If you are a climate change skeptic, please spend a few days researching AIDS dissidents - you might find their research compelling. Google AIDS dissidents or AIDS rethinkers, and The Perth Group. The former AIDS researcher Rebecca Culshaw is also a very interesting place to start.
I am constantly disheartened when AIDS dissent gets lumped in with 9-11 conspiracy theories.
Split an uncompressed copy across 10 or so archival quality DVDs. Do this a few dozen times - store the copies in various geographically dispersed locations and be done with it. Should last at least 100 years or so. If you are worried about degradation, make new copies every decade or so. Worried we won't have DVD players in 100 years? CD players are almost 30 years old already. When exactly are they going away?
No, instead you will consume coal. As in the coal burned to create the electricity used to charge the batteries. Compared to the average car, the carbon footprint isn't much different.
I use the approach you suggest. I clearly explain my diagnostic path, what I believe the problem to be, and the proposed solution. This rarely works, as most support techs are simply not as intelligent as you appear to be.
I don't call support people when I need a diagnosis. I call them when I know what the problem is and I lack the authority or software required to correct the problem. If a problem is possible for me to correct, I will figure out how to do so, and correct it myself.
And then there are the people who actually do know more than the support person tending their needs - and I am surprised the article doesn't address these folks. There is the tacit assumption here that the support guy is always more knowledgeable than the user. This is frequently not the case. I would really appreciate it if support staff could recognize that I actually do know what I am talking about and cut through all the crap.
Well, my suggestion would probably have the effect of making it harder to prosecute a statutory rape case. Most juries, when presented with a 'victim' that could pass for 18, who consented to sex, and perhaps even actively sought out sex, will probably judge her to be mental competent and mature enough, even though she's only 17, or even 16. Prosecutors would probably only bring their most clear cut cases to court.
As for inebriation, your scenario is already a problem under existing law. You could have what you considered to be perfectly consensual sex at a party, with a girl who's 18+, and the next day the girl could decide you raped her. If the prosecutor agrees, it's up to a jury - and there are no bright lines there.
No, there need be no "do not cross" line. What we wish to punish is those who take advantage of people who are not mentally competent or mature enough to make decisions for themselves. Establish legal standards of mental competence and maturity and let a jury evaluate each case. While I am sure this will result in many fewer successful prosecutions of statutory rape, I am not sure that's a bad thing. Even with no firm age limit, I doubt any jury would find that a nine or ten year old was mature enough to consent to a sexual relationship.
"Renewables don't produce pollution. Wind turbines don't produce pollution. Solar cells don't produce pollution. Biomass doesn't produce pollution ( carbon is cycled around the system, but the net output is zero )."
Yes, solar cells and wind turbines descend fully formed from the womb of Gaia, ready to magically convert wind and solar to electricity until the end of time.
"You could waste 99% of the wind or solar electricity, and that won't be an issue."
Yeah, because wind generators and solar panels cost nothing to build, don't require any fossil fuel inputs in their manufacture, and never break down or require maintenance. So sure, why not waste 99% of their output.
I stand corrected, the fact they there exists one person who was hired for their Gimp skills clearly obviates my claim that very very few people get hired for their skills with the Gimp.
Oh come on. Is PS7 really that different than more recent versions? Not really. Better to teach them on old commercially viable software, where there is a real market for the skillset. Very very few people get hired for their skills with the Gimp.
I don't have any conceptual problems with the theory behind vaccines, but there is some serious question as to whether or not flu vaccines have decreased the flu death rate in the population at large.
I understand the rationale behind this - you have to pay tax on shrink-wrapped software, so why not custom software? Well, because custom software is a service is fundamentally a service, not a product. Yes, you can buy shrink-wrapped boiler plate legal documents, for which you are required to pay sales tax - does this mean we should pay a sales tax for legal services?
My clients purchase my time as a service. As a side effect I may or may not create custom code for them, or improve their existing code base. I might go weeks without writing a line of code, or I might spend a feverish week cranking out a ton of very worthwhile code. Are the two types of activities similarly taxable? What if I am just working on documentation? What if I am troubleshoot and tracking down/reproducing bugs? Do you have to break out your activities by taxable/non-taxable? Or is my labor merely taxable because I am labeled a "programmer"?
Many years back I decided to write a web server. Why? I wanted to understand how they worked.
I started with a simple little multi-threaded demo from Sun and eventually rewrote everything. I created loadable plugins/filters, a simple JSP-like processor, and implemented much of the CGI spec (such as it is). In the end I had a relatively full-featured web server, at least for my purposes.
