Apples and oranges. Neither smallox nor polio was "cured", in the manner implied in the original post. Smallpox and polio have been (nearly) eradicated via removing their ability to infect new hosts, by means of vaccines protecting tose potential hosts. And the vaccines activated our own immune systems, and didn't have a direct effect on the smallpox and polio viruses.
This enzyme is being toutes as a "cure" in the sense that it can eliminate bird flue in those already infected by it by acting directly on the virus. That is how antibiotics work, and the GP has a point - if the stuff only kills 90%, there is a risk of resistant strains developing. For that matter, it's already happening - researchers are finding Tamiflu resistant strains of bird flu already.
Close - she called the wrong hotline - child abuse hotline instead of LaLeche League.
The real outrage was that the final abuse ruling was predicated on the trauma she put her kid through while *trying to get her back* through the court system. The court ruled that, by fighting for custody (it had been years, I think), she was abusing the kid by dragging her into court, and therefor wasn't a fit mother.
My favorite was on a Dewalt nailgun. One of the warnings was not to use the gun for "horseplay" (no bestiality jokes, please). It was accompanied by an illustration - a guy in a hardhat shooting another guy in the ass, with the victim holding his ass with "pain rays" shooting out of it, all with a big circle and slash through it.
In other words, "Don't shoot your coworker in the ass with this device". Did this really need to be said? And was Black and Decker ever sued by the perpetrator? "Ladies and Gentleman of the jury, my client would have never landed in prison if it wasn't just so darn tempting to shoot someone in the ass with this device. It is obviously defective, so please give my client money so he can get drugs in prison and I can take my cut and roll around in it."
No, I meant "straw man" in the second sense. I think folks have been tricked into arguing for net neutrality as a distraction from arguing for common carrier principles. That way, if net neutrality proponents "win", they will be satisfied and leave the other aspects of common carrier - more regulation, universal service, and separation of content from carrier - alone.
It's not an exact fit, but that's also why I used the term "somewhat"
"{Akamai is a distributed hosting service, not a common carrier."
You've inadvertently hit on the disconnect between most of the/. readership and folks like this professor.Many of the folks here believe that internet services are common carriers. The problem is, they are NOT, as per statute - data services were exempted from common carrier status a few years ago. So Net Neutrality is something of a strawman - what we really need to be doing is fighting for the classification of data services as common carriers. This has its own issues, but I think it needs to be discussed in its own right.
It's not just in IT - people in ALL industries want "new and shiny" over "old an and boring".
I recently had a request to install a new type of medical irradiator (products, not people)in lieu of an older model. The new one doesn't use a radioactive source, and instead uses xray tubes. It was the cat's ass - no radiation safety officer required, no NRC hassles, and another part of he company did an ROI and the results were great. But when I looked at the specs, the cycle time was slower, it had 1/2 the capacity, and the xray tube needed replacement after a certain number of cycles, and it wasn't a cheap part.
Skeptical, I requested a copy of the "ROI". It was a 2 page narrative saying how great the new unit was, and how the staff was so much more comfortable with it. Not a dollar sign to be found. So I ran my own ROI, with the criterion being a 10 year payback. Guess what: not only didn't it have a 10 year payback, it didn't have a payback EVER. The added maintenance costs, plus the added personnel due to the slower cycle times, never ever made up for the increased licensing costs and paperwork.
And it STILL took me 2 more months to explain to the end users why I wasn't going to buy the new unit.
One story I've heard has a bullseye painted on the backs of military laptops right over the HD, with instructions to "Shoot here in case of immanent[sp] capture". Don't know if it's true or not.
A variation, which was vouched for here on/., involves a rifle range and a 12V tractor battery. Hang the drive from the backstop, jumper the power to get the disks spinning, and blast away. I believe the catastrophic drive failure was described as "spectacular".
"how does it give them an education in computers when it doesn't teach them how any other computer on the planet works?"
Which totally misses the point. The OLPC isn't supposed to help kids learn about computers per se, but is supposed to help kids learn, PERIOD. Is your world so small that the only use of a computer in education is for thye purpose of learning about computers?
