The only Bacteria that are scary are anti-biotic resistant ones, all the rest can be cured with a dose of anti-biotic.

Don't be so dismissive.

I realize the plague is so dark ages and that we have antibiotics, but from 1990 until 2010 the overall mortality rate was 11%.

People still die even with antibiotics.

The plague exists in the wild in many western states of the USA.

Colorado just had four cases in the past few months.

Men in general seem to have less tolerance for what they perceive as error and a greater willingness to fight to correct error.

That's not the say that men are more often correct than are women. They just seem more eager to do battle, even if it is from behind a keyboard.

Anyone that's been involved in an edit war of wikipedia knows that the winner is often isn't the one with the best grasp of the facts, but it's the one least willing to give up the fight.

Nope. It's the "Therefore you are a bigot" part that's hurtful, that ends conversation, and starts the fight, the battle.

You're bullying, Mellon. It's like this:

A. Tell me something you love.

Maybe you love the Bible. Maybe you love science. Maybe you love The Last Unicorn, by Peter Beagle.

B. Find something in it that you could make an unseemly story about.

If you love the Bible, get the story about the guy who had sex with his daughters.

If you love science, get the story about alpha silverbacks and how they dominate the society.

If you love The Last Unicorn, get the story about the red bull pushing unicorns into the sea.

C. Now accuse the fuck out of a person.

"If you love the Bible, then you define incest as life-defining, and you're not typical. You need to redefine your life, right now."

"If you think science is true, than you believe that controlling women is the Natural Order. You need to rethink the merits of science, and redefine your life, right now."

"If you get your rocks off watching the Red Bull dominate unicorns, you're not typical. You need to redefine your life, right now."

Forcing YOUR interpretations onto others is psychic/emotional violence, and it's also the behavior of a bully.

It's too bad that some teenage boy somewhere has rushed into Anita's damsel-in-distress gambit, but gamers everywhere and gamer culture are NOT the problem. Attack that kid, DON'T attack gamers as a culture -- which is what she's been doing.

Have you seen ye olde XKCD, where if a boy does poorly in math, it's "Damn, you suck at math," but if a girl does poorly in math, its "Damn, girls suck at math?" Well, the same here, but in reverse, and then further, socially embraced: When women are acidic towards men, it's "Damn, you're an aggressive individual." But when some teenage boy is acidic towards women, it's "Damn, gamer culture is to blame, and we need to re-engineer the thoughts and feelings of gamers everywhere, using social bullying."

Actually, from everything I can gather, medical school is damn hard to begin with—and you only get to experience that after getting in to medical school, which, from everything I can gather, is damn hard to get into.

You mean, but will it run Windows 7?

Many engineers don't understand that business people are engineers of a sort, too.

What we all should do is realize that we're all part of a team that can't work without the participation of everyone. Mutual respect is key.

Many skills are needed if a firm is to survive.

I do not believe you did this on purpose, but you switched contexts during your argument. First, you stated that race does not exist at the "biological" level; and then you went on to say, presumably as an explanation, that there is "no genetic trait" behind race. Those two statements are not the same thing. I recall that when the human genome project was completed, scientists stated that one of the things they determined is that genes, by themselves, cannot account for all of the variability among human beings; and, thus, the field of epigenetics took off.

What goes on at what you call the "genetic" level is not the last word on biology. If at the genetic level race is not distinct, that does not mean there is no biological cause behind race.

In Switzerland the slowest speeds you commonly get are about 15 Mbits/s...

And yet the report cited shows that only 45% have access to speeds above 10Mbps and 23% of access to speeds above 15Mbps.

Five US states have more people above 10Mbps than Switzerland.

And one of those states by itself, New Jersey, has almost a million more people.

No 4g available? I'm using a Verizon 4g access point from a horse farm in the middle of nowhere and Speakeasy's speed test gives me 10.46Mbps down/7.53Mbps up.

The traitors are those in power who have operated using unlawful actions. Nothing is more dangerous than a government operating outside of law. Get your priorities straight.

I stopped driving 2 years ago, voluntarily. My SUV cost me around $800 a month in replacement costs. Another $200 in maintenance. I was burning through $12,000 a year in gas. I spent an average of 1000 hours a year in the car, for work, for groceries, for fun. 999 of those hours were spent focused on the road. I hate talking on the phone while driving.

Consider my annual total: about $25,000 + 1000 hours of my time. For the "privilege" to sit in Chicago traffic.

I'm a consultant. I now use UberX every day. I also use public transportation when I'm not in a rush or when someone isn't paying me to swing by.

I spent about $5000 a year on UberX. $100 a week. While I am being driven around, I can respond to emails, make phone calls. I bill for that time. When a customer wants me to visit them, I pass the UberX fee on to them plus 50%. No one scoffs at it. Some customers will realize the cost of me visiting them is more expensive than just consulting over the phone.

I figure I'm $20,000 ahead in vehicle costs, plus I've literally gained another 600-700 hours of phone and email consulting time a year. Call it $40,000 ahead.

I don't take cabs, because they don't like to come to where my HQ is (ghetto neighborhood). UberX comes 24/7, within minutes.

My little sister had an emergency surgery a few months ago. I immediately hired an UberX driver, who took me from the office, to the hospital. He waited. We then took my sister to her apartment to get her cats and clothes, then he took us to the pharmacy. After, he drove us to our dad's house to drop her off, in the suburbs of Chicago. Then he drove me back to work. 3 hours, $90. I can't get a cab to wait even 10 minutes while I drop off a package at UPS. Forget about them taking credit cards.

UberX charges my Paypal account and they're off. If they're busy, they charge a surcharge. I can pick it or take public transportation.

I know why the Chicago Taxi authorities want Uber gone. But a guy like me is their best customer. Next year I'll budget $10,000 a year for UberX, and it will make my life so much more enjoyable and profitable.

Driving yourself around is dead. It's inefficient. Ridesharing is "libertarian" because it is truly freeing.