Now, there are countless web-server implementations out there, most better than my own I am sure. But in the process of creating my own implementation, I learned a tremendous amount about HTTP, and the other protocols and specifications required to put together a reasonably functional web server. That knowledge has served me well in my career ever since.
"You clearly don't know the first thing about this stuff. First of all, it's not a pandemic strain YET. It may never be, but if I had to put money on what the next flu pandemic strain is going to be, my money would be on H5N1 and there are a lot of epidemiologists who would agree. Scientists are the ones pushing the H5N1 scare because it poses an enormous threat."
Why would it be H5N1? Even if it will be the source pool from which a pandemic strain mutates, who is to say it will be effected by the drugs in the same way as H5N1. I see no reason to believe that H5N1 will ever become a pandemic - it's killed what - a few hundred folks so far?
"About 36,000 people a year die of influenza in the U.S. alone. Flu and Pneumonia are the 7th most common cause of death in the U.S. Which just goes to show that you clearly have no clue what you're talking about."
So I imagine because 36,000 people each year die of influenza (and pneumonia - yes, the 36,000 number includes pneumonia) it should be easy to construct a large clinical trial with enough statistical power to prove that these drugs reduce mortality? Any idea how many people contract the flu each year? It's in the millions. How large of a population would you need to see 10 deaths on average in the study? Now multiply this by two, gotta have a treatment and placebo group. It's just not that easy, and as far as I can tell, there are no studies indicating a statically significant decreased death rate as the result of these drugs.
I've been saying this for years. The problem is not the supply, it's demand. I galls me when I see large companies, which have cut back their R&D budgets dramatically in the past decades, running TV ads about their math and science scholarship programs - wow, mad props to you, Mega-corp, for simultaneously working to both decrease demand and increase supply.
The problem is on the demand side. If you create the jobs, kids will fall over themselves to enter the field.
Perhaps I was not clear. When I said "save a single person from a pandemic type flu virus" - I was referring to mortality. Your references provide no evidence that Tamiflu reduces mortality with current Flu strains, let along a pandemic strain. If found a 2005 meta review that was also unable to find any such evidence of mortality reduction: http://www.arif.bham.ac.uk/Requests/o/oseltamivir-tamiflu-pandemic.htm.
From the conclusions of your first link "There are no clinical data available for the use of oseltamivir [Tamiflu] in a pandemic." So I was correct, no such evidence exists.
"There's tons more out there and anyone willing to get off their butt and do the research can find it. Now granted, there haven't been any large scale trials with H5N1 in people because not that many people have had H5N1. That said, combination therapies in mice with H5N1 have proven quite effective. There's no guarantee it will work in people, but all the evidence suggests that H5N1 is susceptible to neuraminidase inhibitors like Tamiflu will be effective against H5N1. It won't be 100%, but based on the existing data, I suspect it will have a pretty significant impact."
I don't really care about studies with H5N1 - it's obviously not a pandemic strain (witness the current lack of a pandemic). There is absolutely no evidence that vaccines, or any of the currently approved drugs will have any effect on some future pandemic strain.
I not been able to find any evidence that Tamiflu or it's cousins have had any impact on influenza/pneumonia death rates in any country, and that's ultimately what I care about. People shouldn't be taking expensive drugs to avoid a day of aches and pains. See the following meta-review: http://www.arif.bham.ac.uk/Requests/o/oseltamivir-tamiflu-pandemic.htm
It seems that influenza deaths are so rare it's very difficult to conduct a large enough study to determine if these drugs have any impact on mortality.
"Sadly, influenza epidemics are a given. It's not a matter of "if", but "when". There were 3 in the last century and they all happened before good antiviral drugs were available. Stockpiling these drugs could very well save hundreds of thousands, if not millions of lives. The short-term economic cost of a pandemic would be huge, but it would seem trivial compared to the long-term cost of the loss of 5-10%, or more, of the population."
Care to point me to any scientific evidence that Tamiflu, Relenza, or any other such drug in the pipeline will save a single person from a pandemic type flu virus?
No such evidence exists.
Even for non-pandemic strains, the evidence that vaccines and antivirals have had any impact of flu death rates is extremely thin.
Slashdot Mirror
If you are a climate change skeptic, please spend a few days researching AIDS dissidents - you might find their research compelling. Google AIDS dissidents or AIDS rethinkers, and The Perth Group. The former AIDS researcher Rebecca Culshaw is also a very interesting place to start.