"Clinton enacted a law, and Bush (!) has enforced it"
That's completely rediculous, as it violated the laws of physical existence. It is impossible for Bush to do anything that is not evil. Were he to do so, the world would cease to exist (Ref. "Dogma"). Since the world still exists as of my writing this, Bush's actions are therefore evil, and the releasing of the documents has a sinister purpose far beyond most mortals comprehension.
Fortunately for us credulous masses, there are the chosen few who are unaffected by the glamour of Bush and his cronies, and see their actions as those of the simpletons they really are. They see that the rest of the populace is even more unintelligent than Bush's cabal, and therefor fall under the sway of his childish machinations. Fortunately for us there is the Internet, where those noble, intelligent souls can spread the word of the diabolically complex yet childishly simple plans of Bush, so that a few of us cretins may yet see the light.
"The giant squid, a young female about 7 metres long, put up quite a fight as it was brought aboard the research vessel" You'd put up quite a fight if you knew you'd be performing in live action tentacle-porn too..."
"I'm not saying he couln't have done it, but it's like the OJ case.. "
So Hans will be found innocent in a circus trial with incompetent prosecution, a media whore judge, the best defense money could buy, and then write a detailed account about how he COULD HAVE (but didn't) do the crime of which he was committed?
If I were Hans, I'd aim a little higher - I think the Unabomber has higher respect in the public than OJ.
And of course, all European companies follow the laws scrupulously. So no one EVER puts such data on laptops. So if a company laptop goes missing, there's no reason to worry (or report it), because there couldn't POSSIBLY be personal data on it - why, that would be illegal!
"This is the first time I've ever heard that people can die from alcohol withdrawl."
Look up "delirium tremens". Never mind, I'll do it for you.
From Wikipedia:
"Five percent of acute ethanol withdrawal cases progress to delirium tremens[1]. Unlike the withdrawal syndrome associated with opiate or stimulant addiction, delirium tremens (and alcohol withdrawal in general) can be fatal. Mortality can be up to 35% if untreated, though if treated early, death rates may be as low as 5%."
It sounds like you abuse alcohol, or are a "problem drinker". You are most likely NOT an alcoholic,or you wouldn't describe going dry for a few weeks as "no problem". However, since you know so little about the disease from which you profess to suffer, I suggest you increase your alcohol content until you are actually addicted, and THEN do a cold turkey withdrawal - alone. If you survive the DT's, perhaps you will think twice about shooting your mouth off about something about which you obviously have little knowledge. If you die, not only will you add knowledge to your little part of the world (for a short time anyway), you will make the world a better place by removing yourself from it.
IIRC, one can prioritize the first segment of a file in Azeurus for specifically that reason - viewing the first part of a movie file. It would seem like a trivial excercise to enable this by default along with a a little viewer for previewing.
"Yeah, that's great corporate citizenship on Google's part. In order to avoid paying _A BLACKMAILER_they call law enforcement...(irrelevant crap)"
There, fixed that for ya. You see, blackmail is a criminal offense. It is the police and prosecutor's JOB to spend public resources going after suspected criminals. Google did their part by cooperating with the police in the investigation and arrest. If anything, the prosecutor should be sanctioned for NOT pursuing so obvious a case as this.
The Edsel was produced in 58, 59, and 60. Are you seriously proposing that the age of the Big American Car died in '58? I guess all those boats the Big 3 sold through the 60's and early 70's didn't actually sell.
The Edsel was a failure for a number of reasons, only one of which was the recession in those years trending away from big cars. It was also a marketing disaster, was "different" without necessarily being innovative, and oh yaeh - it was butt-ugly.
Personally, I like car analogies for computers. Yours isn't a good one.
Slashdot Mirror
Apples and oranges. Neither smallox nor polio was "cured", in the manner implied in the original post. Smallpox and polio have been (nearly) eradicated via removing their ability to infect new hosts, by means of vaccines protecting tose potential hosts. And the vaccines activated our own immune systems, and didn't have a direct effect on the smallpox and polio viruses.
This enzyme is being toutes as a "cure" in the sense that it can eliminate bird flue in those already infected by it by acting directly on the virus. That is how antibiotics work, and the GP has a point - if the stuff only kills 90%, there is a risk of resistant strains developing. For that matter, it's already happening - researchers are finding Tamiflu resistant strains of bird flu already.
