Yet another political move to justify the fascism from most governments regarding the draconian lockdowns. In the US, the press gleefully pointed out after Texas did its first round of relaxing restrictions that the state had the "worst single case day of Covid since the pandemic began." Guess what? It was a PRISON outbreak in Fort Worth ... a federal one at that.

The Atlantic somberly reported that Georgia was about to embark on a "murder experiment", and that the deaths would rival third world countries before it was all over because "they opened too soon." (Too soon for those wanting to cement political power, mind you.)

With a Stanford study saying there were more than 2 million infections of Covid 19 in LA BEFORE the lockdown, and that NYC's reporting of infections was low (and the deaths were reported too high)... we're looking at a Swine Flu repeat. I forget how many people got it, but it was multi-million. And the death rate was 15k. I know that we have a higher death rate so far with the Covid19, but we're still in the dark about how many people actually had it or have it. I'm not comparing the two diseases, though they are similar. The effects are different, considering Covid 19 can be asymptomatic (like West Nile.)

And yet, nothing NEARLY close to the projected deaths that the Cambridge model was suggesting.

You could (bear with me) take into account population densities. The US has 85% or more of its cases in cramped, crowded cities with public transit. Even in large Cities like Dallas and Houston, there is far less usage of the public transit system and fewer cases. (NY/NJ both use it extensively and during the lockdown the NYC subway system was ALWAYS open.)

Or you can just say this virus wasn't as deadly as previously guessed (I'm not faulting anyone, no one knew) and the idea of herd-immunity will eventually work particularly with a vaccine. (Like the flu). History will prove that our reaction was over-reaching and based on flawed models and data (seriously flawed if you look at the projections). I think once we stop politicizing this virus we'll get farther investigating it. (The US has one party doing all the political posturing, and it's not the Republicans.)

The whole time I read this article, I was thinking the same thing. The "hackers" figured out that Nintendo expects a password minimum of 8 characters. :) That doesn't give any clues how many more you need, nor does it validate the first 8 characters... just that there are 8. *shrug* I guess the author has never written a UI before. :)

If it weren't for social distancing... I'd hug you. :) Well put.

$5 the journalists don't understand either... the graphs just look scary. Public education has sucked for decades. I graduated in the 1980's and I'm amazed how little current graduates know... and I wasn't a serious student (all I wanted to do was write code...thankfully I buckled down and got a degree, but the point is still valid)... the idiots who are teaching our little idiots are about as useful as a shit-flavored lollipop. And we wonder why no one can make change, or know the difference between 1/4 and 1/3. 5 out of 4 people have trouble with fractions.

"Flattening the curve" just means slowing the infection rate. It has nothing to do with reducing the infection rate. Social distancing (which is vastly different than shelter-in-place orders) is just good practice during any seasonal outbreak (flu, etc.) And staying safe during West Nile, Zika, Dengue Fever outbreaks in summer...

The fact that Covid-19 became the asinine rallying cry for more government has been a real eye opener. I didn't think as many people would accept an asshole in Albany threatening to arrest priests for holding services. It's fucking insane, and when we look back on this we'll see how LITTLE this affected a VAST majority of humanity. Those that were vulnerable were known early on, and with that in mind, checking nursing home workers for the virus would've gone MILES farther than the fucking goalpost moving fascism we have now. (Now we can't open the economy until we get a vaccine? Who the fuck thinks that is a good idea?) Honestly, this is infuriating and most of the people in the media (like CNN saying there was a "surge" in cases in Texas after the opening... 99% of the "increase" was a PRISON outbreak. Had jack-shit to do with reopening the economy.

There will be a political reckoning. And no, the fascist governors and mayors are NOT going to come out on the "right side" of this crisis.

