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Comment Re:Technology might not help. (Score 1) 87

by umghhh (#48177459) Attached to: Researchers Scrambling To Build Ebola-Fighting Robots
the reason why religion was not removed by natural selection is that it offers a society some benefits if external pressure - it coerces people into cooperation. Whether a particular religion has a supernatural being or a state or flying spaghetti monster is actually irrelevant as long as it helps people 'understand' the world. There are more of us that do need that than not.

Comment Re:We need more Firestones in the World (Score 1) 87

by umghhh (#48177427) Attached to: Researchers Scrambling To Build Ebola-Fighting Robots
If this is actually true it just shows that WHO is no good with their plans - more money and resources needed to be diverted to local communities to help themselves. There are not enough of helpers from outside to help now anyway so this is probably better and even if it does not work for everybody it may actually work well enough to convince the idiots claiming that there is novirus or that it is spread on purpose by burial teams etc. or just wait until they die and make for a better world.

ON a second thought - I just wonder why this story is not known in wider world as it seems to show that there is hope and motivated people can actually do something useful instead of indulging in the biggest zombi attack media hysteria since Wells did his Martians invasion.

Comment Re:What? (Score 1) 87

by umghhh (#48177353) Attached to: Researchers Scrambling To Build Ebola-Fighting Robots
Did this nurse in texas know that she had to wear a protective suit? Judging on CDC advice and other little f.ups we hear about it may be that they forgot to tell her. Other than that this is just a joke - robots may help in years to come but not now. We have problems with increasing of production of these fancy suits of which many are needed per health worker per bed per day. But it works nicely as a diversion from panic and hysteria in US media so it is good for well being of the person and the society in general.

Comment Re:Economics plays a role here (Score 1) 87

by umghhh (#48177309) Attached to: Researchers Scrambling To Build Ebola-Fighting Robots
If you leave these people to their own devices then not only they will start dying in big numbers but because their society will collapse and we will have refugees everywhere and this means the virus will be everywhere (consult a map of the region and think about how many troops you would need to quarantine that when you think that is a right solution). This is the reason we try to help. Now the way to help is another matter. I think sending people there to help treatment of patients is one thing but if the numbers will grow then better build isolation units as you call them, provide food and other supplies and leave the communities to deal with the problem on their own while hoping that vaccine is ready soon.

Submission + - Torvalds: I Made A "Metric Sh--load" Of Mistakes With The Linux Community (readwrite.com)

Submitted by electronic convict
electronic convict writes: In a Q&A at LinuxCon Europe, Linux creator Linus Torvalds — no stranger to strong language and blunt opinions — acknowledged a "metric shitload" of interpersonal mistakes that unnecessarily antagonized others within the Linux community. In response to Intel's Dirk Hohndel, who asked him which decision he regretted most over the past 23 years, Torvalds replied:

From a technical standpoint, no single decision has ever been that important... The problems tend to be around alienating users or developers and I'm pretty good at that. I use strong language. But again there's not a single instance I'd like to fix. There's a metric shitload of those.

It's probably not a coincidence that Torvalds said this just a few weeks after critics like Lennart Poettering started drawing attention to the abusive nature of some commentary within the open-source community. Poettering explicitly called out Torvalds for some of his most intemperate remarks and described open source as "quite a sick place to be in." Still, Torvalds doesn't sound like he's about to start making an apology tour. "One of the reasons we have this culture of strong language, that admittedly many people find off-putting, is that when it comes to technical people with strong opinions and with a strong drive to do something technically superior, you end up having these opinions show up as sometimes pretty strong language," he said. "On the Internet, nobody can hear you being subtle."

Submission + - Trans-Pacific Partnership May Endanger World Health, Newly Leaked Chapter Shows

Submitted by blottsie
blottsie writes: WikiLeaks has released an updated version of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) chapter on intellectual property. The new version of the texts, dated May 2014, show that little improvement has been made to sections critics say would hurt free speech online. Further, some of the TPP's stipulations could have dire consequences for healthcare in developing nations. The Daily Dot reports:

Nearly all of the changes proposed by the U.S. advantage corporate entities by expanding monopolies on knowledge goods, such as drug patents, and impose restrictive copyright policies worldwide. If it came into force, TPP would even allow pharmaceutical companies to sue the U.S. whenever changes to regulatory standards or judicial decisions affected their profits.

Professor Brook K. Baker of Northeastern U. School of Law [said] that the latest version of the TPP will do nothing less than lengthen, broaden, and strengthen patent monopolies on vital medications.

Submission + - Court Rules Parents May Be Liable for What Their Kids Post on Facebook (wsj.com)

Submitted by schwit1
schwit1 writes: Parents can be held liable for what their kids post on Facebook, a Georgia appellate court ruled in a decision that lawyers said marked a legal precedent on the issue of parental responsibility over their children’s online activity.

The Georgia Court of Appeals ruled that the parents of a seventh-grade student may be negligent for failing to get their son to delete a fake Facebook profile that allegedly defamed a female classmate.

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