And how many medical professionals in the US are actually trained to do so? How many hazmat suits are actually available? How many beds? How many isolation wings? More generally: how big does an outbreak have to be in the US before it's not containable?

It's a valid question that no one seems to want to talk about. Even with relatively unlimited resources, first world countries are still vulnerable if the outbreak grows above a certain size. Keep in mind you don't need one hazmat suit per doctor, you need 1 per doctor per 2 hours of on shift time. The same is true for a lot of equipment.

I wish people wouldn't keep saying this. It is not virtually impossible to catch before someone becomes symptomatic. From what I gather it is only that the virual load of the individual is much much higher in later stages. The virus is still very more often than not for example detectable in sweat before symptoms set it. It's like telling someone that is allergic to bees not to worry about a few flying around in the bus with them because it's so unlikely they will be stung.. it is a perfectly reasonable concern no matter now many statistics you could cite about how often a bee encounter results in a sting.

Device manufacturing companies may just avoid FTDI chips outright. This is especially true if some suppliers are mixing the real chips with the counterfeit chips.

Worse, since it's coming through Windows Update, the engineers working on Windows Update might outright blacklist FTDI. And Microsoft would be at least partially liable for any bricked device, which would make their lawyers a bit uncomfortable. I wouldn't be surprised to see Microsoft release a patch in the future to automatically unbrick the affected devices.

A component manufacturer is unhappy that someone else is using his product id so he puts code in a driver that sets the product id to zero. This prevents the fake component being recognized by his driver or any other driver. The license for the driver explicitly states that using the driver with a fake component may irretrievably damage the component.

If the component manufacturer doesn't want the fake product to work with his driver he can code his driver to ignore the fake. Modifying the product id to brick the component is another matter entirely.

This doesn't hurt the people who created the fake, or even the people who purchased the fake and used them in their manufacturing. It only hurts end users who have done nothing except purchase a product in retail channels. Deliberately destroying equipment because it uses a fake component goes to a whole new level of nastiness.

Now that we know it's happening we can all join the class action lawsuit which will utterly bankrupt FTDI because what they are doing is illegal and they can be held liable for damages, which could easily run into the billions.

Consumers are becoming aware that FTDI is breaking their stuff and will hopefully be replacing it for free...

A tax on consumption hits those hardest who consume the most: the middle and lower classes.

Not quite ... they consume the most relative to their income.

So, if Bill Gates buys a $50 million dollar home and a $200K car ... the amount he gets taxed relative to his net-worth is trivial.

The problem is many people view economics as saying that the goal of capitalism is to ensure as much income inequality as possible.

Because, apparently, that's the whole point.

Taxing consumption is stupid. It encourages people to save and hoard till the day they die, which defeats the purpose of money. The rich are the most capable of doing this, which big trust funds and investments. Also, the idea of a progressive consumption tax is mind-boggling. How can a sales tax be progressive? Right now, sales taxes are collected on point of sale, which is a flat (actually regressive) tax. Do you have to fill out everything you buy on some IRS form?

A better idea is to tax wealth. That will encourage people to spend, and drive the economy forward.

People don't listen to that preflight announcement stuff because they've heard it a hundred times before. People who've flown even a couple of times before don't need to listen. People who are on their first flight, where it's all new and exciting are paying attention.

So, no - I know how to wear a seatbelt and that my seat cushion can be used as a floatation device and to check where the nearest exit row is...yadda yadda yadda. I can stick my nose into my phone and I won't miss anything important.

What's needed is either to make those instructions INTERESTING (like the Southwest Airlines people often do) - or to only give the routine instructions to people who need it. That way, when something truly important comes up, people will pay attention.

You need to be all over Verizon's ass about this till it's fixed. Contact the BBB and take it public if need be. They obviously are screwing over Netflix users if other streams are fine.

Precisely. Women tend to call for help or say comments hurt their feelings or otherwise give the EXACT reaction the trolls want.

They do the same thing to most men and... no reaction.

This is what is causing the focus on women. Not that the trolls are against women though I'm sure some are... but that the women often do not know how to deal with bullies.

Men are taught how to deal with bullies from a very young age. You toughen up or you're a weakling. The boys will literally call you "a girl" if you complain.

To not be "a girl" boys must hide their feelings and laugh off abuse. And then at some later date... taking some revenge is generally considered par for the course.

Women need to understand that they can't rely on men or society to come to their aid on the internet. They're going to have to take care of themselves and toughen up a bit. Crying foul just causes a troll feeding frenzy.

Libel and slander are civil offenses. The government does not prosecute them.

Heh, just the thing every business and school should run all the time :-)

Oh sure, some student can argue he's downloading history references that he can only reach through bittorrent .. good luck with that :-)

So what they are saying is that anyone outside the US can freely hack US servers without a warrant too. Surely they don't expect special treatment?

Now consider this: China and/or Russia might consider hacking their servers an act of war. The question can now be rephrased to "Does FBI have the right to declare war on other nations."

Dealing internationally it could be wise to go through official channels that are legal in all involved countries. Failing to do so can have ramifications far beyond your internal politics. Assuming that other nations won't react to anything your government does to them is naive.