Until you acknowledge the real reasoning behind the policies instead of the strawman you've constructed, you can't engage in an intelligent discussion on the topic.
Huh? There is no scientific basis for the quarantine. None. Nada. Zip. When you ground rule out a discussion on the basis of the scientific facts (that you mistakenly refer to as being a "strawman"), it's completely impossible to engage in an intelligent discussion. Doubly so since the real reasoning behind the Ebola quarantine policies is to quell the fears of a scientifically illiterate population (including yourself) who cannot seem to grasp the uselessness of the quarantine rather than to actually stop the spread of the disease.
That has to be the most ridiculous thing I've ever read. (And no, it's not more-or-less why you can't discharge firearms so. It's not even remotely related.)
Statistical analysis - the most likely number remaining is a function of the rate of discovery of new objects. As the rate drops, so does the likely number of remaining undiscovered objects.
But the fact that she has tested negative doesn't say anything about whether or not she needs to be quarantined.
Yes it does - because if she is asymptomatic and do not test positive for the virus she cannot spread the disease and thus quarantine accomplishes nothing.
Those who oppose any form of quarantine keep invoking "science" for their support, but then they also keep bringing up the fact that this nurse "tested negative" to validate their views. Makes me think that they don't really understand the "science" as well as they think they do.
Actually, the situation is quite the opposite - science says what I said above is the truth. It's the people advocating for quarantine of individuals who are asymptomatic who don't grasp the science.
I find it very depressing that so many here on Slashdot are defending quarantine - yet heap scorn on the TSA for it's security theater... because their lack of scientific literacy means they don't realize the two are the same thing.
Quarentine is akin to wearing seatbelts, to laws against discharging firearms in certain areas, to smoking in certain areas, to wearing helmets while operating motorcycles.
No, in the case of Ebola, it's not. It's equivalent to the TSA performing body cavity searches on grandmothers and toddlers. It's medical safety theater that accomplishes very little except to pacify clueless fools with no understanding of the science.
This isn't a national thing, it's a side-effect caused by an overall rising standard of living within any given culture.
Actually in the UK (and I expect other countries) the poorer members of society are the fatter ones (citation). So the evidence collected thus far completely contradicts your comment.
Comparing the standard of living of modern urban poor to that of the urban poor of even a century ago - yeah, it's definitely improved greatly. (Regulated working hours, minimum wages, improved workplace safety, improved medical care, improved access to food... I could go on, but you get the point.) So no, the evidence thus far collected does not contradict his statement. You've just confused "society as a whole is getting larger" with "the poor are the largest".
canning foods yes, but canning itself has been around for quite a lot longer. I'll also note that you are now flailing and trying to win on semantics.
Nope, I'm pointing out your multiple errors of fact - you're trying to change it into a semantic argument in a failed attempt to... well, I'm not sure what you're trying to do.
What was pastuers motivation to can food?
Since "pastuer" [sic] isn't known for canning food (though his work on germ theory does apply), I'm not at all certain what drugs you're on.
And now that you realize the method I described could work, why are you still digging?
I specifically said it wouldn't work. Not in the least because in a post apocalyptic period you're not going to have access to the mass quantities of sugar required.
Anyhow, I'm done playing games with you. Your amusement value is approaching zero and any further beating you about the head and shoulders with facts will just constitute cruelty to dumb animals.
The third and probably most important thing is to talk to your friends and family about privacy and why it matters. Try to make them care.
And if that conversation goes anything like it does here on Slashdot - the tinfoil hat nuttery is going to cause them to tune you out pretty quickly.
I know this is hard to do if the people in question watch television but do try. Western governments are out of control because a whole lot of people (almost all people above 50) love automatism and fascism and think people who think that they should not be forced to have a camera in their living-room by law are nuts.
Based on my experience with this type of thing, the answer is, "here is a scientist posed with a random piece of equipment and staged lighting to make a visually appealing image that looks science-y."
Then really, you don't have much experience with this type of thing. Certainly some of that archive will be posed PR type shots. But if you look at TFA, you also find what I'd also expect to find in such an archive - documentary shots showing pieces of equipment and scientists working with such equipment.
More seriously, I think this crowdsourcing effort is likely to be overwhelmed with clever jokes or well-intentioned guesses.
It actually doesn't take much effort to weed those out, I regularly taking part in crowd sourced efforts to identify the locations, dates, etc... of photographs, and the jokes and guesses stand out like sore thumbs.
And just when I thought you hit rock bottom, you grab a pickax and start digging.
