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Comment Re:WHO said WHAT? (Score 2, Interesting) 580

Here is the actual contents of the email.

Start of email sent on the 31st of December.
-----
News resources today indicate that at least seven atypical pneumonia cases were reported in Wuhan, CHINA. Their health authorities replied to the media that the cases were believed not SARS; however the samples are still under examination, and cases have been isolated for treatment.

I would greatly appreciate it if you have relevant information to share with us.

Thank you very much in advance for your attention to this matter.
-----

A few things to notice. This was sent the same day that China told the WHO about the virus (27 cases) and it posted information online in Chinese on the same day as well as multiple news stories. Basically, Taiwan saw the news report in China and asked the WHO about it. Notice what isn't in the letter: nothing about human to human transmission.

What doesn't make sense to me is that Taiwan saying at least 7 cases is truthful but China saying 27 known cases on the same day is lies.

Comment Re:Offended or not? (Score 2) 366

"Energetic Materials" and "Energetic Materials in Application" are still still offered at a handful of schools in my state, but almost entirely for graduate students. Those used to be elective chemistry and engineering classes for undergrads during early 90's at the university I attended, but a slightly faster paced version was offered to graduate students or with department approval. I can't think of too may schools even then that offered those to undergrads back then, much less now.

School's have really taken the "fun" out of chemistry. I'm not sitting here advocating that we everyone needs to spend a couple semesters doing nothing but say fluorine chemistry (yet another thing they don't really welcome in the lab anymore, and maybe on this one I'll say okay, but someone has still to be trained to do it. Ticking time bombs in the sand bucket in the fume hood. Fun fun fun!), but until I had energetic materials chemistry ceased to be fun.

Comment This whole discussion, moderation, and becoming (Score 0) 139

This whole discussion and the way its being moderated are severely turning me against continuing to use Slashdot. I've been a long time, probably 12-13 years on this account, and I don't even know when I registered the first one. I think we were on Suse 7.1 or so back then, which I actually bought the DVD + CD set for. I remember when this was a free place to discuss ideas, ideals, and even bring the occasional website crawling to its knees from the flood of traffic. Those were good times. Since about 2015 though, its drifted rapidly into this land of there can only be one right idea or ideal. SJWism has taken hold; even if there are still a large number who despite it, especially when stating that could cost them their employment. It doesn't matter if its a discussion about socks or a hurricane, people will find some way to make it political, and bring the worst of those elements into it.

There was a time when we elevated discussions, and moderators sought to. We could laugh at trolls, and simply disagree without the crud I see in so many threads now and use some of that to bring ideas to the table. We used to believe in freedom and pretty much in free speech. I'm sorry to see that era dying, but I cannot ignore that either. The end result wont elevate discussions. It wont draw new users in, and it will certainly push out long time users.

Comment Re:Vigilante justice (Score 3, Interesting) 172

That is why groups like the: III%, Cajun Navy, American Freedom Keepers, Highwaymen, Riders of the Confederacy -- go out in groups, set up a base of operations with a logistical support network, and generally have some training. Many of them are also ex military, ex police, ex medics, worked in logistics, and many of them are techs as well. They also usually have human intelligence on the ground before they get there, tend to make contact with law enforcement when they arrive so they know who they are so they don't freak out with a mess of guys in gear show up. You don't want people to mistake you for an armed group of looters! They try to connect with businesses and church people ahead of going. They tend to take multiple forms of communications gear, extra fuel, and whatever other resource they can with them that might not be available that they can carry.

That does not mean its always perfectly organized, pretty, free from chaos, nor that it is free from danger. If your area of operations is bacteria infested water, that alone is a danger. It does not mean you cannot end up a part of the problem even after successfully being a part of the solution. Especially if there is no logistical support available to you easily beyond what you can carry. Situations can change rapidly. A levee breaks or a river crests or a road is completely washed out after you get in. Stuff happens. I've seen some of these groups do some pretty amazing things with what they have to work with. Sometimes that is the only support that will exist.

