In my opinion this helps solve that problem. Having multiple forms of high confidence identification systems would mean that a serious error in one can be debunked by another system. This would definitely help prevent cases of mistaken identity due to database corruption and make it more difficult for the database to be hacked.
Thank you for the dissertation (although I agree, it's such a common stance on slashdot, and supported by the submitted article, I felt the need to push the contrary position)
Despite the fact that I agree with you, I do believe the author makes a point. I'm a design engineer and I look at this similarly to the sensitivity matrices that we make when dealing with the design space.
In other words, the typical discovery cycle is to observe, hypothesize, challenge, validate. Now, the idea in the article is that with current data collection techniques, the rate of testing, when we observe a correlation, we use the simpler hypothesis of A->B and validate that. We don't have to wait for why, as large numbers of tests can show this to a high degree of statistical certainty. If we have a sufficiently discrete set of A's and matching B's we can form a regression that can be used to interpolate between the gaps.
Essentially the purpose of a model is to relate inputs to outputs. What makes a model good is when it's outputs for a given set of inputs matches closely the outputs for a given system. That is the measure of success of a model. And a model working does not mean it is correct, it simply means that it works. The success of a model does not prove that there is no other model that might also work.
Essentially what's being said here is that due to the large amount of experimentation being preformed we can back out from the data a matrix that relates each input to all the outputs proportionally. The matrix might adjust with the values of the inputs but still, we can derive a sensitivity to each input based on experimentation. The matrix is the model, and there is no theory involved in it's creation other than all the state assumed is completely documented.
This is already a common practice, and can be seen in things like, for example, state tables for compressed, superheated steam. There's a real gas law model that should predict the nature of steam, but no one uses it, as the tables have proven more accurate over time. And as a designer I don't really care why the steam does what it does, I just care that the tables actually match what happens in reality. they're a good mimic, and thats the point of the model.
Again, this assumes that we can test all the configurations or at least quantify and document them. Despite this being a false assumption for many systems, it is true for many others, and is especially useful when dealing within sets of knowns for design issues and optimization. I don't necessarily think it makes good science, but it does however yield valuable goods for engineering and design in the absence of theory and should not be summarily dismissed. Although I believe there is added value in forming a theoretical model based on assumptions of how the inner workings of a system function, I don't discard the value of not needing such a model in order to have a clear understanding of what outputs will occur for a given set of inputs.
The point of the last story was horribly miscommunicated. There were two main points. The first is that data is expanding in such scope that hierarchal organization systems don't work and that the second is we're approaching a time where the method or analysis of data to show causation will come from correlation, because you can determine all the variances due to the fact that all the variables have been accounted for. Look at the human genome project or folding at home.
I don't think this is completely true, but lets not bash the idea or miss the point just cause the original author's a complete bumbling moron.
It's called a bail bondsman, they only need to raise 5k and if they aren't doing that then I'm pretty sure it's because the time served plays well in both the press and the sentencing.
Laws are laws. They were written for a reason and now if has broken those laws he should be punished by those laws. Don't use "kids will be kids" arguments here, as they undermine the value of rule of law. What the hell are you teaching kids when they do something wrong that we say " oh oh well we'll give you a freebe on this one cause your young and smart and that's cute".
The laws should be written in such a way that the judge has some discretion in sentence if they are really minor things. And lots of first time offenders draw a "sentence" but serve probation instead and the whole mess gets expunged if they meet the requirements set by the court. More than likely this is not a "life ruining" experience.
Courtney Love gives a much more accurate account for how the racket works. All these "BIG" record deals aren't that "BIG" at all because typically the advance given the band is not just payment to the members, but also supposed to cover production expenses. In other words record company gives you 1.3 million and you go to the recording studio, art studio, and post possessing guys and give 1 million back to the record studio and you're left with 300,000 with which you pay the manager and the artist, making it a 5 or 6 way split. That's 50 grand a piece. And then you never see a penny from your album because that 1.3 million was an advance. Thats why going gold, silver and platinum are such big deals, because they're when the artist starts actually seeing 1.3 cents per song.
The above poster is very on point. The issue with water injection in automobiles is weight. I'm guessing the above poster used a small tank, and drove short distances so he could afford to fill the water tank many times more frequently than the petrol tank.
I did research on this in college when I was studying Marine Engineering and the ratios on some of the engines I worked with approach 50%. There are also startup and shutdown concerns, as well as condensation and corrosion. Larger medium speed diesels in a marine environment with technologies already in place to protect the oil from water contamination, have a low penalty to pay for this technology. For a car this is all added weight and initial cost.
And for those who missed the initial posters comment about the injection sequence, the injectors kick in (on marine diesels) right before top dead center. This drops the temperature to just above the auto ignition temperature for the oil. Then the oil is injected and as the oil starts to burn a second blast is given to constrain the temperature (flattening the top of the pressure/temperature cycle and bringing it closer to ideal.)
Oh, and it fits well for ships because they can use the exhaust to desalinate the water for injection.
