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Comment Re:The Onion had it right (Score 2) 118

by WillAffleckUW (#50225313) Attached to: Ebola Vaccine 100% Successful In Guinea Trial

Ebola is highly correlated with Africa as it's mostly a vector disease from bats and is spread by human contact with bats in the search for profitable guano (bat poop) and mining (caves) and resource extraction (caves).

Until white people got it in the US and EU, nobody with money cared.

Does that answer your question?

It's like malaria and other diseases. When they infect US populations and rich EU nations, suddenly they get cured, because we spend money on a cure, instead of on useless weapons systems.

Comment Let me be clear, this is not without risk (Score 0) 118

by WillAffleckUW (#50225251) Attached to: Ebola Vaccine 100% Successful In Guinea Trial

Giving it too far ahead of time, makes it not work.

The actual vaccines have a fairly high fatality rate, but it is far lower than the fatality rate for Ebola.

So it's a choice between a 0-20 percent chance of mortality versus a 90-100 percent chance of mortality.

It's a solution. It's not an optimal solution. The main problem is there isn't funding for an optimal solution, and it's really hard to get controls in Ebola.

Why isn't there funding? Probably spent on some beachfront property beach cleanup in the Hamptons as "shore protection".

Submission + - Windows 10 spam dropping Ransomware (cisco.com)

Submitted by zerozefx
zerozefx writes: Talos has identified a spam campaign targeting Windows users upgrading to Windows 10. The adversaries are actually installing CTB-Locker another ransomware variant leveraging Elliptical Curve Encryption algorithm to encrypt users files.

Submission + - The real price of Windows 10 is your privacy (betanews.com)

Submitted by Mark Wilson
Mark Wilson writes: Windows 10 is a free upgrade, right? Well, surely you know by now that there's no such thing as a free lunch. We're only 48 hours on from the launch of Windows 10 and already the complaining and criticism is underway. One thing that has been brought under the spotlight is privacy under the latest version of Microsoft's operating system.

Some people have been surprised to learn that Microsoft is utilizing the internet connections of Windows 10 users to deliver Windows Updates to others. But this is far from being the end of it. Cortana also gives cause for concern, and then there is the issue of Microsoft Edge, and ads in apps. Is this a price you're willing to pay?

Windows 10 is more closely tied to a Microsoft account than any previous version of the OS. This allows Microsoft to assign an ID number to users that can then be used to track them across different devices, services, and apps. This in turn can be used to deliver closely targeted ads to people. Microsoft has been pushing the mobile first, cloud first philosophy for some time now, and it becomes clear with Windows 10 that the love of the cloud is as much to do with the ability it gives Microsoft to gather useful data as it is about convenience for users.

Submission + - Will Autonomous Cars Be the Insurance Industry's Napster Moment? (bloomberg.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Most of us are looking forward to the advent of autonomous vehicles. Not only will they free up a lot of time to previously spent staring straight ahead at the bumper of the car in front of you, they'll also presumably make commuting a lot safer. While that's great news for the 30,000+ people who die in traffic accidents every year in the U.S., it may not be great news for insurance companies. Granted, they'll have to pay out a lot less money with the lower number of claims, but premiums will necessarily drop as well and the overall amount of money within the car insurance system will dwindle. Analysts are warning these companies that their business is going to shrink. It will be interesting to see if they adapt to the change, or cling desperately to an outdated business model like the entertainment industry did. "One opportunity for the industry could be selling more coverage to carmakers and other companies developing the automated features for cars. ... When the technology fails, manufacturers could get stuck with big liabilities that they will want to cover by buying more insurance. There’s also a potential for cars to get hacked as they become more networked."

Submission + - Munich Planning Highway System for Cyclists (wired.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: The German city of Munich has been looking for solutions to its traffic problem. Rush hour traffic is a problem, and public transit is near capacity. They think their best bet is to encourage (and enable) more people to hop on their bikes. Munich is now planning a Radschnellverbindungen — a highway system just for cyclists. Long bike routes will connect the city with universities, employment centers, and other cities. The paths themselves would be as free from disruptions as possible — avoiding intersections and traffic lights are key to a swift commute. They'll doubtless take lessons from Copenhagen's bike skyway: "Cykelslangen (pronounced soo-cool-klag-en) adds just 721 feet of length to the city’s 220 miles of bicycle paths, but it relieves congestion by taking riders over instead of through a waterfront shopping area."

Submission + - Amazon Announces New Car Show Featuring the Old Top Gear Presenters (gizmodo.com)

Submitted by mknewman
mknewman writes: Amazon has announced that Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May will be reuniting to create “an all-new car show” that will be exclusively on Amazon Prime.

The new show will be produced by the old-time Top Gear executive producer Andy Wilman and is scheduled to go into production “shortly.” It will apparently appear on screens in 2016. For what it’s worth, Jeremy Clarkson has said that the move makes him “feel like I’ve climbed out of a bi-plane and into a spaceship.”

Submission + - How Iceland is trying to make "actual journalism" legal (hopesandfears.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Following the devastating financial collapse of 2008, the people of Iceland have become determined to reform media in a way that keeps the public knowledgeable in the hopes of avoiding another catastrophic incident. And they want to bring the rest of the world along with them.

In Reykjavik, Hopes&Fears talks to Guðjón Idir, Director of the Icelandic Modern Media Initiative, about how the organization aims to make Iceland the safest country in the world for journalists and journalism.

Comment Re:Pretty sure it doesn't run on Linux (Score 1) 255

Pretty sure there will be a competing browser running on another device other than an xBox which utilizes screens. Pretty sure most of our blade servers make your desktop machines look like ancient Ford jalopies.

The vast majority of work done in the world is done by machines which don't talk to humans most of the time. Including the vast majority of work done on the web itself. Which is just a framing representation of various inputs and outputs we built to allow disparate machines to intercommunicate and occasionally present the data to humans.

Comment Re:Pretty sure it doesn't run on Linux (Score 0) 255

Thank you for that insightful and informative comment which has added so much to the discussion.

Oh, wait, no it didn't, you just wanted to remind everyone that you don't own a television.

Pretty sure my 1080p 42 inch HDTV counts as a TV.

Although it is true many scientists don't own TVs, to minimize distractions.

Comment Re:I don't want to 'feel' it, I want it to be real (Score 1) 255

This is why you don't let the marketroids and UI gurus design tech things. They go for feel, not substance. Substance matters.

You can enhance substance with proper UI design, so that things "fade in" as they become secure, or count down dots indicate what's enabled, but you need to actually build it right in the first place.

(caveat: my first degree was in BusMgmt Sales & Marketing focus)

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