Comment: Old Programming Languages never die ... (Score 1) 482
Comment: Bye Design (Score 1) 179
Comment: Just goes to show (Score 1) 323
Comment: Success! (Score 0) 454
Comment: Re:pardon my ignorance (Score 1) 263
+ - Australian ISPs to disconnect botnet "zombies"-> 4
ISPs will try to contact the user, slow down their connection, and ultimately terminate the connection if the user refuses to fix the problem. It is hoped that this will reduce the growth of botnets in Australia, which had the world's third-highest rate of new "zombies" (behind the US and China)"
Link to Original Source
Comment: Re:Please keep in mind (Score 1) 447
Comment: Re:IE6 comes with XP, IE8 with Win7 (Score 1) 422
Comment: Re:All I have is an anecdote (Score 1) 430
The H1N1 virus does not represent "the grave" for me.
Spoken like a true Darwin Award contender. H1N1 has presented a strain that is very virulent and that has been fatal for young healthy individuals. Of course, you can argue the finer points, weigh up the overall risks for yourself by understanding the disease better (recommended) and come to a decision, but should you chose not to vaccinate yourself against it, you should keep in mind the possibility that you may carry the disease on to people you care about whom may or may not be adversely impacted.
Comment: Re:All I have is an anecdote (Score 1) 430
There is, after all, a type of natural selection in effect here. If you change the virus's environment (by vaccinating the hosts) to select against a few strains, then those strains will decline and other strains will become dominant.
The problem I see with this is that it implies that the flu strains are competing with one another when in fact they are not. I don't see why it's not possible for a person to come down with two or more flu's at the one time, thereby all being successful, and one not disqualifying the other(s). The victim would be in a pretty bad state I expect and greatly benefit from having been vaccinated against any one. The (un-natural) selection pressure is real in terms of diminished host environments for one of these flus, and while it may appear that the other flus have been selected "for", eliminating one does not make the others more or less successful.
In line with this thinking then, if a flu weakened immune system is enough to make another less prevalent virus, more successful, then not vaccinating and getting a bad flu may assist a less virulent flu at becoming more successful.