If someone posits that a worker at the lab was sloppy, which resulted in an accidental exposure, then ended up spreading the virus to their close contacts outside the lab, how can that be classed as a "conspiracy theory"?

It doesn't require a group of people to conspire to result in that accidental release. It just requires one person to accidentally expose themselves to a harmful biological agent. That's not a conspiracy. So theorizing that may have happened, is not a "conspiracy theory".

That is incorrect. Both pronunciations are correct. Both are in common use, and every dictionary I sampled showed both ways as "the" way to pronounce it.

The "correct" way is whichever of the two you choose. Any other way would be wrong, of course, since only the two being discussed are in common usage. Say it in some other way and people won't even recognize the word.

In summary, the correct way is with a soft "g". Or a hard "g". But really, it's a soft "g".

Ya, whatever. It's his acronym, he can choose how it's pronounced. There are no English acronym pronunciation rules. Is it ok to pronounce POTUS like everyone else, or do you insist on it being pronounced putt-yoos (ptyoos).

Lighten up, dude.

Dammit, I knew I should have skimmed the comments first. The only reason I read the summary was to see if it was a monopole lol.

The kernel maintainers always announce the expected EOL date when they announce a new LTS kernel. This wasn't randomly decided. It was known for years in advance by people who, unlike you, know what they're talking about.

Bull-fucking-shit yourself. Opposition to the global climate control movement is NOT based on denying that, in general, increased CO2 concentrations can have warming impacts. It's based on, among other things, questioning the level of impact, actual historical baselines, other potential causal factors (over many of which humans have no control), and feedback and self-correction mechanisms that may exist to moderate warming caused by increased CO2 (and other gases) concentration in the atmosphere.

The idea that any debate over these very serious issues is tantamount to a denial of the fundamental laws of the fucking universe is so ludicrous as to make me believe you are either a fucking moron or a religious fanatic. You seem to consider the IPCC reports as holy writ, revealed by the higher power of "science," and thus unassailably accurate and unquestionable.

Louisiana is NOT "sinking." It is eroding, an entirely different phenomenon that has nothing to do with global warming or sea levels rising.

There is an amazing lack of understanding of what being a 501(c)(3) non-profit means. Non-profits most certainly can (and regularly do) invoice for services rendered. They are not "non-revenue" corporations, simply non-profit.

There is no fraud involved if a non-profit performs services in return for an agreed fee, or contracts to perform those services in the future in return for a fee either paid up front or after the services have been rendered.

The only thing the non-profit cannot do is take the surplus funds over and above their expenses at the end of the year and distribute those as dividends or ownership distributions to its "shareholders" or board members.

Now, if the non-profit has what's called "unrelated business income," that is income generated from activities it conducts that are not really connected, other than financially, with its mission, then it may have to pay taxes on those (for example, if a non-profit devoted to supporting a university buys commercial property as an investment, and leases that property out to businesses, that rental income may be "unrelated business income"). But that does not destroy their non-profit status for the rest of the funds they receive.

This is not, of course, definitive tax advice, but your post is about the 10th in this thread I've seen that has the very, very, very wrong idea that being a 501(c)(3) means you can't charge for services provided. They can, and they do all the time.

Right on. Moreover, who benefits from all this, anyway? The idea is that the patient benefits, because an ER doc at one facility can see all of that patient's health records when treating him. But what if the patient doesn't want that? The reality is that all this centralized electronic data will benefit insurance companies, not patients. Once certain things (epilepsy, say) are flagged in your electronic, accessible to any person authorized by law to see them (and that will be insurance companies, governments, and probably your own employer at some point), then it's there, and you're tagged for life. Good luck getting a driver's license. Or overcoming the stigma of some unpopular disease.

I don't WANT all of my medical records out there. I don't think it will benefit me or my health. But these days I have little choice.

Prepare for the onslaught of "In Soviet Russia ..." jokes.

Imagine a Beowulf Cluster of those!

Except that Warner Brothers DOES care, because if you have 300 different apps, you're very likely to decide that signing up for WB's service, going through all the hassle of giving your CC info to ONE MORE site, fixing compatibility issues with their ONE MORE player, etc., is just not worth it, when you just want to watch frickin' Batman tonight.

Remember, movies compete not just with other movies, but with other leisure activities, including TV. "Honey, which app do I go to to watch Batman?" "I don't know, what studio came out with that one, again?" "Heck if I can remember!" "Well, look it up on the IMDB." "I can't the tablets in the other room!" "Well screw it, let's just watch that episode of Criminal Minds that got recorded on the DVR last night."

Mod parent up. TFA says: "the social security number system has a huge security flaw — social security numbers are predictable if you know a person’s hometown and date of birth."

We should read that as sounding as absurd as: "the phone numbering system has a huge security flaw -- phone numbers are discoverable if you know a person's name." This was NOT a design flaw. Nobody, as best I can tell, ever thought, when designing the system, that an SSN should be treated like a PIN, a number known only to the individual, where knowledge of the PIN is considered strong evidence of the identity of the person.

The single best thing which could be done for security at this point is to publish a nation-wide database of all SSNs matched with the names registered to those SSNs, to totally destroy the idea that SSNs should be "secret" identifiers.

The SSN exists to establish that we're identifying the John Doe who was born to Jim and Jane Doe on January 1, 1972 in Madison, Wisconsin, rather than the John Doe who was born on January 8, 1963 in New York City, or the John Doe who was born to Bill and Joan Doe on January 1, 1972 in Madison Wisconsin. It is an identifier, not a PIN.

I'd like a good class action lawyer to consider a nice lawsuit against any creditor who acts on the assumption that somebody who knows a person's SSN must be that person, or authorized by that person to take action on their behalf.

Um, he said VoIP "over mobile networks" is unreliable. Does your corporate office set up and run its own mobile network?