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Comment Try, try again? (Score 1, Informative) 409

If we can't contain the disease (** and keep doctors from contracting it **) in Liberia, who's bright idea is it to try to contain it in Atlanta?

I propose sending containment & treatment equipment (trial vaccines, etc.), and medical personnel to Liberia. Staying put is probably easier on the patient that a transatlantic flight.

Transporting a person with such a deadly disease doesn't seem like the best plan...

Comment Algae is better than food sources (Score 1) 242

We should really explore using non-food sources (e.g., algae) as biofuel bases. We need food to stay inexpensive and gas not to increase in price, because we're using more expensive food sources. Here's a good Q&A about algae as a source of bio fuel (http://algae.ucsd.edu/potential/algae-qanda.html).

Submission + - Cell Phones As A Radiological 'Dirty Bomb' Detection Network (ksl.com)

iinventstuff writes: The Idaho National Laboratory has built a dirty bomb detection network out of cell phones. Camera phones operate by detecting photons and storing them as a picture. The INL discovered that high energy photons from radiological sources distort the image in ways detectable through image processing. KSL TV reports that the INL's mobile app detects radiation sources and then reports positive 'hits' to a central server. Terrorists deploying a dirty bomb will inevitably pass by people carrying cell phones. By crowdsourcing cell phones, the INL has created a potentially very large, inexpensive, and randomly mobile radiation detection grid.

Comment Same As Tobacco Lawsuits (Score 5, Insightful) 177

In the US, the government sued (and continues penalizing) the tobacco industry, because their product causes "wrongful death", "injury", and causes the individual to require significant medical expenses. This product causes all of those things, so the lawsuits were justified. However, one would have thought that at least some of the $16B recovered by 2006 would have been given to the smokers who were suffering.

Instead, the government kept all of that money justifying that they would/might someday provide Medicare for those people -- despite the fact that most did not receive Medicare benefits! The State governments even announced that they were using the funds to build roads and for other projects!

This is one more demonstration that these types of groups seek to champion causes in order to perpetuate themselves, by keeping up the fight (fear), rather than relaying recovered damages back to those who were harmed. It's disgraceful.

Comment Lame Tech (Score 4, Insightful) 1165

So, a well-planned criminal just needs to hang out at the local shooting range and collect someone else's brass casings before they commit a crime. After they commit their crime, they collect their own shells, and toss out the other person's shells. When police show up, there is a positive ID on the discarded casings, because of the #. This was a good idea, but it is so very easily spoofed because it's non-deterministic and can put innocent people at risk. I'd pass...

Comment Re:The Era of Linux is at hand (Score 1) 240

Excellent point. No patent or copyright treaty means that there is no violation outside of a specified jurisdiction. We see that between countries today.

The interesting thing about copyright & free software advocates is the way they define 'free'. If free means that I can give my work to others without anyone placing encumbrances, then that's a good definition to advocate. More often than not, I hear the sentiment that since software must be free, anyone can take someone else's work whether they like it or not.

'Free to give' seems to evoke sharing, while 'free to take' creates feelings of protectionism...

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