Understanding implies the ability to explain ones position, not merely assert it. You come off like those clowns who go on about proofs of program correctness, but perhaps that's a mistaken impression

Can you give an example of a formal language spec? Are you talking about an actual set of formal transforms to object code or somesuch?

BTW, set-ups like a C compiler written in C are very much in line with Godel statements. There certainly exists source code for which the question "does this compiler compile this source code correctly" cannot have a useful answer as a formal proof (and the examples easiest to contrive would include the compiler itself in said source code).

Try keeping that distance without driving significantly slower than the flow of traffic - unless people pulling in front of you is rare, you can't. Driving at the wrong speed, especially in "bumper to bumper at 70 MPH" traffic creates a significant traffic hazard.

No joke. The primary reason for traffic slowdowns on these highways was rear-end collisions blocking traffic. I'm quite sure that net average travel time was longer because of traffic moving too fast, when you average in the accident delays.

Pave enough lanes and all these problems go away, but people have even worse judgment when it comes to building infrastructure for some reason.

Ah, you don't get it - I'm guessing you drive someplace more sane. You cannot leave a safe following distance ahead under some traffic conditions. You could try, but there will be a continuous stream of cars pulling into the space you're trying to leave in front of you, and if you slow by too much to try to maintain that space, now you've become a hazard to navigation, endangering everyone else.

My car does much better than that. I've been surprised at how little visual information it needs to determine where the lane is. I does sometimes get confused by zebra crossings, however. It doesn't brake for curves, but it does look ahead and understand curves - if the car "ahead" of me is actually in a different lane, for example, it figures that out and doesn't panic (the first gen system from 10 years ago had problems with that).

My car has a variety of sensors, including a camera built into the rearview mirror assembly (so, better visibility than my eyes). It lacks the software to deal with e.g. sharp curves ahead, but the raw data is already available.

Actually, a surprising number of Slashdotters are experts in infectious diseases. Maybe you should get up to speed with Nature.

OTOH this is a rare event. It's not something they do every day, with long experience about how things can go wrong.

How many professionals have admitted that they fucked up? I've heard a few. One doctor admitted to me that he was wrong to oppose needle exchanges. I read medical journal articles every week in which doctors say, in effect, "We thought this would work, but this shows we were wrong."

The sign of a good scientist is that he's willing to admit it when he's wrong.

I don't know if the headline is just poorly written, but it seems to suggest that Microsoft is suing Samsung for Android patents.

Microsoft owns Android patents? Since when?

Unfortunately the US Congress just voted to prohibit federal funds from going to needle exchange programs. They prohibited medical marijuana research even after AIDS patients found that it could stop them from dying from AIDS wasting syndrome (according to a lecture I heard from Don Abrams, who was treating them). Bill Clinton fired Joycelin Elders for saying that sex education courses should teach about masturbation. They prevented the graphic cigarette warnings which were so effective in Australia.

I've talked to government public health officials, and I've heard them deflect controversial questions. I can see them thinking, "If I told the truth, I'd get fired, and then I couldn't accomplish anything."

I'll probably get fired for saying this, but: America is not perfect.

No no, the desperation is 100% on your end, I assure you.

Strong correlation with consciousness during the previous 6 years, I suppose.

Your continued desperation to attach ownership of the GOP to me is. . .quaint. The only numbers that are going to matter are the results of the November elections.

Aw, c'mon, boss: both stand for the increase of Federal power.

Oh, OW! Oh, that hurts! Oh, the suffering! Imma go cry now.

Many of the victims of SARS were doctors and especially nurses, who were following the established protocols. They work well, but how reliably? 99%? 99.9%?

Actually, the infected doctor, Kent Brantly, gave the treatment to another missionary, Nancy Writebol, and she's also being evacuated on that plane. http://www.washingtonpost.com/... They haven't announced what the treatment is, but it might have been IgG blood serum http://www.livescience.com/471... separated from the blood of one of the other victims. Or it might have been a new untested adenovirus vaccine, which works (on monkeys) even after they're infected. Or it might have been a monoclonal antibody. Or it might have been an experimental RNA virus. http://www.nature.com/news/ebo... I can't understand why they're keeping it a secret.

These untested treatments are all desperate measures. From what I've read in the New England Journal of Medicine clinical cases, these are the kind of treatments that they use when everything else fails, the patient is dying, they don't know what else to do, and there's nothing to lose.

As I understand it, the odds are against it, but they're the best doctors in the world, and I hope it works.

I also don't understand why they're bringing them to the U.S. The only treatment is supportive care. I think they also have planes that are set up with a transportable ICU, so they should be able to treat them on site.

There is a risk of the virus getting out, no matter how careful they are. They're doing this all for the first time. One problem is that handling a case like this is so complicated, and you only have to make one mistake. An ICU is full of equipment. Since ebola can't be treated, an epidemic spreads until it kills off so many of its victims that there's nobody left to infect, and it burns itself out.

With SARS, a lot of medical workers, particularly nurses, got infected, and they were a large number of the fatalities.