And trust me getting around without a license is pretty god damn difficult. Taxis are expensive and not everything is next to a train station. I think 18 months is a fitting time frame given I lost mine for 3 months just by doubling the speed limit;)
Open standard? almost every business in the world already has a micros*ft computer. If M$ makes the technology, then how wide spread the implementation is dependent on how much they want to offer it for. If they offer the software for free and then little sender for $10 bucks, it won't matter that they're the only one on the market.
And anyone who doesn't believe this look at web development five years ago. I still need to use IE to render pages "correctly" despite Firefox penetration. IF they pull this off and get a wide enough market share then again, they'll be the de-facto standard.
Yes, while some of the land used will be plowed over crop land, some of it will also probably be converted from livestock feed and that would be a good thing. After energy production, livestock production accounts for 18% of green house gas emissions. And as far as switch grass goes, this was an initiative that started out with the goal to use recycled lawn clippings, in which case the harvesting cost would have already been paid, as people are still going to mow and water their yard, no mater how much the price of gas goes up.
It also doesn't hold up in court, that's why that one guy was on the show two times. Not to mention the fame associated with actually being the "volunteer" who catches a predator on live tv raises an inherent conflict of interest.
I've never met a GPL code developer who released his code under GPL because he was forced.
I support GPL because I believe if something is important it should be codified and that if you develop something for the community you should protect it for the community. But that doesn't mean that releasing something under an FOSS license without a "recontribute/openness" clause doesn't mean that there won't be active community development. Something built on and from sharing will always foster more sharing, it's an issue of principal.
No I say just because YOU say it does doesn't mean it exist! And the courts (stupidly) agree.
Implied consent is not recognized as a human right, not in america, nor most other western cultures. It has never withstood supreme court challenge. I'm not saying that should be the case, I'm saying it's not currently the case in these countries. If you were paying attention, I actually call out the fact that there are other countries with such rights chartered. But WE THE PEOPLE don't recognize it as such.
I have no problem with Classic Liberalism, and as a matter of fact, am a Ron Paul-like Conservative. However, claiming a "Right" that has no legal standing IN COURT as a defense is not a solution to this issue.
From you're own reference:
As Justice Stewart wrote in his dissent in the case, "Since 1879 Connecticut has had on its books a law which forbids the use of contraceptives by anyone.... What provision of the Constitution, then, makes this state law invalid? The Court says it is the right of privacy 'created by several fundamental constitutional guarantees.' With all deference, I can find no such general right of privacy in the Bill of Rights, in any other part of the Constitution, or in any case ever before decided by this Court." This holds true through today. Practices like implied consent would be struck down but continue to remain on the books.
The bill of rights can't grant you a right. However that doesn't mean anything you claim as a right IS a right. The article you discuss is very interesting and definitely well intentioned, but I take exception to some of it's content. Marriage is not a right under the law. Under the law it's a legal contract under which the state's relationship with you changes. You do not have a "right" to the tax breaks and property distribution, co-ownership considerations and other 'perks' associated with the legal concept of marriage. Just like you don't have a 'right' to a stimulus package check. These are incentives the government supplies. As for "right to eat, have children, etc..." I believe they are preying on a warped concept of right. Here's one I hold true:
"a right is not something that somebody gives you; it is something that nobody can take away"- Eleanor Roosevelt You always possess the ability to eat, and you don't always possess the capability to have kids. Are they really rights, or are they just things we are capable of? plenty of people are homeless without food. Are they being "denied the right to eat"? Is the government failing to provide them food "violating their right"? Is everything you can do a right? this is a warped philosophy.
And finally, just because I have a difference of opinion doesn't mean I'm not educated. We see things differently. Welcome to/. I respectfully choose to disagree with your position, not because i don't consider it as wholesome, but because in the current context it is a distraction from the real issue. here in the US we do not have a recognition of the right to privacy. It is not a useful defense an will not resolve the problems at hand. Maybe one day we will, but today we don't. So kicking and screaming about it and claiming it's in the constitution when the supreme court consistently states otherwise won't get you any where. To intelligently discuss this we have to stop being the kid throwing the tantrum in the corner.
My point is not that the constitution's restrictions on government's actions has nothing to do with PRIVACY. Protecting PRIVACY was never the intent. It's intent has been expanded over the years, but initially it only covered physical search.
The US constitution is a document regulating the INTERACTIONS of the government. PRIVACY is not an interaction and therefore not covered.
You have no "Right to Privacy". Arguing that they shouldn't do something because it violates "Your Right to Privacy" is false. Unreasonable search is forbidden by the constitution. If you want to fight something, do so on the grounds that it's based, instead of making things up imaginary "rights".
If you really want to have a factual basis for your argument, don't just read the constitution, take the time to understand it. And with out that you don't stand a fat chance of changing a thing. You can't win this by claiming violation of a "Right" that doesn't exist. The only issue here is the reasonable or unreasonable nature of the search.
You don't have a right to hide your actions or data from the government. All you have is restrictions on how the government is allowed to uncover those actions. That may seem like a fine line, but it's an important one. There is no restriction on the gathering of information on you, simply the means in which it is gathered. It's not the what but the how that is important.
