Ffs leave the machine at home and learn to use Cron ...

Occular teabag.

After the last 8 (12... 16....) years of expanding surveillance, reduction of gov't oversight, etc, NOW they think of this? I mean I get that the current bandwagon is that this is the end times, but everything they're looking at protecting themselves from has been rolling this way for years...

Oh sure, I tout my wood and all *I* get is a restraining order...

Worse yet, I think the Americans were involved with it to!

I'd say breaking into the whitehouse network is a bit more worrisome than breaking into the whitehouse website. The website is indeed a poster. The network (even unclassified) is still terribly worrisome. You think all secrets we don't want other governments to know are classified?

That's pretty much the definition of what science is. I'm not even clear what they think the alternative might be that would still qualify as science.

Well, there's lost, and then there's LOST. I can get a little in lost my own city for a few moments, then drive around, see a familiar landmark and get my bearings rather quickly. But getting totally lost in somewhere that's completely unexplorered is a very different experience.

The author is talking about the latter experience. Getting a little more concrete, he's talking about going off somewhere where science hasn't mapped any landmarks. The frontier of science is very different from the parts we're more familiar with. When you're in familiar territory people nod and agree with you, and you aren't saying much that's controversial. The frontier is a wild and crazy place where radical new ideas are born (and most of the time horribly wrong, like in his cautionary tales).

The best example I can think of someone that's that's a bit lost in "the woods" happens is physicist Lawrence Kraus and his Universe from nothing, who at times skirts the edge between science and philosophy. Another would be m-theory, and brain-theory, which propose alternate universes. Clearly something really out there and strange and unfamiliar.

You're right, that science is always about the unknown. The author is talking about the comfort level people have with the field they're in. For contrast, an example of in-town, back of your hand science would be something like confirming another aspect of relatviity. Very important work, but still largely familiar.

With the exception of the SS#, most of that data is publicly available on the internet for most people. If you know someones name, it's very easy to find someones phone#, address, birth date, relatives, former addresses, etc.

We don't live in as private a world as you're assuming.

You may want to re-read my post if you think I'm saying the oil is harmless. Or did you think a human being losing 18 liters of blood all at once is harmless?

Yup, just like adding up all the blood Americans lose to papercuts ever year. Assume 1 drop of blood is lost per papercut, or .06 ml. A highly conservative guess is 1/1000 americans get papercuts in a year. (300,000,000/1000)*.06=18 liters of blood. So obviously it wouldn't hurt you if you suddenly lost 18 liters of blood, since that amount is lost in minor little papercuts every year.

Scale matters, and concentrating a huge amount of oil, (or in the above example blood loss) makes a big difference.

He obviously must see and be directly involved in some aspects of AI that are causing him to be concerned.

You're assuming a rational person. The fact that he used the metaphor of freaking demons, pentagrams, and holy water is evidence that's not true. Obviously he doesn't think they're actual demons, but you can see where his mind is when he brings up the horror genre. That doesn't smack of people programming cars to making life/death decisions.

Umm.. OK.

Lest you forget, Microsoft was ruled both a monopoly in 2000, and ruled they miss-used their monopoly power. They were going to be split into multiple companies until the 2000 election changed the political landscape and the Federal government dropped the suit.

What makes you think Microsoft STILL doesn't hold monopoly power over the PC business? They don't hold as much of a stranglehold anymore, but I'd say it's still very much a monopoly.

*sigh*

The guy in Texas who had Ebola transmitted it to exactly two people, both of which were caring for him while sick. He didn't transmit it to ANY of his family members. I'd say that's a good indicator that the virus really is very hard to catch.

As far as your "idiot" theory goes, smart people screw up, and constant vigilance is hard, especially in an environment like in west Africa. At the moment, you're thinking with the fear generating part of your brain, not the thinking part of your brain. That's very bad, and causes more harm than good. Health officials are telling you it's hard to get because it IS hard to get. The average number of people that Ebola is transmitted to is about 2. That's a very low number. AIDS, which is also hard to catch is transmitted to an average of 4 people. Measles, which is very contagious is 18.

http://www.npr.org/blogs/healt...

So please stop with the conspiracy theory. It's a disease, not a government secret. You can't keep a tight lid the real facts about a disease that people study and publish papers about in medical journals.

Also, consider there's thousands of health care workers in west Africa. There's been a handful of American healthcare workers who've caught the disease, but MANY OTHERS who haven't.

Actually the problems are the potential side effects of new vaccines, and not if it works or not...

If they're comfortable enough to give it to 10s of thousands of health care workers, who are wearing protective clothing, trained to deal with the exposure, and are highly monitored and controlled who they come into contact with, why wouldn't they give it to people at high risk of developing ebola?

If the risk is so high from the vaccine, then you sure as hell shouldn't expose 24,000 healthy people to it.

That's what you do if you already have a proven vaccine, yes.

And also what you should consider doing when you have a worldwide pandemic in a country that threatens to kill millions of people.

Doing this doesn't tell you what trials need to tell you:

That's why you do it with a small amount of the available vaccine. Note I said use a portion, not abandon the clinical trial. There's absolutely no reason why you can't use SOME of the vaccine to combait the disease. It might not work at all, but it's a decent gamble.