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User: Chris+Mattern

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  1. Re:Just Require an IQ Test on Should Disney Require Its Employees To Be Vaccinated? · · Score: 2

    Pneumonia is caused by bacteria, the flu by a virus.

    Wow. Then I guess viral pneumonia is a myth.

    "Pneumonia" is term used to describe a disease where the lungs start to fill with fluid. This can result from a wide range of causes, many of which are bacterial infections, but it can also be caused by viruses, fungi, parasites, or other causes.

  2. Re:its a tough subject on Should Disney Require Its Employees To Be Vaccinated? · · Score: 1

    Prove herd immunity works - show us studies / tests / real results.
    You won't be able to (just a hint).

    You really should have read the Wikipedia article on herd immunity before posting this, as it details just such a case study, which quite definitely confirmed the concept.

  3. Re:its a tough subject on Should Disney Require Its Employees To Be Vaccinated? · · Score: 5, Informative

    *sigh* Every vaccination debate we get this ignorant argument. Vaccinations, like everything in life, aren't 100% guaranteed. They're very effective, but they don't *always* work. Also ,there are people who can't have a vaccine for legitimate reasons (often a compromised immune system). The people for whom the vaccine doesn't take, and the people who legitimately can't get vaccinated are protected if enough people *are* effectively vaccinated because there aren't enough viable carriers. This is called "herd immunity." That is why everyone who can be vaccinated needs to be vaccinated--not just for their own protection but the protection of others.

  4. Re:Yes. on Should Disney Require Its Employees To Be Vaccinated? · · Score: 1

    The entire guilty until proven innocent is for criminal and civil trials, not for employment.

    I think you meant "Innocent until proven guilty." And it's just criminal trials, for the most part. Civil trials are usually preponderance of evidence.

  5. Re:Beam me up on Should Disney Require Its Employees To Be Vaccinated? · · Score: 2

    "Snot here, Captain." "What's not there, Snotty?"

  6. Re:what about... on Simon Pegg On Board To Co-Write Next Star Trek Film · · Score: 1

    No, Harry Mudd's not *supposed* to be good-looking. That's part of the character.

  7. Re:Not sure how this is necessary on Illinois Students Suspected of Cyberbullying Must Provide Social Media Passwords · · Score: 1

    Yes, in the USA you can craft _valid_ contracts, that are against the law.

    Um, no, you can't

  8. Did you read the words "new law" in the post up there?

    I did. Did you read that the new law does not in fact require kids to turn over their passwords? That's the schools' own bright idea, using the law as an excuse.

  9. Re:Result of the Glengary Speech . on The Tech Industry's Legacy: Creating Disposable Employees · · Score: 1

    Somebody who goes to college and passes some courses but doesn't graduate has succeeded. Just not as much as someone who graduates. Someone who goes to college and doesn't learn anything there doesn't get anything for it. You won't be rewarded just because you stepped onto a college campus.

    Just read his life story, it's clear that trying does pay off.

    No, trying plus amazing talent pays off. There are lots of other artists who tried as hard as Van Gogh. You've never heard of them. Why? Because they sucked.

  10. Re:Result of the Glengary Speech . on The Tech Industry's Legacy: Creating Disposable Employees · · Score: 3, Informative

    The heart of his speech is that people should only be rewarded for success, not for trying. It is based on the false belief that success is entirely based on your innate nature, rather than on the tools you are given or the environment you are in.

    No, it's based on the true belief that only success produces the rewards to pay you with. If you want to paid for trying but not succeeding, you have to take the pay out of the rewards gained by the people who actually succeeded.

    The world doesn't pay off on a "good try." That's not to say that a helping hand is wrong, but you should be aware that ultimately it all comes from somebody who tried and succeeded.

  11. Re:Flak on US Army Wants Weapon To Destroy Drone Swarms · · Score: 1

    Losing 60 bombers out of 291 is plenty good enough--they may not have stopped that raid, but there's no way you can sustain a bombing effort with those kinds of losses. Fortunately, the Schweinfurt raid was exceptionally bad--and flak, by the way, was responsible for only a small part of those losses. German fighters were the main line of defense against Allied bombers, not flak. Until the invention of surface-to-air missiles, ground fire was little more than an annoyance to most aerial attacks.

  12. Re:Wow... Just "no". on Healthcare.gov Sends Personal Data To Over a Dozen Tracking Websites · · Score: 1

    i think it actually might be violating HIPAA

    Nope. Because they're not covered by HIPAA. Only "covered entities" have to comply with HIPAA privacy regulations and, guess what? The government is not a covered entity.

