There are a couple dirtbags here.
First the math:
Three dirtbags does not equal a scumbag.

The initial dirtbag would be the clowns that made parts that reported that
they were a different part but not also acted differently but were a lame
subset of the original. Fraud on the data sheet or marking on the part
is worthy of prosecution.

The second dirtbag is FTDI that can effectively disable a vastly more extensive and
expensive device and deny the purchaser that did nothing wrong and has no possibility
of auditing the content of the device they purchased.

The third dirtbag is the vendor that knowingly uses a less costly part or the distributor
that delivers a less costly part knowing or turning a blind eye to the fact that the
alternate part is a sad knockoff.

Counterfeiters are a real problem and in the modern age of 3D printing
are likely to find another media to abuse.

I dislike the strategy taken by FTDI it attacks the end user and risks others -- furthest from the fraud
and least likely to know or be able to know anything about the abuse of the trespassing on FTDI's
design intellectual property.

Do not forget that the EPA shut the incinerators off in these hospitals.

As for the dozen or so high isolation beds in the US that FoX and others wants
all patients to be sent to... Oh wait there are many in isolation and only
13 beds... 1,2,3, many... none can count high enough for sure.

The way to think about these 13 beds is that they are 13 lab rat cages.
Not designed for anything beyond experimental access to astoundingly
ill individuals.

The CDC is a bureaucratic machine.
It has a US centric view... it does not have a global charter.
It does watch for things outside the US but depends on others.

They seem to be almost flat footed on this. Had the folk in
Texas not stumbled they would look good. The folk in Texas did
step on it and now are trying to catch up.

If they had done their job and the politicians done their day job
we would have seen Governors, Mayors, President Obama formally
introduce experts then sit down and listen. However they wanted
camera time, they wanted to be in charge and here we go.

Early on I had a question about Ebola and because I could I submitted
a question that took a day to frame (unlike this 40 second /.). A week
later I got a reply... that was in effect "good question, we do not have
an answer today, we will and here is where you need to look.
Very responsible, very organized but navigates like three oil tankers
and two aircraft carriers tied together with half a million rolls of duct
tape. Slow ponderous relentless... comes to mind. Something about
five captains and a couple dozen tug boat captains applies too.

I went looking for my favorite kitchen rubber gloves today at my
favorite big box shop.... None. Like bottled water after the Napa
quake they have apparently been shipped to high demand locations like Texas
and I hope Africa. There were still gloves that work fine but not
my favorite type in the large economy box. Lots of them at the
local flu shot clinic today so the medical community here is golden.

I should give the important SUMMARY:
My meatloaf smushing and habanero slicing is still safe.

In one case we have tens of thousands infected and in the other case we have (today) less than a dozen in the US.
70% is nasty but 70% of a dozen small compared to the thousands of fatalities associated with influenza alone.

My point is that if we diminish the impact of viral infections we know how to manage we would free up
staff to address Ebola correctly. Todays news noted that there had been 5000 false alarms.
The same news noted that it takes 20 trained professionals to care for a patient in full quarantine.
If Ebola and influenza+49 others get mixed at the intake of hospitals to the point that all influenza and food poisoning
cases require twenty professionals for 48-72 hours our system will crumble.

Since sanitation is the common best tool society at large has at its disposal... and since
hand washing is low cost, requires minimum training and has good impact to the larger problem
I believe it is an important and necessary activity to encourage.

Time for me to wash my hands and go and give blood.

"general welfare" as part of the spending power section is all that congress
needs to craft well considered laws.

Federal agencies could be funded to establish top level technical resources.
States could then move forward.

Emergencies open doors as well....

As scary as Ebola is it may not qualify as an emergency we have
common problems from influenza, food poisoning, pneumonia that
kill more...

However congress could declare Ebola in Africa and others problems
as a health risk to the US and fund emergency actions.

My gut reaction is if citizens were to take personal responsibility
and act on all the common influenza, food handling, common cold
basic sanitation programs Ebola would vanish only to be found in
footnotes referencing a small number of individuals and hospitals in
the US. Sadly Africa is still behind the eight ball in this disaster.

Yes the latest revision is much improved.

The RaspPi as a teaching tool is unmatched.
It is less expensive than most textbooks.
Replace the SD card and it is a new OS or new test project.

As a teaching tool any part from u-boot up to modern computer languages
and multiple OS distributions are all possible. Multiple node MPI clusters
are easy to assemble which allows distributed multiple noded distributed
computation research to begin (they are slow as slugs though).

At this price it is a computer any class can require for all their students.

Those expecting classes in MS word from their computer "science" department
will be disappointed.

Hardware expansion is possible with minimum difficulty.

I suspect the NSA noticed they were not the only ones lurking and slurping up bugs.
Too early in the season for snow to tell anyone they were done.

Good judgement... made me giggle.
At this point C and C++ are both just wrong for a long list of reasons....
However there have been advanced in database technology and programming
language design to a degree that one could be optimistic.

Knuth worked with a language subset to craft TeX and Metafont... translators like p2c
took that cautious work and emitted C.

There is almost no assembler left in Linux because of compiler improvements.
In a decade one might say "there is almost no C left".

C++ has power and is an interesting choice but the ability to muddy the
design standards with C is just too easy.

Perhaps it is time to dust off some of the good old languages and make
a short list -- and design the next player.

And ICU is not full contagious in/out quarantine. i.e. It is most likely bias designed to
keep bugs from getting into the ICU and infecting patients not out.

The necessary full feature Ebola medical facility is a difficult challenge
and more involved than most MRSA protocols which are still a good start.

My mental image of this has them in moon suites.

The big risks would be gatherings... even at work, at the market.

The key saving grace I can see is this is a fragile virus and common bleach and sunlight can knock it back a long way.
Every fast food shop I know maintains a sufficient standard of sanitation that I know I will not starve
as long as they stay open and the freezer stays full of processed food like stuff.

One awkward truth is the ability to quarantine and isolate the folk running a fever and complaining is beyond the system.
Consider that some 5-20% of the US population get the flu and in the first 48 hours there is no easy way to isolate and maintain those
folk with the flu. Heck hospital food is terrible but hospital kitchens could not muster meals for 5% of the population for 48 hours.

Today it is novel and clearly has a "traveler from " component. Should it escape Africa and the
bounded list become unbounded we have a problem Houston.

My answer is to reply "thank you". I so enjoy
hearing "Thank you, your coffee is ready".

But here on /. some other negative or Enders Game name would play better.

Note that if you answer a phone the only approved answer in
many TLA sites is the extension. Just the number... 69951 or
whatever is marked on the phone.

As a visitor locked in a closet I always answered "Wei" or "Mushi Mushi"

Someone could freeze to death this winter.
Infants could bake in the sun....
Head out stop to put snow chains on try and restart the car...

The liability of this is murky. The local police just arrested a mailbox thief.
One payment missed by three days clearly lacks due diligence in communicating
with the driver.

Not all cars are driven by the person making the payments so this sort
of action does present some serious risk.... to people not in the loop
as it were.