It only seems that way because your both simultaneously completely and utterly clueless - and completely convinced you're world class expert. (The latter only possible because of the former.)
because you know that there's no way on God's green earth that anyone could ever survive like their ancestors did.
And if you did know what you're talking about - you'd know that our ancestors didn't 'survive the winter' that way - canning is a very recent development historically speaking, post industrial. Our ancestors stored apples in barrels and root cellars, or sliced and dried them. (Because they didn't have access to either the sugar that makes preserves stable or the jars that store them in.) They also depended on a variety of other vegetables and fruits stored the same way. And on dried, smoked, and pickled meats. And on grains and legumes.
How much of an industrial civilization is needed to create glass jars, or melt beeswax? Because you can preserve food with those basics.
You can't preserve food safely with those basics, no.
Why? Because the wax can shrink as it cools, opening a gap between the wax and the jar and allowing microorganisms access to the food. (Improper cleaning or wiping down the jar can also prevent the wax from adhering in the first place.) The wax can also crack or open a gap during storage and handling. There's a reason why, even when people did do this regularly (it is no longer recommended), it's use was limited to jams and jellies - foods that were already semi-stable due to their high sugar content. They were also semi-solid as you can't use this method with any food that's in a liquid (I.E. vegetables, or meat in a broth). You can't use this to can meat *period* because you can't safely can meat without heating and sealing it at high temperatures.
Wax hung around a long time because of the pre-scientific belief that all you needed to do to preserve food was to "protect it from the air". We now know it's a lot more complicated than that.
hat's why your statement is mind numbingly clueless.
You really need to study canning techniques from a current, modern, source - because you're the one that's completely clueless. (Note: Survivalist websites almost by definition do not meet the qualification of being "current and modern". Many canning websites also fail to meet this qualification because they consist of people repeating what they learned at their mother's knee - not current best practices.)
Thirty years of off and on experience with canning and studying food preservation in general, so, yeah... I have no clue what I'm talking "abot" [sic].
So, if that were true - what exactly am I wrong about?
By the average standards of the modern space technology, Russian space hardware ranks as 2040 design. I know that sounds strange
No, it doesn't sound strange - it sounds like what it is, which is complete and utter bullshit. They have a few things ahead of everyone else, they have a few things on par with everyone else, and they have a lot of things that are in fact engineering time capsules from the 50's, 60's, 70's, and 80's.
Foxfire has been doing this the mid 1960s. How to raise and slaughter animals. How to grow crops. How to bootstrap iron working, including gunsmithing. Everything you need, and with all the mammy-pamby crap from "urban homesteaders" and preppers. Practical knowledge from people that were doing it daily.
I find that people who worship the Foxfire books haven't actually read them or comprehended the contents - because virtually everything they describe depends on some level on the existence of a significant technological society to exist on the margins of. The people of Appalachia, while dirt poor, were not isolated.
he'll head over to the section where the mason jars are stacked. It's not like he'll need that many: when you empty one, you wash it and use it again.
You've never actually canned have you? The short term problem with mason jars isn't the ability to wash the jar - it's being able to replace the seals, which are one use. (And even if the plastic seals weren't one use, the metal lids will still corrode and fail before too long.) Then there's the seal on your pressure canner (vitally important if you're going to can meat) - it too will only last a few years at most.
Canning food is the practice of a technological society. It's unsustainable without considerable industrial infrastructure.
I asked for a citation proving your original claim, I got handwaving and bullshit in return. I point out your failure to provide a citation, and I get more bullshit and a failed attempt to make it my fault that you haven't provided a citation.
"The Survivor Library is gathering essential knowledge that would be necessary to jump-start modern civilization, should it fail past the point where a simple 'reboot' is possible (video). Much of it (but not all) dates to the late 1800s and early 1900s"
In other words, much of it dates from an era already largely industrialized and with significant long distance transportation and trade. Not very useful for actually rebooting civilization as it presumes the existence of an actual civilization.
It's associating a very familiar visual form with frequently abstract, difficult-to-visualize topics in a way that makes scientific results (I'm stretching here) a little more accessible to the layperson
You're stretching a looong way - light years. I watched those videos, and all they look like is a bunch of random people randomly moving and randomly dancing. When you actually add the needed narration... the dancing becomes distracting.
The US army has tried for years to come up with a full-face helmet with embedded HUD, built-in night vision, etc. On paper this is fantastic, but during field tests, soldiers consistently rip those off when they get into combat situations.
