They burgle, you fucking dolt

No seriously though, you're retarded

Interestingly, it is, mostly. In the early 90s, when blank CDs were becoming a big thing, the CRIA (Canadian RIAA) lobbied for levies on blank media to offset people using the blanks to copy their IP. Well, the lobbying worked, and since the 90s we've had a levy taken off the top of any blank media purchase to cover piracy. Therefore, because the CRIA is being paid for you copying before you've even done it, it basically works out that it's implied permission to copy. Thus, we end up in a position where downloading things to copy is legal, though distribution or uploading is still illegal. Bittorrent, for example, could still potentially land you in hot water, as you're distribution in addition to downloading, though no cases have been tried on those grounds yet

According to my anecdata, that's not even particularly true anymore since Win7. The work laptop I'm typing this on right now gets rebooted once a month (on Patch Tuesday) and otherwise is up for a full month at a time between patches.

Additionally, I have a Win7 home theatre box with a current uptime well over 100 days - I don't patch this one often due to its lack of net connectivity.

The devolution will not be televised... thank God.

Presumably he's referring to the Unity GUI in the latest Ubuntu release. I mean really, only a truly evil mastermind would create an interface like that.

If you're in a relationship that will end because you couldn't solve a computer problem, you've got bigger issues.

It's this kind of rhetoric that does nothing to inform the debate, and is entirely without merit here. The government wastes money on a bad contract, and your solution is the wholesale murder of government employees? Makes me glad you're just an internet tough guy, and not in any position of power.

Amusingly, even the KKK wants nothing to do with Westboro. When even the Klan thinks you're nuts, you must be doing something special. The KKK is not down with Westboro

For the edification of non-biologist slashdotters, there is a major difference between Influenza types and the various rhinoviruses.

Essentially it boils down to Influenza having much less variation in basic structure. Each strain of Influenza Type A is a similar RNA strand, the difference between the strains being the type of hemagglutinin (HA code) and the type of neuraminidase (NA code), these being the proteins that are responsible for binding to host cells, and releasing viral progeny from host cells, respectively. Because each strain is structurally the same, only differing in protein counts, it's relatively "easy" to target shared characteristics for vaccination.

Human rhinoviruses (HRV) are a much different story. There are scores of unique serotypes for HRV (over 100 serotypes have been sequenced to date, though this still pales in comparison with the 4400 identified serotypes of salmonella), and the problem is that there isn't the same level of shared base between rhinoviruses. Because they vary so wildly, there isn't a basic structure to target with minor variations for each strain.

Fortunately, much progress has been made in this regard. The Journal of Virology had a paper a couple of years back detailing a specific protein that was found to be rather common in variants of HRV, and more work is being done along these lines all the time, so it's quite possible that there could be a vaccination for the common cold in the relatively near future

Hey look, AC made a funny!

I'm slightly surprised to find out that the Canadian government runs Medicare and Amtrak. When did this happen?

Well, apparently you tricked a couple people there, enough to get modded Insightful at least.

As I'm sure you're well aware, Kissinger was awarded the Nobel specifically for his role in the negotiation of the Paris Peace Accords (the 1973 ceasefire and withdrawal of US troops from Vietnam). Whether he should have declined the award like Le Duc Tho did is another story, but irrelevant to the discussion at hand.

I'm not sure that you can make a claim that Obama had done anything remotely similar when he was awarded the Prize.

Nor here. It really sucks that I can't pick up DC Universe to play with my friends that have grabbed it (published by Sony Online Entertainment) , but it sucks even more that the same guys who swore they'd never buy a Sony product are perfectly happy to give them money because a fancy new game came out.

No need to wait, the failing has already been done: Deadly Human Trebuchet