I am constantly disheartened when AIDS dissent gets lumped in with 9-11 conspiracy theories.
Split an uncompressed copy across 10 or so archival quality DVDs. Do this a few dozen times - store the copies in various geographically dispersed locations and be done with it. Should last at least 100 years or so. If you are worried about degradation, make new copies every decade or so. Worried we won't have DVD players in 100 years? CD players are almost 30 years old already. When exactly are they going away?
No, instead you will consume coal. As in the coal burned to create the electricity used to charge the batteries. Compared to the average car, the carbon footprint isn't much different.
You've obviously never traveled with a wife and kids.
I use the approach you suggest. I clearly explain my diagnostic path, what I believe the problem to be, and the proposed solution. This rarely works, as most support techs are simply not as intelligent as you appear to be.
I don't call support people when I need a diagnosis. I call them when I know what the problem is and I lack the authority or software required to correct the problem. If a problem is possible for me to correct, I will figure out how to do so, and correct it myself.
And then there are the people who actually do know more than the support person tending their needs - and I am surprised the article doesn't address these folks. There is the tacit assumption here that the support guy is always more knowledgeable than the user. This is frequently not the case. I would really appreciate it if support staff could recognize that I actually do know what I am talking about and cut through all the crap.
Well, my suggestion would probably have the effect of making it harder to prosecute a statutory rape case. Most juries, when presented with a 'victim' that could pass for 18, who consented to sex, and perhaps even actively sought out sex, will probably judge her to be mental competent and mature enough, even though she's only 17, or even 16. Prosecutors would probably only bring their most clear cut cases to court.
As for inebriation, your scenario is already a problem under existing law. You could have what you considered to be perfectly consensual sex at a party, with a girl who's 18+, and the next day the girl could decide you raped her. If the prosecutor agrees, it's up to a jury - and there are no bright lines there.
No, there need be no "do not cross" line. What we wish to punish is those who take advantage of people who are not mentally competent or mature enough to make decisions for themselves. Establish legal standards of mental competence and maturity and let a jury evaluate each case. While I am sure this will result in many fewer successful prosecutions of statutory rape, I am not sure that's a bad thing. Even with no firm age limit, I doubt any jury would find that a nine or ten year old was mature enough to consent to a sexual relationship.
Yeah, much more complicated. Back then you'd back up your floppy, on another floppy. Today I back up my hard drive on, well... another hard drive.
"Renewables don't produce pollution. Wind turbines don't produce pollution. Solar cells don't produce pollution. Biomass doesn't produce pollution ( carbon is cycled around the system, but the net output is zero )."
Yes, solar cells and wind turbines descend fully formed from the womb of Gaia, ready to magically convert wind and solar to electricity until the end of time.
"You could waste 99% of the wind or solar electricity, and that won't be an issue."
Yeah, because wind generators and solar panels cost nothing to build, don't require any fossil fuel inputs in their manufacture, and never break down or require maintenance. So sure, why not waste 99% of their output.
Thanks, but I'll just keep connecting my laptop to my TV via the VGA port - you can keep your "bunch 'o features".
I stand corrected, the fact they there exists one person who was hired for their Gimp skills clearly obviates my claim that very very few people get hired for their skills with the Gimp.
Oh come on. Is PS7 really that different than more recent versions? Not really. Better to teach them on old commercially viable software, where there is a real market for the skillset. Very very few people get hired for their skills with the Gimp.
As bad as Vista's been, it's never crashed on me. 6 times in a month? Dude, get a Dell.
I don't have any conceptual problems with the theory behind vaccines, but there is some serious question as to whether or not flu vaccines have decreased the flu death rate in the population at large.
I understand the rationale behind this - you have to pay tax on shrink-wrapped software, so why not custom software? Well, because custom software is a service is fundamentally a service, not a product. Yes, you can buy shrink-wrapped boiler plate legal documents, for which you are required to pay sales tax - does this mean we should pay a sales tax for legal services?
My clients purchase my time as a service. As a side effect I may or may not create custom code for them, or improve their existing code base. I might go weeks without writing a line of code, or I might spend a feverish week cranking out a ton of very worthwhile code. Are the two types of activities similarly taxable? What if I am just working on documentation? What if I am troubleshoot and tracking down/reproducing bugs? Do you have to break out your activities by taxable/non-taxable? Or is my labor merely taxable because I am labeled a "programmer"?
If only they were able to take about 24 pictures per second with their Hasselblad's, you might have a point.