The US government is constitutionally limited. It's just a fact. The powers that it has tried to claim over this crisis (which we can see Sweden's model as much better) have been wrong and invasive. Places with less population density are going to fare better with viruses like this (Think SARS/MERS as well) and The vast majority of ALL Covid deaths happen in 5 states. 2 of which have the population density much greater than even New Zealand's big cities. New York City never shut down the subways. Guess where most of the infections occurred? Not in Montana, Wyoming, West Texas... etc.

The government can ASK me to shelter in place. It cannot MAKE me shelter in place. It violates the 1st amendment. End of story. Also, I don't think Mass Media understands Logarithmic graphs. I can tell they don't understand statistics because most of the news has overblown this virus to the point of nausea. And when you have idiotic "co-conspirators" in youtube/facebook/twitter censoring everything that isn't blessed by the WHO (which said as late as MID JANUARY that Covid 19 wasn't transmittable person-to-person....) we have a perfect storm of fascism. It won't last. It won't happen the same way again. And those governors and mayors trying to arrest people for freely moving about the country (or having 5 people in their house) will pay the political price.

It's a real shame that Slashdot lost its libertarian roots.

I love XFCE, but I had troubles with screen tearing watching videos for a while now (My machine's not the best in the world)... but once I get that scripted and tweaked, it's a perfect DE for me.

That being said, I am using std. 18.04.4 Ubuntu... I haven't put the new tweaks back in for XFCE yet. :)

It's a virus. It's a new virus. We didn't have it checked sooner because the Chinese didn't tell anyone about it until it got out. It's from the same family as the seasonal Influenza and other upper respiratory viruses. It has an infection rate that is more "virulent" than other coronaviruses because it is a new mutation. Common sense practices DO NOT INCLUDE PANICKING AND DIGGING A HOLE IN YOUR BACK YARD.

Wash your hands. Don't touch your face. Stay away from large groups in tightly closed spaces (ships and concerts? probably so). THE SAME THING YOU DO DURING EVERY FLU SEASON. Spare me the "guys in the hazmat suits" bullshit, old fart. YOU may be delusional about how this plays out, but not all of us think "Outbreak" was a documentary. Jesus, some people have a monopoly on stupid.

If you don't know how much the virus has spread, you can't be sure of the mortality rate, or if its is significantly worse (or better) than the standard cadre of coronaviruses that we deal with every season.

Wash your hands, be prudent about going to large groups of people, don't touch your face, and you should be fine. But the idea that this is "the end" is getting fucking old.

Rachel Maddow confirmed that the Russians were colluding with Trump to spread the virus at Democratic polling places! Who knew the Russians were good at putting nasty things in little vials!

But you are sure inclined to post a shit-ton of replies. Mostly bitching.

...and all I've said since the dawn of this monolithic consolidation of the internet is that the rules be applied EQUALLY. I don't care if they push out "extreme" content. I object to the idea that serving one side or the other while simultaneously saying they are "unbiased" in the application of their own rules.

Go nuts banning extreme content "harmful" content or whatever the hell else they want to call it. Just be even-handed and we'll all be fine. OR simply remove the rules and have-at-it so "for any reason" won't fucking matter. Being the hypocritical assholes that they are (Facebook, Youtube, Google, Apple, etc.) is what I find most objectionable. (besides their abuse of monopoly power... see the thread above if you are curious.)

You seem bitter about it. :) I think the best way to solve this problem is to break up Google. Trust-busting... and nail their hairy little scrotums to the wall every time they try to pull down another provider like Bitchute, etc. You _know_ entrenched interests in Youtube being "it" are targeting these platforms with needless copyright crap for the sole purpose of squeezing the life out of competition (a-la Standard Oil...)

The bigger question is if Google/Alphabet is a vertical monopoly, now that they've gone into cities and laid fiber, etc. Abusing their vertical monopoly to squeeze out competition. Monopolies aren't illegal, but abusing monopoly power is.

I checked my Xubuntu 18.04.3 install and it seems not to be default either (or I'm suffering from amnesia and I fixed this last year or something...heh) :)