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Comment Re:Alternative (Score 1) 917

There will always be scarce resources, and in the foreseeable future that includes pretty much everything. Where there are scarce resources, you need a method to distribute them such that they are reasonably and fairly obtainable. Almost any non-market method lacks both fairness and efficiency, and you're going to end up with resources simply not being distributed where they are needed.

Comment Re:Not apples to apples (Score 1) 1023

Cost per hour would be a better metric. A human costs $15 in wages, plus all the extras for compensation, training, human resources, payroll management, and so on. So, probably closer to $30 per hour.

If your $35k robot lasts for 5 years running 16 hours per day, that's $.83 per hour, plus the cost of maintenance. That would have to be one hell of a lot of maintenance to not be worthwhile.

Comment Re: I guess there's one sensible solution to this (Score 1) 819

Here's the issue with drug testing. Let's say you have 100 employees, and each employee is drug tested once per month, and the test you give is right 95% of the time (chances are your tests aren't even that accurate). And let's say that 98% of your employees are not using drugs that will be caught by the test (either they aren't taking those particular drugs, or they know how to beat it).

What are the chances that guy who came up positive is actually using drugs?

In an average month, you will end up with about seven positives, only two of which are accurate. In a given year, about 45% of your non-drug-using employees will come up positive. Sure, you catch the stupider drug users with this type of system, but at the cost of accusing innocent people.

What do you think it does for morale when an innocent person is accused or fired for using drugs? You're far better off addressing people whose work is not up to par, regardless of the reason.

Comment Re:Should Be... (Score 1) 499

Ah yes, ISIS believe deeply that children are individuals with a right to a minimum standard of care. Except of course for the ones they murder, rape, burn with acid, genitally mutilate, and send to blow others up on a daily basis.

I'm confident in your ability to come up with a more ignorant statement, but I certainly can't think of one right now.

Comment Re:How about... (Score 1) 455

It's not an 'error rate,' it's a case where the thing they're measuring doesn't correlate to a person's level of intoxication. It's like charging a person for texting and driving because the phone is visible on the console.

Only people with a cell phone nearby can text and drive, but not everyone with a cellphone nearby does. Likewise, a person will have THC in their blood if they're driving stoned, but not everyone with THC in their blood is driving stoned. The test just isn't enough to differentiate between people who have committed a crime and those who have not, so using it to determine if a crime has been committed is a huge miscarriage of justice.

Comment Re:How about... (Score 1) 455

Did you miss the part where a blood test does NOT prove that a person is intoxicated? All it proves is that they smoked marijuana at some point in the past month or so. Maybe they smoked a joint at a party two weeks ago.

What a law like this will do is convince people that DUI laws are bullshit, and certain people will get behind the wheel while stoned simply because the penalty is the same regardless of whether they drive now or in four hours when they're sober.

Comment Re: " the father of the anti-vaccine movement" LOL (Score 1) 279

The answer is in the article you linked:

"Influenza A virus was isolated from seven of 11 nasal swab specimens selected for viral culture. These seven specimens had HA1 protein sequences that were identical to each other and differed from the 2013–14 influenza A (H3N2) A/Texas/50/2012 vaccine strain by 5 amino acid substitutions (N128A, R142G, N145S, P198S, and V347K)."

These people got a flu shot, but the flu shot didn't cover the strain they were infected with.

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