Posts by Cav 487 publicly visible posts • joined 19 Jun 2018
"The refusal of the mainstream media to cover this suggests that there is an agenda at work"
The fact that you ignore the fact that this information is, in fact, covered by the mainstream media, such as the BBC, and the fact that tariffs are, in fact, being collected, suggests that you are a conspiracy loon.
I use AI to get a viewpoint that I might not have considered. Much of the time it is simply wrong but it does prompt new ideas. So, it has its uses. But much of it is dangerous nonsense.
I can't stand AI written articles on websites. Most of them are wrong, contradictory and misleading. AI summaries can be useful but are also often wrong\hallucinations. The problem is the hard-of-thinking taking them as fact.
"I also found the whole thing a bit irrational and stupid, and still do."
Then you were\are foolish. Masks, and all the other rules, worked for a covid pandemic. The purpose of masks was to prevent the spread of disease, something they do very well. Why else do you think doctors, dentists and surgeons use them? For self protection they are not good and were never supposed to be. The point is that they don't stop viruses from being inhaled but they do stop the spread of virion laden drops of mucus, because they are so much larger and cannot pass though the mask.
There is no need to wear masks for regular flu seasons. The majority have at least some immunity and many augment it with vaccination. And again, masks do not stop you inhaling viruses but they do reduce the amount of mucus droplets you inhale a little and definitely reduce the much more concentrated at source mucus that you exhale. So, the altruistic would be quite right to wear masks to help stop the spread of the flu - as long as they wore one before the onset of symptoms - even if those masks only provided a very low level of self protection.
I'm in the Midwest. A couple of years ago I temporarily lost the sight in one eye while playing with my toddler - most disconcerting. I was rushed to hospital with the ambulance tech doing little more than keep talking to me for the hour long journey (I live in the middle of nowhere). I got a bill for $8,400 (along with a $2000 bill for an MRI). I was panicking about the cost a little but my insurance did eventually cover it. If I hadn't had insurance then they would still have taken me and I would have been stuck with the bill. Some religiously run hospitals have charitable donations that cover the costs for those who can't pay. Most hospitals do not.
Related: My son was ill with a stomach bug, at a different time, and needed an anti-emetic. Even with insurance the charge for the meds would have been $165. At the time that was a lot so I took the option to just get a half bottle for just over half the price - I could buy another bottle later if needed. Fortunately, he didn't even need the whole of the one we did get. That $90 was with insurance. We could pay it but anyone who couldn't would be out of luck. That's for a sick kid.
I have a medication that, without insurance, costs $1,500 a month. My insurance and my employer cover that. I wouldn't be able to pay it. There are cheaper, much less effective, alternatives. If I didn't have the insurance then I would have to go with one of those with increased risks to my well-being.
So yes, people are left to die for being short of cash but there are some safeguards.
Medicare is federal healthcare for people over 65, some disabled people under 65 and people with end stage renal failure (I don't know why that one condition specifically). Medicaid is for low income people in certain categories such as childen or pregant women. Someone is considered low income if they earn less than about $1,500 a month. A healthy, non-pregnant adult would not qualify, even if they earned less than the low-income level. They are the ones who have to choose whether to call an ambulance or not and who will be hit with massive bills.
BTW: my problem turned out to be a detached retina. All fixed now. I hope your Mom continues to be well.
This just shows a very poor understanding of how modern hospitals work. Even something as simple as viewing x-rays is done via a PC today. And no, they can't keep old technology such as developed films as bavk up. All that old tech would clutter the place and then you have the cost of maintaining it and training people on it. For a situation that may never happen.
And how do you get test results to clinicians when they are now electronically sent to their devices instead of having people running all over a medical campus? The people who may have done that in the past are no longer there.
Reducing incoming patient numbers is entirely sensible.
Do you keep a horse as backup, in case your vehicle breaks down?
"Because this is not in the spirit of Keynesian economics."
Yes, it is. Keynesian economics favours government intervention and, correctly, states that the economy is demand driven. UBI is both these things. Government intervenes to provide a basic level of income to all, giving more people more discretionary cash to spend and so stimulate the economy.
Nonsense. In the UK, at least, any effort to classify as disinformation any truth the establishment did not agree with, would be pounced on by the media.
To suggest that hundreds of independent media outlets would conspire not to challenge such assertions of disinformation, by government, is simply conspiracy paranoia. The evidence is overwhelming that outlets, such as the one whose site we are on, are perfectly happy to challenge anyone and everyone.
You started off well, with your first paragraph, but then veered into conspiracy idiocy.
There are already controls on long established media, from TV to newsprint.
These social media companies are globe spanning, free for alls that use their power to track users, siphon up as much of their data as possible, steal intellectual property and distort society. They need reigning in.
And the comment about vaping is ludicrous. Government are cracking down on both vapes and tobacco, in the interests of health, at least in the UK. Further restrictions on smoking are being proposed.
Just how do you think you are going to get people from Russia, China or Belarus into those body bags?
And whyever would you need two PCs?!
Few hackers are breaching customer interfaces. They are breaking into networks and then poor segmentation means they spread through the whole network.
There will always be accounts that can access the data, encrypted or not. If someone breaches the network and installs sniffers or key loggers then they can easily get access to the credentials of such accounts.
Do you work in IT?
I recently checked in for a hospital appointment, for me and only me. They asked for both my full SSN and that of my wife. We didn't provide either of them and my appointment still went ahead. I proved my ID with my drivers license and my health insurance with the appropriate card. That's all they needed. Just fishing for all they could get...
"and was a non-event due to to everyone doing their jobs."
Exactly! Another article on the BBC just today indicating that Y2K was an unnecessary panic because nothing really bad happened... Too stupid, too young or both, to appreciate all the work we programmers did for years at the end of the 20th century.
" The vast majority of gun crime in the US is committed with illegally owned guns, just like in the UK."
And illegally owned guns in the US are primarily only available because legally owned guns are available. Corrupt dealers - ccording to the ATF, 70% of crime guns traced from 2017 to 2021 came from dealers. Then they are stolen from legal dealers, purchased in private sales, stolen during burglaries, robberies and car theft. Then there are guns "borrowed" from family members.
"A better solution might be to ensure diversity of minimal underlying environments"
How would you do that? Again, not everyone can afford to have multiple solutions within an organization. And between organizations, if suppliers A, B and C all provide solution X and B can supply a good standard of X at a lower cost then more people will use B. Which is exactly what happened with CrowdStrike. It wasn't the whole world that was affected and the majority of organizations have got back to some sort of running in hours.
"How affordable was it not doing that?"
Irrelevant. If you don't have the funds then it doesn't matter how much it might have saved you in the long run.
Many places just don't have the resources. The consequences might be expensive or they may just be salaried techs having to fix numerous machines after hours or instead of working on other projects. That costs 'nothing'.
Who can afford to mix and match security across their systems? People usually buy in bulk, from one supplier, because you get a better price. Go with a few sites on supplier A and others on supplier B etc and you might not be able to afford the contracts. Only the biggest organizations could afford to do that.
And if you mean limit the numbers of customers per product then how will you enforce that? It's customer choice. If half the world chooses to use one supplier then there's little you can do about it. What are you going to do, issue quotas per supplier? Who will maintain that on a global scale?
"Where is it engraved in stone that outside companies can reach into your computer and silently alter its software". The conditions you agreed to when you chose to install the software.
Most AV software gives you the option to automatically install updates; you aren't forced to do so.
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