Close - she called the wrong hotline - child abuse hotline instead of LaLeche League.
The real outrage was that the final abuse ruling was predicated on the trauma she put her kid through while *trying to get her back* through the court system. The court ruled that, by fighting for custody (it had been years, I think), she was abusing the kid by dragging her into court, and therefor wasn't a fit mother.
Paging Judge Yossarian...
"Foreign aid could be delivered by ICBM."
I think that just about says it all, don't you, folks?
My favorite was on a Dewalt nailgun. One of the warnings was not to use the gun for "horseplay" (no bestiality jokes, please). It was accompanied by an illustration - a guy in a hardhat shooting another guy in the ass, with the victim holding his ass with "pain rays" shooting out of it, all with a big circle and slash through it.
In other words, "Don't shoot your coworker in the ass with this device". Did this really need to be said? And was Black and Decker ever sued by the perpetrator? "Ladies and Gentleman of the jury, my client would have never landed in prison if it wasn't just so darn tempting to shoot someone in the ass with this device. It is obviously defective, so please give my client money so he can get drugs in prison and I can take my cut and roll around in it."
No, I meant "straw man" in the second sense. I think folks have been tricked into arguing for net neutrality as a distraction from arguing for common carrier principles. That way, if net neutrality proponents "win", they will be satisfied and leave the other aspects of common carrier - more regulation, universal service, and separation of content from carrier - alone.
It's not an exact fit, but that's also why I used the term "somewhat"
"{Akamai is a distributed hosting service, not a common carrier."
/. readership and folks like this professor.Many of the folks here believe that internet services are common carriers. The problem is, they are NOT, as per statute - data services were exempted from common carrier status a few years ago. So Net Neutrality is something of a strawman - what we really need to be doing is fighting for the classification of data services as common carriers. This has its own issues, but I think it needs to be discussed in its own right.
You've inadvertently hit on the disconnect between most of the
It's not just in IT - people in ALL industries want "new and shiny" over "old an and boring".
I recently had a request to install a new type of medical irradiator (products, not people)in lieu of an older model. The new one doesn't use a radioactive source, and instead uses xray tubes. It was the cat's ass - no radiation safety officer required, no NRC hassles, and another part of he company did an ROI and the results were great. But when I looked at the specs, the cycle time was slower, it had 1/2 the capacity, and the xray tube needed replacement after a certain number of cycles, and it wasn't a cheap part.
Skeptical, I requested a copy of the "ROI". It was a 2 page narrative saying how great the new unit was, and how the staff was so much more comfortable with it. Not a dollar sign to be found. So I ran my own ROI, with the criterion being a 10 year payback. Guess what: not only didn't it have a 10 year payback, it didn't have a payback EVER. The added maintenance costs, plus the added personnel due to the slower cycle times, never ever made up for the increased licensing costs and paperwork.
And it STILL took me 2 more months to explain to the end users why I wasn't going to buy the new unit.
In shocking news today, it was revealed that human stupidity is not relieved by the internet, but is actually exascerbated by it. News at 11:00!
"eBay is able to publish a new version of its site every two weeks"
Can someone tell me why this is viewed as a good thing?
"take a look at Bjork"
I'd really rather not...it's bad enough I had to hear her for about 5 minutes back in the 90's.
One story I've heard has a bullseye painted on the backs of military laptops right over the HD, with instructions to "Shoot here in case of immanent[sp] capture". Don't know if it's true or not.
/., involves a rifle range and a 12V tractor battery. Hang the drive from the backstop, jumper the power to get the disks spinning, and blast away. I believe the catastrophic drive failure was described as "spectacular".
A variation, which was vouched for here on
"how does it give them an education in computers when it doesn't teach them how any other computer on the planet works?"
Which totally misses the point. The OLPC isn't supposed to help kids learn about computers per se, but is supposed to help kids learn, PERIOD. Is your world so small that the only use of a computer in education is for thye purpose of learning about computers?
