- This is the key here, and what all these "masks don't work!" people seem to constantly miss somehow. No, masks are not 100% effective at filtration; any idiot can see that. They don't have to be 100% effective, they just need to be better than nothing, and that'll slow the spread of the disease. Keeping people from spewing germs 20 feet when they sneeze or cough is a big help in slowing this pandemic.
There's a reason masks have been commonplace in Asia for many years now: they're meant to protect society, not the wearer. When someone thinks they're sick in Japan, they're supposed to wear a mask to keep everyone else from getting sick: it's good manners. It only works when lots of people are doing the same thing.
Similarly, the cloth masks are actually called "surgical masks", because they're normally used in surgery. They have absolutely nothing to do with keeping the surgeon safe from the patient; they're in place to keep the patient, who has a huge gaping wound in his body, from being infected by droplets from the surgeon as the surgeon bends over the wound site, and is breathing and talking to other people.
- I've read that SSDs can't be used to replace HDDs for long-term archival use: if you leave them powered off for too long, the data degrades. I can store data long-term on a regular HDD and stick in a closet or safe-deposit box and then get it out after a few years, plug it in, and read it just fine.
- >while The Troubles didn't induce the UK to give any concessions it wasn't already willing to give beforehand.
If you look farther back in Ireland's history, it seems like Ireland's independence from UK was achieved mostly by violent resistance. After there was too much violence, England finally decided it wasn't worth it, and came up with an agreement allowing most of the island to become independent, with the exception of a handful of northern counties.
- What exactly are nutjobs going to do with any of these weapons?
We've had cases of nutjobs getting their hands on tanks, or building their own armored bulldozers, and going on rampages. It's a pain, but it's not a complete disaster. These vehicles aren't invincible. They generally get stuck somewhere, and then the police break open the hatch and shoot the nutjob. Tanks really can't do much by themselves besides drive around and run into some things (or over them, but again, you have to be careful or it can get stuck, break a tread, etc.). Tanks armed with 120mm cannon rounds, of course, can do some serious damage, but private individuals aren't allowed to own that kind of weaponry at all.
It's the same with an older fighter jet. What are you going to do with it? Fly it into a building? Sure, that'll be worse than flying a Cessna into a building, but still, it's not like a WMD. Even if you could fully load the 20mm cannon, you're not going to do that much damage; they don't hold that much ammo anyway (only enough for something like 5-10 seconds of sustained fire I think). Yeah, being able to drop a bunch of 500lb bombs would be a disaster, but again, you can't get that stuff.
Yes, if Elon or Jeff wanted a nuclear-armed ICBM, the government would certainly stop them. Building a rocket is one thing, building a nuclear warhead is something else entirely, and is not something trivial that just anyone can do. Iran (an actual nation-state) has been trying for some time and still hasn't succeeded as far as we know. It takes a lot of facilities and special materials to build something like that.
- Sounds to me like the military is simply shooting itself in the food with its "up or out" policies. Why force highly-trained and experienced people to leave just because they've gotten to a plateau in their career where they're both competent and comfortable?
Do foreign militaries also have these policies?
- That probably doesn't matter to the people pushing the NDA. Why should they care about the realities of contract law, when they can just make up lies and get people to believe them under threat of lawsuit?
It's just like how so many car dealerships will tell you that getting your car serviced anywhere else will "void your warranty" even though that's blatantly illegal.
- Because the volumes are low. It's the same with any technology. High volumes = low cost, and vice-versa. When the manufacturing is geared up to produce enormous volumes and there's a bunch of competitors, the final product cost will be very low. When there's only one manufacturer and it's a niche product and there's very low demand, the cost is very high.
- When has any organization put peoples' lives over politics?
Anyway, the WHO/Taiwan debacle seems to resulted in Taiwan handling this pandemic better than anyone else, considering their proximity to China and the huge amount of trade and travel between them. Taiwan just ignored the WHO and did their own thing, which was the best thing.
- You seriously think the Chinese government is going to stoop to K&R with random Americans?
The Chinese government is the last entity I'd be worried about with this kind of information (unless, of course, you live in China). Certain criminals in your own country are a much bigger concern.
- >Personally, I would try to stick to apps by companies headquartered in your home country.
Why is that? It seems like the opposite would be the best advice: make sure to use something from a company not headquartered in your country. Most people probably have more to worry about from their own government than anyone else.
- The problem is that these people are going to be taking up precious space in your hospital's ER and ICU units.
Remember, younger people aren't as affected by this as older people. So these dumb churchgoers (who I believe tend to be younger, if these are megachurches) will be catching it, then spreading it to their older relatives, who will then be flooding the hospitals.
- >Welcome to a pandemic. Americans today aren't used to being vulnerable. If anything, it's just a reminder of how thin the facade we project on the world actually is.
No, the problem is that America has an incompetent government. China, Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan have shown how to handle this thing with reasonable degrees of competence. We have not.
Plagues and diseases have been around since long before humans. Dealing with them is one of the functions of civilized society, and ours is failing, while other nations are doing far better jobs. But of course, Americans never want to look outside their borders at how other countries do things.
- Trump isn't really that conservative, he's just an egomaniac without any real principles. The conservative nutjobs have just latched onto him and made him their new savior, for now.
Notice how Trump's story changes rapidly. Early on, he was saying it was a liberal hoax or something. Now he's taking it seriously because he wants to look like a great leader in a time of crisis. The only thing he's consistent about is wanting to make himself look good. Luckily, for now, that's moved to actually doing the right things for the most part to deal with this (though it would have been a lot better if he hadn't screwed up so much earlier). True conservatives aren't like this: they are very principled, even if I don't agree with their principles at all. Somehow, they just haven't figured him out yet, or they're just using him for their own ends.
- >Though going to church might be the worst of all options since church goers tend to skew more to the older side of the population.
Actually, probably not, which is why "megachurches" is an important qualifier here. From my observations, megachurches tend heavily to be independent and evangelical, and tend to have much younger members. They also tend to have a lot of (Christian) rock music as part of the services. The old people don't join those churches; those people are still in the mainline Protestant churches they've been going to for many decades, which have traditional service, and don't preach to you that God loves rich people more.
- >Why single out megachurches?
Why not? From my observations, megachurches tend to be very different from many other Christian churches, including in theology. Christians aren't all the same, but there are some definite things that many, if not most, megachurches have in common, that they don't share with other denominations. (Starting with "denominations", in fact: megachurches usually don't belong to one.)
- Look at the infection rates in those countries: they're S-curves. New infections are being found, but the rate of increase is far lower than it was previously, and the majority of cases are cleared up. That shows they're likely on the tail end of the problem.
For European countries and the US, the curve looks asymptotic. There's no telling how high it'll go at this point.
I really have to wonder if the people pushing this have some kind of agenda.