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Brain Surgery Robot Running Linux
hherb writes "Singapore has developed a robotic brain surgeon. The interesting bit: based on a Linux platform. Well, what else? Who in his right mind would like to have his brain fondled by a MS product?"
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The Microsoft press release title will be...
"Using Linux causes death!"
If Linux messes up there's nobody to sue. At least Microsoft will give me more money to shut up.
Anothe nicely misleading title... after reading the article, the robot is used to drill through the porous bone of the skull. This is no mean feat by itself, reducing a 6-hour drill to a 3-hour drill, but surgeons still have to feed the robot all information on blood vessels, nerves, and sensitive areas.
That being said, it's still pretty impressive. And I thought dentists were bad enough...
Diplomacy is the art of saying "nice doggie" whilst looking for a rock
$5 to the first surgeon to type that in.
People generally have brain surgery because their mind is malfunctioning.
'Most men would sooner die than think, and most men do.'
The team hopes to begin human trials by the middle of next year, following the completion of animal tests. Trials have been successfully conducted on cadavers.
"So far, no animals have volunteered, but since we're using Linux we expect lots of penguins to sign up." said Dr Yeo Tseng Tsai. In a subsequent interview RMS pointed out that if they had used the correct term GNU/Linux, they might have had more volunteers from the Gnu community. "I told you so. That's what happens when you leave out the GNU part.", explained RMS.
"I'd rather have a full bottle in front of me than a full frontal lobotomy"
I am not sure how comfortable with this i am, not becuase i at all think linux is prone to fail but becuase linux is capable of failing. Kernel panics still happen, like, once in a billion years. Linux just never struck me as an OS you need when, like, it is absolutely essential that absolutely nothing go wrong ever. Like when you are running some kind of control system for an airplane, or controlling a robot drilling holes in people's skulls. I don't think linux or even bsd would be a great choice in those cases, though i sure as hell don't think windows should even be considered given their track record in such situations.
Aren't there any OSes about at the moment that are like all redundant and correctness-proven and stuff, like with NASA-like failure margins? Wouldn't it be better to be using those instead?
Is this reasonable of me to say?
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
I find it odd that even though the story has nothing to do with microsoft the company still gets mentioned. Will the linux community ever get over their penis envy of the more successful counterpart? I doubt it.
Can I help you:
* Saw the skull open?
* Find the front lobes?
* Adjust the frontal lobes so that Microsoft products seem to be a good idea?
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Sorry, but I'm sure if I asked anyone I knew they would simply prefer no brain fondling at all.
My brother once was anesthetized for lithotripsy to break up his kidney stones when the machine broke down. He was sitting there, basically unable to move his lower body, while the medical staff was placing ice on the machine, which had overheated. No techinicians were available, so eventually they sent him to recovery without having anything performed. Not quite BSOD, but it has to be unnerving watching people try to ice down a machine which they intend to use on your body.
Free Brain Surgery Distribution, or FreeBSD for short? :o)
Resistance is futile. Reactance buggers it up.