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Comment Re:Flash and Silverlight (Score 2) 61

Flash and Silverlight, Adobe and Microsoft, again -- and again and again. Is it the year of the Linux Desktop yet?

Netflix requires sivlerlight. And, I suspect, 99% of the people out there with silverlight installed, only have it for netflix. I can't think of a single other reason I'd install it. And I specifically banned netflix in my house because of the silverlight requirement.

Comment Re:What good is aid going to do (Score 2) 221

Because you're clearly using it in a disparagingly. They're as learned as can be expected given their situation. Medical staff need to take that into account and deal with them appropriately. If my dentist told me to fix tooth he was going to drill a hole in my head, then tried to strap me to a chair forcibly, punching him in the face would not be an over reaction. If I had a medical degree, you could argue, I'd have know that what he said was an appropriate remedy, but that doesn't negate his responsibly as a doctor to communicate with me in an appropriate manner that didn't lead to me reacting violently. It's part of a medical professionals job.

Comment Re:Worse than it seems. (Score 4, Insightful) 221

Don't fall for the media frenzy. Keep in mind they are making a lot of money off of all your panicked clicks.

This is certainly a tragedy for Africa. Just like the last 5 Ebola outbreaks were. This one's bigger but that mostly appears to be due to changes in culture and population than any change in the disease. But, by and large, Ebola is hard to transmit. It's prevalent in Africa because of poor sanitation. I've been to Africa (not this region, but others) The sanitation there is awful and even I, being careful, pretty much caught everything under the sun. There is no clean water to wash with. I bought bottled water and washed with that... didn't matter. The food is handled by dozens of people before you get it and there's no way to wash that either. The people that handled it clearly couldn't wash up properly either.

In regards to the medical facilities... they are woefully understaffed, under trained and short on equipment. The biggest difference the United States could make is to send over more of all of these. If the troops were sending are of this nature, it will certainly do a lot of good.

As far as a threat to us in the west though? No... short of it going airborne which, despite the soulless talking heads on TV are saying, is extremely unlikely. And if it were already airborne, we'd all already have it. Luckily, ultra deadly diseases like this burn out very quickly. It's hard to be virulent and deadly at the same time. The dead aren't that great at walking around and infecting people.

Comment Re:What good is aid going to do (Score 4, Informative) 221

When the populace actively attack medical workers, violently disrupt quarantines, and engage in ebola spreading funerary customs? 3000 soldiers seems hardly enough to combat that level of ignorance of how disease transmission works.

When medical workers take your relatives away, lock them into camps where the litteraly die from either the disease or starvation, then refuse to let you burrie your relatives... you might react rather violently when they came for you as well.

Logically we in the west can think about this and say that all of those things were required to control the outbreak. But now think of it from the perspective of a villager that has never set foot in a school and the only news they get is via word of mouth and text message.

Comment Re:Lots of problems with it (Score 2) 198

It'd be the equivalent of mounting a windmill to a blimp.

That's more feasible than you think

That's hilarious... but it could work if its tethered.

I don't think it'll work with an oil platform. The waves are too strong and the steel is too weak. Platforms get destroyed in storms already... now imagine if it had big wave capturing devices attached to it. Perhaps in an emergency it could cut the wave device loose?

Comment Re:sorry (Score 1) 198

Ships can be taken out of the water.
Propellers are not moving parts. They are fixed, to a shaft that enters the dry part of the boat through a series of bushings. The "Mechanism" is inside the boat.

These wave capture devices are complex folding structures that are entirely under water. Even something as simple as a hing is going to fail in short order under water. Ever had a fish tank? Even freshwater tanks have to have their pumps constantly cleaned and maintained. It's fact. Moving parts in salt water is a terrible idea.

Comment Re:Why math? (Score 2) 981

I could understand (from radical fundamentalist point of view) other bans, but why math? Even Koran (I think?) has writings on commerce (math), tithe (math) and so on.

For most people that view the Koran or the Bible in the most extreme and literal ways, it's generally held that your entire life should be dedicated to serving God. You're supposed to spend your entire life reading the Bible/Koran and serving God. All other activities should be in support of that mission. i.e. you need to be able to read to be able to read the bible so English is ok. Any activity that is not in direct service of God is considered sinful. I suspect that in most rural Iraqi villages the only subjects were Math, social studies and English. So basically they're telling everyone that if they teach anything but the Koran they're getting flogged.

Comment Re:Interesting what he chose not to answer (Score 1) 106

It's interesting that he chose not to answer (or Slashdot chose not to forward) the several highly moderated questions on whether the show truly makes geek culture mainstream ("laughing with the characters"), or if it just holds geeks up for ridicule to millions of ordinary Americans ("laughing at them"). From Saltzberg's answers, it's at least clear that he has no geek background and simply caught on a good business idea.

Right, I never liked that show because I constantly have people comparing me to people on that show. "Those aren't geeks" is what I tell them.

It's a very similar phenomenon to Spinal Tap, Bill and Ted, Waynes world, etc... I used to have long hair, be in a band, etc... People would try and relate to me by referencing those movies. Those movies were ridiculing my way of life, and had nothing to do with what being into metal and in a band was really like. People who watched them thought I was like that, but the fact of the matter is, being in a metal band is extremely difficult. There's no way you could be as stupid as Metal guys were portrayed in those movies, and put on a live show. It took me and my first band months of practice to get our first show together. I couldn't be getting trashed every night and pulled that off. You don't just jam metal, every single note has to be exact... like classical music.

Anyways, done with my rant. Big Bang Theory makes fun of Geeks, it doesn't help us at all.

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