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.