[[Citation Needed]].
Seriously, there's tens? hundreds? of thousands of people who already wear full face helmets - from motorcycle riders, to combat pilots, to firemen, to a myriad of martial artists... And they don't constantly rip them off when in a high pressure situation. So, sounds like there's a different problem from the 'cabin fever' you're insinuating.
I don't know why the researchers were so surprised by this.
I don't either - the speed of evolution is directly proportional to generation time and pressure. The former is one of the reasons why fruit flies are so popular for genetics research - from egg to ready to lay more eggs is about three weeks.
Except the minimum wage hasn't actually increased anywhere but Seattle, Washington(and even there it's still being phased in), and more-over, one of the big principles that undercuts this argument is: "once you can automate away a job, is there any wage at which you wouldn't?"
No, there isn't any wage at which you wouldn't - and it's been happening right under our noses for thirty-forty odd years now. Most people don't notice it because "automation takes away jobs" is virtually always assumed to mean "low education, low or no skill, rote and/or repetitive" jobs.
But the microprocessor revolution changed all that. The skilled master machinist has been replaced by an unskilled worker who loads and unloads a CAM machine. The draftsmen that, under the direction of an engineer, created and maintained the drawings the machinist worked from has been replaced by a CAD program used directly by the engineer. The engineer himself has been partly replaced by electrons too... instead of spending weeks with slipstick working out a stress calculation, now sets it up in a day or two on the appropriate software, clicks the mouse, and it's finished before he gets back from freshening his coffee.
And that's just one example, consider the business my wife works at... Thirty years ago, and at a tenth the size they had a full time accountant and two full time bookkeepers (plus data entry clerks and file clerks) - now they have an (almost) full time accountant, the bookkeepers (along with the data entry clerks and the filing clerks) having been replaced by a POS system.
When it's skilled, or especially when it's white collar, we call it "productivity improvement"... but we should call a spade a spade. It's automation.
I would imagine it's down to too few people being on it still.
Not just too few people... it's also feature incomplete.
How long do you suppose people will wait before just not bothering with it?
It's already started... Ello has failed to learn the lesson of G+ and odds are, it will suffer the same fate. Gatekeeping at launch is just shooting yourself in the foot - people want to try your system, and if you lock them out... they aren't coming back. First impressions matter, and a barred door with a sign saying "only kewl kids allowed" makes a powerful first impression. In addition, G+, and Diaspora, and now Ello can't seem to grasp that to most people, personal privacy is just one of the many factors that they weigh. On top of the network effect there's also the features the system supports (chat, pages/groups, games, etc...), and all of the would be pretenders have fallen short on that front. (Or added them too late to make a difference.)
On top of that... Ello is going to have to come up with some pretty impressive optional features in order to induce people to pay for them - things the users can't get elsewhere while *also* providing a complete set of the features users have come to expect. That's a very tall order.
There's no doubt that like G+, Ello might be able to eke out a meager living on the fringes... but as a Facebook killer, or even serious competitor, it's already dead.
Could you please, please, try it before saying that it is just like [insert failed google product here] or [insert very successful google product that you don't like here]. I know this is quite a culture shift for Slashdot, but sometimes it's too much.
Why? Given Google's track record at UI and UX (generally pretty poor), their track record of 'fixing' what isn't broken (pretty good, I.E. they do it more often than not), their track record of benign neglect of their products (pretty good in the same sense as previous)... etc. etc., we have every reason in the world to be skeptical. We've been burned so many times before.
No, that would NOT be much simpler and safer. There's a reason why every orbital space plane has been side-stacked (Shuttle, Buran, X-37).
X-37 is top stacked as was the X-23. On the other hand, both are small enough that they could be encapsulated in a shroud to avoid aerodynamic issues. (And you forgot the X-20 Dyna-Soar, which was also top stacked but was not encapsulated.)
Slashdot Mirror
Huh? There is no scientific basis for the quarantine. None. Nada. Zip. When you ground rule out a discussion on the basis of the scientific facts (that you mistakenly refer to as being a "strawman"), it's completely impossible to engage in an intelligent discussion. Doubly so since the real reasoning behind the Ebola quarantine policies is to quell the fears of a scientifically illiterate population (including yourself) who cannot seem to grasp the uselessness of the quarantine rather than to actually stop the spread of the disease.
That has to be the most ridiculous thing I've ever read. (And no, it's not more-or-less why you can't discharge firearms so. It's not even remotely related.)
