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Comment How would you name it? (Score 1) 186

I do believe I've discovered a disease with the following symptoms:
1) a breakdown of linguistic ability, resulting in a fundamental change from clear concise words intended to convey meaning, to meaningless grunts which confer little or no meaning.
2) randomly taking offense at clear communication
3) decreased capability for higher brain functions (this may indicate susceptibility rather than being a symptom -- studies are inconclusive, not helped by the fact the infected oppose many studies of brain function). For example, certain sounds send them into an uncontrollable rage which their amygdalas are incapable of suppressing.
4) the most dangerous symptom, it appears the infected try to infect others; generally the infected join in large numbers to seek out uninfected brains, primarily using their mouths to spread the disease
5) the earliest symptoms frequently occur soon after a person first experiences the infected's bite, and is self-censorship in an attempt to avoid the sounds which set off the infected's uncontrollable rage. As the disease progresses, the victim inevitably turns on his friends in an attempt to infect them.

On second thought, this disease might terrify others if it were named descriptively. Perhaps it would be better to give it some pleasant-sounding, inoffensive, politically correct name.

Comment WHO thought this was a good idea? (Score 2) 186

The organization suggests researchers, health officials, and journalists should use more neutral, generic terms, such as severe respiratory disease or novel neurologic syndrome instead. “It will certainly lead to boring names and a lot of confusion,” predicts Linfa Wang

WHO thought this was a good idea? It's all fun and games until someone confuses two different severe respiratory diseases, or a novel neurologic syndrome for an older neurologic syndrome.

Comment Re:nature will breed it out (Score 2) 950

It would take an incredibly long time for nature to breed out fundamental traits that go back millions of years. For example, monkeys will refuse to pull a lever and get food, if they observe that other monkeys pull a lever and get more food. What we have now is crappy jobs for crappy pay, and a bunch of the job "openings" are fake ones with impossible and unnecessary requirements written so that management can prove they looked for but couldn't find qualified workers. And while it's not absolutely necessary to have a job/money for dating, popular perception is that it makes a huge difference.

So, quite naturally, a lot of young men opt out. And the response is that they should "quit being addicted" and they should "man up". Not that "young men aren't interested in the current job market and we should do something to make it more attractive to them" or "young men aren't interested in a relationship where they have almost all the risks and responsibilities and are expected to conform to some twisted ideal besides".

I say, let the free market take care of it. If enough young men go "on strike" then employers will have to offer them better jobs, else let them compete for the "real men". And if women can't compete with a picture, maybe that's their problem.

Comment Re:And what of false positives? (Score 1) 94

False positives also have a negative humanitarian cost, in having people live in stress and fear of an earthquake that doesn't happen, then losing faith in science/the authorities. And correct predictions over too large a range of dates would also have huge negatives -- because there is no benefit if people can't act on the knowledge.

As for humanitarian costs, anyone truly concerned with that would probably be donating to a third world country...

Comment Re: only i3/i5 (Score 1) 268

Sold to whom, at what price? I want into this market. Tell me where I can sell useless irrelevant information for big bucks.

Sorry, it's actually useful relevant information for small bucks. And you can sell it to the scum of the earth (eg advertisers for targeted ads, spammers, etc).

Comment Re:Fired! (Score 1) 353

If he was a hourly laborer, doing the work after hours would be enough, but for professional work that just doesn't help. It would have to be both after hours, and also unrelated to his work.

Why? Shouldn't the employer be entitled to the laborer's work because of all the on-the-job muscular strengthening on the company's time? What if a bricklayer decides to independently build a wall for someone else on his off-time, using the bricklaying skills he learned at his job? That sounds ridiculous, but as soon as it comes to patents and software, somehow it becomes reasonable?

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