  13. Re:Didn't we have this discussion... on Police Nation-Wide Use Wall-Penetrating Radars To Peer Into Homes · · Score: 1

    And if the cops never try to use the radar scans as evidence, how will you show that they scanned you at all? In fact, how you will ever suspect that they scanned you so you can try to show they did?

  14. Re:You've just crossed over into the Twilight Zone on NSA Prepares For Future Techno-Battles By Plotting Network Takedowns · · Score: 3, Insightful

    then that would explain why people are still connecting their critical infrastructure directly to the Internet.

    More simply explained. People's bosses aren't willing to pay for properly isolating their infrastructure because

    a) they don't understand

    b) they don't care

    and c) they want direct access to their stuff from wherever they are, just like the vendor promised.

  15. No, you can't on Obama: Gov't Shouldn't Be Hampered By Encrypted Communications · · Score: 1

    The president on Friday argued there must be a technical way to keep information private, but ensure that police and spies can listen in when a court approves.

    "There must be a way to keep it unreadable, but we can read it when we need to."

    No. You're asking for a logical contridiction. Common for politicians, granted, but it doesn't make it any more possible.

  16. Re:Colour me apprehensive. on Ridley Scott Adapts Philip K. Dick's 'Man in the High Castle' For Amazon · · Score: 3, Informative

    All movies require a certain suspension of disbelief. Still, I will take "two crewmen in a first-contact situation taking their helmets off, running off like ninnies, getting lost, and contaminating themselves." over "Roman emperor fights a gladiator."

    Even though the latter actually happened? Granted, the fights were always fixed, but still...

  17. Re:Blind CEOs and Government on Radio Shack Reported To Be Ready for Bankruptcy Filing · · Score: 1

    You appear to be somewhat confused. The newer FCC regulations only killed the Model I (which kicked up so much interference you could place an AM radio next to the Model I and use it to provide sound). The Model II and Model III continued to be sold.

  18. Re: Radio Shack was a great store on Radio Shack Reported To Be Ready for Bankruptcy Filing · · Score: 2

    Not quite. *Radio Shack* started out under that name, by a pair of brothers selling ham radio equipment and parts out of a store in Boston, both at the storefront and via mail order. In 1962, Radio Shack was bought by Tandy Corporation, which were the guys who started out as muleskinners.

  19. Re:Obligatory Onion link on Radio Shack Reported To Be Ready for Bankruptcy Filing · · Score: 2

    Because you live in Virginia and nearest Fry's is in Georgia? Good for you that you live near a Fry's, but they're hardly nationwide.

  20. Re:Obligatory Onion link on Radio Shack Reported To Be Ready for Bankruptcy Filing · · Score: 1

    "Radio Shack. You've got questions, we've got blank looks."

  21. Re:not just the jury on There's a Problem In the Silk Road Trial: the Jury Doesn't Get the Internet · · Score: 1

    The problem is, questions of law and questions of fact are not entirely separable. Being able to apply the law correctly often calls for an proper understanding of the facts.

  22. Re:Jury of your peers on There's a Problem In the Silk Road Trial: the Jury Doesn't Get the Internet · · Score: 5, Informative

    In fact, "jury of your peers" is British, not American. It means commoners get tried by a jury of commoners, whereas a lord is tried by jury of lords--usually the entire House of Lords convened as a jury, in fact. That happened very rarely; one can see a fictional account of how such a trial would be conducted in Dorothy Sayer's Clouds of Witnesses. Even in Britain, this is now obsolete, as the old legal distinctions of subject, commoner and lord are largely abolished; one is simply a British citizen, now.

  23. Re:Pope is right! on Pope Francis: There Are Limits To Freedom of Expression · · Score: 2

    I disagree with that ruling. I'm not the only one.

  24. Re:Pope is right! on Pope Francis: There Are Limits To Freedom of Expression · · Score: 2

    Free speech doesn't mean that you can offend anything/anyone!

    Yes, it does, actually. I'm willing to make free speech exceptions for libel, fraud, and maybe government secrets. Offending someone doesn't rate.

  25. Re:"cut and paste"? on Authors Alarmed As Oxford Junior Dictionary Drops Nature Words · · Score: 3, Informative

    No, originally it was only cut and paste. Because once upon a time that was how you did large scale re-editing. You had a pair of scissors, a pot of paste, and you cut out passages and pasted them where you wanted them to be.