Statistical analysis - the most likely number remaining is a function of the rate of discovery of new objects. As the rate drops, so does the likely number of remaining undiscovered objects.
Yes it does - because if she is asymptomatic and do not test positive for the virus she cannot spread the disease and thus quarantine accomplishes nothing.
Actually, the situation is quite the opposite - science says what I said above is the truth. It's the people advocating for quarantine of individuals who are asymptomatic who don't grasp the science.
I find it very depressing that so many here on Slashdot are defending quarantine - yet heap scorn on the TSA for it's security theater... because their lack of scientific literacy means they don't realize the two are the same thing.
No, in the case of Ebola, it's not. It's equivalent to the TSA performing body cavity searches on grandmothers and toddlers. It's medical safety theater that accomplishes very little except to pacify clueless fools with no understanding of the science.
Comparing the standard of living of modern urban poor to that of the urban poor of even a century ago - yeah, it's definitely improved greatly. (Regulated working hours, minimum wages, improved workplace safety, improved medical care, improved access to food... I could go on, but you get the point.) So no, the evidence thus far collected does not contradict his statement. You've just confused "society as a whole is getting larger" with "the poor are the largest".
Nope, I'm pointing out your multiple errors of fact - you're trying to change it into a semantic argument in a failed attempt to... well, I'm not sure what you're trying to do.
Since "pastuer" [sic] isn't known for canning food (though his work on germ theory does apply), I'm not at all certain what drugs you're on.
I specifically said it wouldn't work. Not in the least because in a post apocalyptic period you're not going to have access to the mass quantities of sugar required.
Anyhow, I'm done playing games with you. Your amusement value is approaching zero and any further beating you about the head and shoulders with facts will just constitute cruelty to dumb animals.
And if that conversation goes anything like it does here on Slashdot - the tinfoil hat nuttery is going to cause them to tune you out pretty quickly.
And your next two sentences just prove my point.
Then really, you don't have much experience with this type of thing. Certainly some of that archive will be posed PR type shots. But if you look at TFA, you also find what I'd also expect to find in such an archive - documentary shots showing pieces of equipment and scientists working with such equipment.
It actually doesn't take much effort to weed those out, I regularly taking part in crowd sourced efforts to identify the locations, dates, etc... of photographs, and the jokes and guesses stand out like sore thumbs.
It only seems that way because your both simultaneously completely and utterly clueless - and completely convinced you're world class expert. (The latter only possible because of the former.)
And if you did know what you're talking about - you'd know that our ancestors didn't 'survive the winter' that way - canning is a very recent development historically speaking, post industrial. Our ancestors stored apples in barrels and root cellars, or sliced and dried them. (Because they didn't have access to either the sugar that makes preserves stable or the jars that store them in.) They also depended on a variety of other vegetables and fruits stored the same way. And on dried, smoked, and pickled meats. And on grains and legumes.
You can't preserve food safely with those basics, no.
Why? Because the wax can shrink as it cools, opening a gap between the wax and the jar and allowing microorganisms access to the food. (Improper cleaning or wiping down the jar can also prevent the wax from adhering in the first place.) The wax can also crack or open a gap during storage and handling. There's a reason why, even when people did do this regularly (it is no longer recommended), it's use was limited to jams and jellies - foods that were already semi-stable due to their high sugar content. They were also semi-solid as you can't use this method with any food that's in a liquid (I.E. vegetables, or meat in a broth). You can't use this to can meat *period* because you can't safely can meat without heating and sealing it at high temperatures.
Wax hung around a long time because of the pre-scientific belief that all you needed to do to preserve food was to "protect it from the air". We now know it's a lot more complicated than that.
You really need to study canning techniques from a current, modern, source - because you're the one that's completely clueless. (Note: Survivalist websites almost by definition do not meet the qualification of being "current and modern". Many canning websites also fail to meet this qualification because they consist of people repeating what they learned at their mother's knee - not current best practices.)
Thirty years of off and on experience with canning and studying food preservation in general, so, yeah... I have no clue what I'm talking "abot" [sic].
So, if that were true - what exactly am I wrong about?
No, it doesn't sound strange - it sounds like what it is, which is complete and utter bullshit. They have a few things ahead of everyone else, they have a few things on par with everyone else, and they have a lot of things that are in fact engineering time capsules from the 50's, 60's, 70's, and 80's.
I find that people who worship the Foxfire books haven't actually read them or comprehended the contents - because virtually everything they describe depends on some level on the existence of a significant technological society to exist on the margins of. The people of Appalachia, while dirt poor, were not isolated.