    An example of that danger from Hurricane Harvey is where several people took the only good option available when effecting a rescue or bringing in supplies would otherwise have to be brought in by air -- the monster truck or 5 tons with very high intakes and exhausts. These could get into areas that boats could not, and other vehicles definitely could not. They were even in areas that helicopters would be useless in. However, wheels have wheel bearings. They don't perfectly seal. At best they can be packed with grease to keep some of the mud and cruddy water out. After a few days of operating these in that water while sometimes carrying in heavy loads of supplies and ferrying people out, they literally drove them until the wheels came off. The issue of logistical support being unavailable put at least one of them in a bad situation. They did way more good than bad, but not having that support when the rest of society is washing away down the river is never a good thing, especially when the waters are rising all around you and you cannot effect a roadside repair.

All of that being said: A lot of rescue, national guard and support organizations simply bypassed the smaller towns leaving them to fend on their own. The militias and other groups saved a lot of people, coordinated their own usually completely free of your tax dollars support of communities, ran and helped organize the only distribution points available, coordinated with other charities, trucking companies (which is what I did on this end) to get supplies in and help stabilize things. They also did it faster than government response and resources could allow in a great many cases. Many of them are sticking around for as long as they are financially able to to continue providing support during the clean up phase. Or at least sticking around until that mission can be handed off to someone else.

People having downloaded zello provided a way to communicate where people had little else. It also led to a fair amount of duplicate calls for assistance because not everyone is on the same networks. Its still a great resource to have. The more options you give yourself ahead of a crisis the better.

Comment Re:Leftist Agenda or $$$ - Choose One (Score 0, Troll) 245

I agree. I'm not paying good money to have hollywood's multicultural and politically correct agenda rammed down my throat. Even on those rare occasions where that agenda is not as blatant the movie itself is usually geared toward lowering the values and generating a decline in the culture. I've largely given up on TV for the same reasons.

Comment Re:Close.. (Score 5, Interesting) 391

Too much Fa(r)cebook.
Seriously, the number of people who spend all their relaxation time buried in that pile of steaming shite and ignoring their partner is just astounding, no wonder no intimacy happens.... Especially, I have to say it sorry, women.

Its a little more than that, but that is certainly a part of it. I blame the smart phone. I thought I had a great marriage right up until my wife got an Iphone. Now admittedly I do spend a little too much time with computers and music gear. So I wasn't that worried about it when my wife first got her Iphone, but 6 months later I was genuinely lonely, felt ignored, felt like I could not a have a decent conversation with her, and its been a battle since. I try to have a conversation with her, she has to check this thing and wont give the courtesy of putting it away for all of it. I try to go places and do things with it -- we could be at an incredibly fancy restaurant sans kids and still has to whip this one (and yes, it might be limited to a brief snap of this to post about it, but its often not), I have sex with her and 30 seconds later that blue light is on. I can't even watch a movie with her without her checking it.

I even took the step of introducing a high voltage static discharge into her prior one. She simply bought another within hours. She is not a morning person, so to see her sprint up even before I did to rush out to the Apple store was disheartening. Coming up upon a decade and I decided to file for divorce now rather than risk my retirement to it.

Some people may have a less intense reaction to it than I do. It depends upon what speaks to you about being loved and feeling loved. For me its no different than choosing crack cocaine over your partner. 16 years together, the last 10 of them married.

Comment Re: Hello Wine (Score 2) 585

I've done native code on Windows in industrial safety and automation. You'd think that's an oxymoron, but it can be made sufficiently robust.

I've dealt with bugs in Microsoft's SDKs, and dealt with multiple generations of drawing APIs. Played WoW and other games on WINE on Gentoo. Watched the incessant scrolling of FIXMEs on the console.

I'd love it if I could get paid to hack on WINE...