Many years back I decided to write a web server. Why? I wanted to understand how they worked.
I started with a simple little multi-threaded demo from Sun and eventually rewrote everything. I created loadable plugins/filters, a simple JSP-like processor, and implemented much of the CGI spec (such as it is). In the end I had a relatively full-featured web server, at least for my purposes.
Now, there are countless web-server implementations out there, most better than my own I am sure. But in the process of creating my own implementation, I learned a tremendous amount about HTTP, and the other protocols and specifications required to put together a reasonably functional web server. That knowledge has served me well in my career ever since.
"You clearly don't know the first thing about this stuff. First of all, it's not a pandemic strain YET. It may never be, but if I had to put money on what the next flu pandemic strain is going to be, my money would be on H5N1 and there are a lot of epidemiologists who would agree. Scientists are the ones pushing the H5N1 scare because it poses an enormous threat."
Why would it be H5N1? Even if it will be the source pool from which a pandemic strain mutates, who is to say it will be effected by the drugs in the same way as H5N1. I see no reason to believe that H5N1 will ever become a pandemic - it's killed what - a few hundred folks so far?
"About 36,000 people a year die of influenza in the U.S. alone. Flu and Pneumonia are the 7th most common cause of death in the U.S. Which just goes to show that you clearly have no clue what you're talking about."
So I imagine because 36,000 people each year die of influenza (and pneumonia - yes, the 36,000 number includes pneumonia) it should be easy to construct a large clinical trial with enough statistical power to prove that these drugs reduce mortality? Any idea how many people contract the flu each year? It's in the millions. How large of a population would you need to see 10 deaths on average in the study? Now multiply this by two, gotta have a treatment and placebo group. It's just not that easy, and as far as I can tell, there are no studies indicating a statically significant decreased death rate as the result of these drugs.
I've been saying this for years. The problem is not the supply, it's demand. I galls me when I see large companies, which have cut back their R&D budgets dramatically in the past decades, running TV ads about their math and science scholarship programs - wow, mad props to you, Mega-corp, for simultaneously working to both decrease demand and increase supply.
The problem is on the demand side. If you create the jobs, kids will fall over themselves to enter the field.
Perhaps I was not clear. When I said "save a single person from a pandemic type flu virus" - I was referring to mortality. Your references provide no evidence that Tamiflu reduces mortality with current Flu strains, let along a pandemic strain. If found a 2005 meta review that was also unable to find any such evidence of mortality reduction: http://www.arif.bham.ac.uk/Requests/o/oseltamivir-tamiflu-pandemic.htm.
From the conclusions of your first link "There are no clinical data available for the use of oseltamivir [Tamiflu] in a pandemic." So I was correct, no such evidence exists.
"There's tons more out there and anyone willing to get off their butt and do the research can find it. Now granted, there haven't been any large scale trials with H5N1 in people because not that many people have had H5N1. That said, combination therapies in mice with H5N1 have proven quite effective. There's no guarantee it will work in people, but all the evidence suggests that H5N1 is susceptible to neuraminidase inhibitors like Tamiflu will be effective against H5N1. It won't be 100%, but based on the existing data, I suspect it will have a pretty significant impact."
I don't really care about studies with H5N1 - it's obviously not a pandemic strain (witness the current lack of a pandemic). There is absolutely no evidence that vaccines, or any of the currently approved drugs will have any effect on some future pandemic strain.
I not been able to find any evidence that Tamiflu or it's cousins have had any impact on influenza/pneumonia death rates in any country, and that's ultimately what I care about. People shouldn't be taking expensive drugs to avoid a day of aches and pains. See the following meta-review: http://www.arif.bham.ac.uk/Requests/o/oseltamivir-tamiflu-pandemic.htm
It seems that influenza deaths are so rare it's very difficult to conduct a large enough study to determine if these drugs have any impact on mortality.
"Sadly, influenza epidemics are a given. It's not a matter of "if", but "when". There were 3 in the last century and they all happened before good antiviral drugs were available. Stockpiling these drugs could very well save hundreds of thousands, if not millions of lives. The short-term economic cost of a pandemic would be huge, but it would seem trivial compared to the long-term cost of the loss of 5-10%, or more, of the population."
Care to point me to any scientific evidence that Tamiflu, Relenza, or any other such drug in the pipeline will save a single person from a pandemic type flu virus?
No such evidence exists.
Even for non-pandemic strains, the evidence that vaccines and antivirals have had any impact of flu death rates is extremely thin.