"Clinton enacted a law, and Bush (!) has enforced it"
That's completely rediculous, as it violated the laws of physical existence. It is impossible for Bush to do anything that is not evil. Were he to do so, the world would cease to exist (Ref. "Dogma"). Since the world still exists as of my writing this, Bush's actions are therefore evil, and the releasing of the documents has a sinister purpose far beyond most mortals comprehension.
Fortunately for us credulous masses, there are the chosen few who are unaffected by the glamour of Bush and his cronies, and see their actions as those of the simpletons they really are. They see that the rest of the populace is even more unintelligent than Bush's cabal, and therefor fall under the sway of his childish machinations. Fortunately for us there is the Internet, where those noble, intelligent souls can spread the word of the diabolically complex yet childishly simple plans of Bush, so that a few of us cretins may yet see the light.
"The giant squid, a young female about 7 metres long, put up quite a fight as it was brought aboard the research vessel" You'd put up quite a fight if you knew you'd be performing in live action tentacle-porn too..."
Correction: Live action LESBIAN tentacle porn.
Makes all the difference.
"I'm not saying he couln't have done it, but it's like the OJ case.. "
So Hans will be found innocent in a circus trial with incompetent prosecution, a media whore judge, the best defense money could buy, and then write a detailed account about how he COULD HAVE (but didn't) do the crime of which he was committed?
If I were Hans, I'd aim a little higher - I think the Unabomber has higher respect in the public than OJ.
Because everyone knows the best way to make great strides is not to attempt bold strokes but to take small, incremental steps.
Right?
Right?
And of course, all European companies follow the laws scrupulously. So no one EVER puts such data on laptops. So if a company laptop goes missing, there's no reason to worry (or report it), because there couldn't POSSIBLY be personal data on it - why, that would be illegal!
"This is the first time I've ever heard that people can die from alcohol withdrawl."
,or you wouldn't describe going dry for a few weeks as "no problem". However, since you know so little about the disease from which you profess to suffer, I suggest you increase your alcohol content until you are actually addicted, and THEN do a cold turkey withdrawal - alone. If you survive the DT's, perhaps you will think twice about shooting your mouth off about something about which you obviously have little knowledge. If you die, not only will you add knowledge to your little part of the world (for a short time anyway), you will make the world a better place by removing yourself from it.
Look up "delirium tremens". Never mind, I'll do it for you.
From Wikipedia:
"Five percent of acute ethanol withdrawal cases progress to delirium tremens[1]. Unlike the withdrawal syndrome associated with opiate or stimulant addiction, delirium tremens (and alcohol withdrawal in general) can be fatal. Mortality can be up to 35% if untreated, though if treated early, death rates may be as low as 5%."
It sounds like you abuse alcohol, or are a "problem drinker". You are most likely NOT an alcoholic
Some of us have spouses, and no batteries at 2:00 AM is a crisis.
"I figured it was easier to put up with a cord on the desk than having to dig through a drawer at 2 AM only to find out you're out of batteries"
Thus the continuing sales of the Hitachi Magic Wand.
(Just google it - I post in text only)
IIRC, one can prioritize the first segment of a file in Azeurus for specifically that reason - viewing the first part of a movie file. It would seem like a trivial excercise to enable this by default along with a a little viewer for previewing.
How on earth is helping send a blackmailer to jail "evil" in ANY sense, karmically or other?
"Yeah, that's great corporate citizenship on Google's part. In order to avoid paying _A BLACKMAILER_they call law enforcement...(irrelevant crap)"
There, fixed that for ya. You see, blackmail is a criminal offense. It is the police and prosecutor's JOB to spend public resources going after suspected criminals. Google did their part by cooperating with the police in the investigation and arrest. If anything, the prosecutor should be sanctioned for NOT pursuing so obvious a case as this.
The Edsel was produced in 58, 59, and 60. Are you seriously proposing that the age of the Big American Car died in '58? I guess all those boats the Big 3 sold through the 60's and early 70's didn't actually sell.
The Edsel was a failure for a number of reasons, only one of which was the recession in those years trending away from big cars. It was also a marketing disaster, was "different" without necessarily being innovative, and oh yaeh - it was butt-ugly.
Personally, I like car analogies for computers. Yours isn't a good one.
"nothing like the low purr of case fans "
Is that similar to the low spark of high heeled boys?
(Sorry - have no idea where that came from)