You've never actually canned have you? The short term problem with mason jars isn't the ability to wash the jar - it's being able to replace the seals, which are one use. (And even if the plastic seals weren't one use, the metal lids will still corrode and fail before too long.) Then there's the seal on your pressure canner (vitally important if you're going to can meat) - it too will only last a few years at most.
Canning food is the practice of a technological society. It's unsustainable without considerable industrial infrastructure.
I asked for a citation proving your original claim, I got handwaving and bullshit in return. I point out your failure to provide a citation, and I get more bullshit and a failed attempt to make it my fault that you haven't provided a citation.
"The Survivor Library is gathering essential knowledge that would be necessary to jump-start modern civilization, should it fail past the point where a simple 'reboot' is possible (video). Much of it (but not all) dates to the late 1800s and early 1900s"
In other words, much of it dates from an era already largely industrialized and with significant long distance transportation and trade. Not very useful for actually rebooting civilization as it presumes the existence of an actual civilization.
In other words, you don't have a citation to prove your claim, just meaningless handwaving.
You're stretching a looong way - light years. I watched those videos, and all they look like is a bunch of random people randomly moving and randomly dancing. When you actually add the needed narration... the dancing becomes distracting.
[[Citation Needed]].
Seriously, there's tens? hundreds? of thousands of people who already wear full face helmets - from motorcycle riders, to combat pilots, to firemen, to a myriad of martial artists... And they don't constantly rip them off when in a high pressure situation. So, sounds like there's a different problem from the 'cabin fever' you're insinuating.
I don't either - the speed of evolution is directly proportional to generation time and pressure. The former is one of the reasons why fruit flies are so popular for genetics research - from egg to ready to lay more eggs is about three weeks.
No, there isn't any wage at which you wouldn't - and it's been happening right under our noses for thirty-forty odd years now. Most people don't notice it because "automation takes away jobs" is virtually always assumed to mean "low education, low or no skill, rote and/or repetitive" jobs.
But the microprocessor revolution changed all that. The skilled master machinist has been replaced by an unskilled worker who loads and unloads a CAM machine. The draftsmen that, under the direction of an engineer, created and maintained the drawings the machinist worked from has been replaced by a CAD program used directly by the engineer. The engineer himself has been partly replaced by electrons too... instead of spending weeks with slipstick working out a stress calculation, now sets it up in a day or two on the appropriate software, clicks the mouse, and it's finished before he gets back from freshening his coffee.
And that's just one example, consider the business my wife works at... Thirty years ago, and at a tenth the size they had a full time accountant and two full time bookkeepers (plus data entry clerks and file clerks) - now they have an (almost) full time accountant, the bookkeepers (along with the data entry clerks and the filing clerks) having been replaced by a POS system.
When it's skilled, or especially when it's white collar, we call it "productivity improvement"... but we should call a spade a spade. It's automation.
Not just too few people... it's also feature incomplete.
It's already started... Ello has failed to learn the lesson of G+ and odds are, it will suffer the same fate. Gatekeeping at launch is just shooting yourself in the foot - people want to try your system, and if you lock them out... they aren't coming back. First impressions matter, and a barred door with a sign saying "only kewl kids allowed" makes a powerful first impression. In addition, G+, and Diaspora, and now Ello can't seem to grasp that to most people, personal privacy is just one of the many factors that they weigh. On top of the network effect there's also the features the system supports (chat, pages/groups, games, etc...), and all of the would be pretenders have fallen short on that front. (Or added them too late to make a difference.)
On top of that... Ello is going to have to come up with some pretty impressive optional features in order to induce people to pay for them - things the users can't get elsewhere while *also* providing a complete set of the features users have come to expect. That's a very tall order.
There's no doubt that like G+, Ello might be able to eke out a meager living on the fringes... but as a Facebook killer, or even serious competitor, it's already dead.
Why? Given Google's track record at UI and UX (generally pretty poor), their track record of 'fixing' what isn't broken (pretty good, I.E. they do it more often than not), their track record of benign neglect of their products (pretty good in the same sense as previous)... etc. etc., we have every reason in the world to be skeptical. We've been burned so many times before.
You cheerlead, I'll go with the odds.
X-37 is top stacked as was the X-23. On the other hand, both are small enough that they could be encapsulated in a shroud to avoid aerodynamic issues. (And you forgot the X-20 Dyna-Soar, which was also top stacked but was not encapsulated.)