I'm pretty sure Microsoft can fund this research, if they even actually want to fund it. Probably they don't: they learned their lesson, when people were satisfied with XP, and really didn't want to buy newer operating systems: "Good enough is the enemy of repeat sales".

If the smart people let the stupid people out-breed them into extinction, are they actually the smart ones?

It's not illegal to go out in public with measles. It's just a really dumb idea. Every physician I know will instruct someone with the measles to stay home in most cases because it is ludicrously infectious. Furthermore "a cold" describes a huge number of pathogens whereas measles is one specific germ. If there were a safe and effective vaccine for more serious strains of "colds" then I would support requiring a vaccine if our medical community determined it to be a good idea.

Children are not considered mentally competent to make such decisions. How many toddlers do you know who would volunteer to get a shot?

They are already doing that AND endangering others in the process.

Nobody is being forced to get any vaccine. They can choose not to participate and there should be consequences for that. I have freedom of speech as a guaranteed right but that right has limits and it does not mean I will not suffer consequences for something I say. Same with the right to choose not to vaccinate. They can do it but that doesn't mean they should be able to endanger others without consequence.

No. Your choice, your problem. You don't get special treatment on taxes because you want to engage in demonstrably dangerous behavior.

They aren't forced to have a medical procedure. They just are forced to stay the hell away from the people they put at risk by electing not to have the procedure. They retain their choice but that choice absolutely should have consequences because it can literally have life and death stakes. If they want to elect to live life as a hermit then they should retain that choice.

You cure ignorance by education if and only if the other party is willing to learn. You cannot cure stupidity through any amount of education.

I think the horse is already gone from that barn and has run a long way down the road.

Spare me. There is no slippery slope here. We are talking about extraordinarily safe vaccines which are 100% optional. They can choose not to vaccinate their children, just not without consequence. They do not get the right to endanger others needlessly because they want to hold a ridiculous opinion not supported by scientific fact.

Driving half a soccer team to the soccer field because it's "your turn to drive the kids".

Wrong. They only tested 54 of the embryo's afterward. 28/54 is a 51.8% success rate.

The off-target mutations in the remaining 26 embryos was not only expected, it was predicted about 16 years ago, when we first started experimenting with retroviral splicing vectors.

I don't think most of us really care about people stupid enough to remove their progeny from the gene pool so that they don't pass on the "stupid gene" to future generations. Maybe you care about these people, but I pretty much think that the fact they have medical power of attorney for their children until the age of majority is a great negative feedback mechanism.

They were "horribly" able to cure B-thalassemia in 51.8% of the embryos.

We should "learn not to do this type of thing" from the post-testing not having a 100% success rate.

You know, instead of just not implanting the other 48.2% of embryos that were not successfully modified to not have the disease.

Not that they planned on implanting them anyway.

PS: I know in vitro clinic which would be screaming the "Happy, happy, Joy, joy!" song at the top of their lungs for a 51.8% pre-screening success rate on just not implanting embryos that carried the gene for Huntington's or Downs Syndrome, let alone *fixing* the damn thing.

It's hard to credit the behavioural science claim.

Since we already know how to social engineer our way into secure areas, secure building (including nuclear and military facilities), and to get people to give their passwords or reset someone else's password, and even get the police to respond with deadly force to a perceived threat by an otherwise innocent third party (e.g. SWATting), and get them to click on crap they shouldn't click on in emails, and get them to insteall "media player updates" that aren't, anti-mallware that's actually malware, and so on...

How is additional funding for behavioural science in this area going to make us any more secure by making us even more aware of the exploits we already know, such as those being used by Mitnick prior to 1995 to get into the phone company?

We already understand the human behaviour which allows these attacks to work -- and so does Microsoft, and they're not really spending any effort fixing their software over this knowledge.

So how *exactly* will additional spending in this area impact cybersecurity again? Will it make anyone less likely to believe someone pretending to be from the IT department? Will it make someone less likely to let you on the premises when you pretend you want to talk to the property manager "or someone else in charge" about purchasing land adjacent to an otherwise secure facility?

I kind of don't think so.

But... BOOGA! BOOGA! Cybersecurity! Cyberwarfare! Fund us, fund us!

Yep and it's worse for a media center than a Raspberry Pi 2.

More expensive, lower horsepower, goofy and limited. It's a failstick.

I DO have that right and given the technology to do so I'll exercise that right at every opportunity. They are welcome to try to invade my life to sell me stuff but that doesn't mean I have any obligation to let them do that. Their flimsy business model isn't my concern. If I value it then I will pay for it and I sometimes do. Most times I value my privacy and attention more than I value their advertisements and thus I block them. If this results in TV or other services price adjusting to compensate then so be it.

It's ok for them to try but they aren't entitled to any expectation that I should have to support their flimsy business model. I can assure you that I am not interested in their advertisements without having seen them. If they want to subsidize their content via ads that probably means their content isn't especially compelling or valuable.

I don't care what their motivations are. Not my concern. I value my privacy, bandwidth and attention. I don't give these away for free, directly or indirectly. I'm not about to provide charity to a website operator just because he threw something up and attached some ads to it.

Apparently you think it is ok for content providers to be entitled but not content consumers. Curious double standard you have there.

That's an interesting difference between countries. In Sweden we don't have much of an anti-vaccer movement, though the mishandling of the bird flu didn't help, so let's say "not yet" at least. However, while we vaccinate children on schedule for most of the above, Varicella is not on the general schedule yet.

The schedule here is, wait and see if you get it, and if you haven't had it by your late teens, then we'll talk immunization. So we're still holding chicken pox play parties, to expose our children at as young an age as is practical (it usually is worse the older you are).

The profession says themselves that given the severity of the disease, you could perhaps make an argument for vaccination on economic grounds; having people stay home from work (on the governments dime) to care for sick children has a non-neglible cost, but from a pure medical perspective they don't feel it's justified, and hence it stays of the recommended list. For now at least.

Sounds like they should get a more clever business model then. Not my problem. Most of the websites on the internet could disappear tomorrow and my life would not be diminished one bit by their absence. I'm willing to pay for content I find valuable but I'm not willing to pay with my privacy by default with no consent from me.

True but irrelevant. Either way the company hoping to get revenue from the ads doesn't get paid. They are effectively broadcasting and I can do whatever I want with their signal as long as I don't re-broadcast it. If I want to strip out their ads then that is my prerogative. I pay Comcast a handsome fee each month to have them send a TV signal into my house. What I do with it there is my business an no one else's. If I want to use a TiVo to skip all the ads then I will do so. Their bad business model is not my problem.

I don't give a shit if they get paid or not. Not my problem. If I decide their content is worth paying for then I will pay for it. This rarely is the case but I have done it on occasion when I feel it is justified. If they decide ads are the best way to get paid that's their choice but they should have no illusion that I'm going play ball. I'm certainly not going to let a bunch of advertising companies track my every move and serve up advertising spam that I can assure you sight unseen that I have no interest in whatsoever.

By that argument we should abolish libraries immediately because content creators don't make a dime from them. Sorry but I think it is perfectly fair. The content provider knows (or should know) the deal they are getting into. They don't get to force me to watch anything I'm not willing to watch and they certainly don't get the privilege of tracking my movements (or allowing others to do so) on the internet. If I think their content is worth paying for I will do so but *I* get to decide that, not them.

I don't agree to that and I'll visit whatever website I damn well please. They put it out there and the financial risk is theirs. By default I value my privacy more than their content.