Comment Re:Suicide by politician (Score 1) 1010

A key point here is it was wildly inappropriate for Comey to recommend no prosecution in this case on TV. It is totally not his decision. The prosecutors in the DOJ are the ones who get to decide if prosecution is warranted. The FBI's job was to investigate and generate a report to the DOJ. They do get to make a recommendation regarding prosecution but it is only a recommendation. Comey absolutely should not have announced the recommendation at a press conference before the DOJ has even started reviewing the final FBI report. It reeks of prejudicing the entire case since it places inappropriate pressure on the prosecutor in the DOJ to not prosecute when they may well be inclined to prosecute when they see all the evidence.

Comey s assertion that Clinton and her people had no intent to do harm by mishandling top secret compartmentalized information so they should not be prosecuted is also way over the line. The fact is they did mishandle top secret information, and it is unknowable if that mishandling resulted in the information being accessed by foreign powers or others who were not authorized to see it. You knowingly mishandle classified information in violation of the oath you signed there have to be consequences otherwise why should anyone bother to protect classified information. If Clinton is elected President how can she expect the millions of Federal employees working for her to protect classified information when she knowingly didn't and got away with it.

Thirdly mishandling email is only part of the case against the Clinton. A key reason Clinton may have been using this private server is there may have been email between her, foreign governments and affluent individuals who were donating large sums of money to the Clinton Foundation while she was Secretary of State creating the appearance that she was soliciting bribes in return for favorable decisions from the State department on things like arms deals. Clinton is claiming these are personal emails so she withheld them from the FBI but they may be a trail pointing to public corruption.

It smacks of whitewash to suddenly short circuit these investigations so Clinton will have a clean path to the nomination at the convention which is just a few days away now.

Comment Re:the real reason... (Score 1) 266

I wish I'd known about these servers. I would play WoW again if it was the 2006 vintage instead of the crap its become. To answer your criticism, if Blizzard wants to keep WoW going forever, roll back to 2006 vintage, and focus entirely on new and interest dungeons and gear. Also put the level cap back to 60 and keep it there. New and interesting PVE dungeons was the only thing that made WoW great. Making the game "easy" for casual players was another tragic mistake.

2006 vintage WoW would be right before Burning Crusade came out and BC would be just about the time WoW started to suck and I quit playing. In 2006 there were 64 player raids, no constantly shifting level caps that constantly trashed all your gear, you lived to get to get to level 60 and collect PVE gear.

Every good guild on the server I was on, including my own, blew apart about that time, people wandered off to PvP to get the gear Blizz was handing out like candy to distract from the fact all their hard won level 60 PVE gear was being trashed and running Molten Core and BWL was officially pointless. It had become a waste of time doing PVE raids entirely which was the whole point of WoW.

In those days you only ran dungeons with people on your server, yea it sucked waiting to get groups sometimes but you actually made friends and learned to trust or not trust the people you played with on your server. When they started jumbling together pick up runs from all servers you didn't know and couldn't trust ANYONE you were raiding with. Dungeons just became a whirlwind you ran through as quickly as possible and half the time someone in the group would be a total ass and get away with it.

Comment Re:Nope (Score 1) 485

Waste disposal issues disappear if they're allowed to make next-gen reactors. Much less waste and much easier to store.

That is like the blind men with the elephant. You have a much larger problem than what you realize.

You've never been on a mining site. Nuclear waste needs to include the stream of unnaturally enriched uranium tillings, the water you destroy permanently to get at it from in-situ type mining, the area contaminated by good ol' wind in the processing, the waste generated during processing and further refinement to actually get a usable product, then you get to the plant itself, the daughter products, the fact that anything that actually runs water through it *leaks*, and everything else down the road.

Insane liabilities that are largely externalized, huge capital costs, higher electricity rates, and the risk of losing say 1/3 of the United States productive capacity in the event of a major accident. All of this for a system that even if it works out right produces hundreds of tons of radioactive waste for every hour that plant runs. Oh, you didn't figure the mining into your equation? Of course not, you think that stuff just magically appears at Wal-Mart?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

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