Show me where in the bill of rights, or anywhere in the constitution, we are granted a "Right to Privacy". The Fourth Amendment stipulates the government reserved the right to search, with limits. You have no right to privacy, not in the US, and as far as I know, in any western country.
As far as I know, the only countries with privacy laws are predominately Muslim, as intruding on someone's private space uninvited is considered a crime by their culture.
You have missed my point. Creating this data base allows the officer to more quickly gather data he already had access to. Nothing in this database is anything that a zealous officer (or agent of the state for the sake of your conspiracy theory) couldn't dig up on their own.
And although you site a figure without any supporting evidence, I will go ahead and back you up and say it's true that in totalitarian nations crime tends to be higher, but correlation and causation are not the same. Causal links have been shown between poverty and crime and it just so happens totalitarian states and poverty have a strong trend as well
I don't have a link to back that up, just a minor in the subject. As a good refrence though, try reading the Violence and Terrorism annual editions put out by McGraw-Hill/Dushkin.
Although I agree with you to a large point, facebook didn't start as an anonymous entity. you had to provide a school address to join. and that address was linked to a real life student of faculty account with a real history of your personal identification. And in a way I liked that, because it meant that the persons whose page I was viewing was at least minimally authentic.
The fact of the matter is that most "innocent" civilians aren't at all "innocent". We all break the law, on a daily basis. Be it five over the speed limit, downloading music, misreporting income, littering, whatever, we almost all break some part of the law.
It's left up to the officer's discretion to enforce or not enforce. And giving him more information with which to make that decision isn't a bad thing. You can't say we can't have more efficient tools because they can be abused more efficiently. You obviously don't live anywhere where there's a real crime problem.
The same analysis tools that are used in this database could be applied to the police force and used to examine the cops for abuses. This should increase transparency, and that should decrease abuse.
These exist and they have them in New Jersey. They are a large part why the registration sticker was removed from the license plate, because now it's a redundancy.
The problem with the NPT is that, like copyright, like pattents, it's really regulating knowledge. And that knowledge, once given, cannot be recinded. That's how North Korea got nuclear technology. They signed the treaty worked with the "Big 5" completely fairly and openly, reached a certain degree of sophistication, and broke ways and developed their own program which weaponized it.
So playing by the rules got them in a fair amount of trouble. And with Nukes, I want to see less, not more. Therefore given the gravity of the situation Iran SHOULD be treated with caution given the fact that IT BROKE THE RULES of the NPT by pursuing uranium enrichment in secret.
it's nice to be truly wireless, till he reads his TOS and realizes that his EVD0 connection is limited to web pages and even the unlimited plan has a bandwidth cap.
From their TOS:
Examples of prohibited usage include: (i) server devices or host computer applications, including continuous Web camera posts or broadcasts, automatic data feeds, automated machine-to-machine connections, or peer-to-peer (P2P) file-sharing applications that are broadcast to multiple servers or recipients such that they could enable âoebotsâ or similar routines (as set forth in more detail in (iii) below) or otherwise denigrate network capacity or functionality; (ii) as a substitute or backup for private lines or dedicated data connections; (iii) âoeauto-responders,â âoecancel-bots,â or similar automated or manual routines that generate amounts of net traffic that could disrupt net user groups or e-mail use by others; (iv) generating âoespamâ or unsolicited commercial or bulk e-mail (or activities that facilitate the dissemination of such e-mail); (v) any activity that adversely affects the ability of other users or systems to use either Verizon Wirelessâ(TM) services or the Internet-based resources of others, including the generation or dissemination of viruses, malware, or âoedenial of serviceâ attacks; (vi) accessing, or attempting to access without authority, the information, accounts or devices of others, or to penetrate, or attempt to penetrate, Verizon Wirelessâ(TM) or another entityâ(TM)s network or systems; or (vii) running software or other devices that maintain continuous active Internet connections when a computerâ(TM)s connection would otherwise be idle, or âoekeep aliveâ functions, unless they adhere to Verizon Wirelessâ(TM) requirements for such usage, which may be changed from time to time. By way of example only, you may not use a Data Plan or Feature for web broadcasting, or for the operation of servers, telemetry devices and/or Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition devices.
They go on to talk about thier "Unlimited Plan"
If your usage on a Data Plan or Feature that does not include a specific monthly Megabyte allowance or that is not billed on a pay-as-you-use basis exceeds 5 Gigabytes per account line during any billing period, we reserve the right to reduce throughput speed to a maximum of approximately 200 Kilobits per second for up to thirty days.
I think the detection method and patch solution should be handed off to the ISP. They are the ones that suffer the most damage from the worm besides the host and already have the identifying information for the customer so they can contact them in prior to the push.
And to everyone saying heart monitors are no big thing, people who use network attached heart monitors do so because they have some need to be monitored. So a monitor going off line is likely going to result in a false alarm generating a trip to the hospital or at the very minimum an emergency response team being dispatched to the residence.
And for someone with already substantial medical conditions, the extra expense might not be a non-trivial thing.
Slashdot Mirror
In my opinion this helps solve that problem. Having multiple forms of high confidence identification systems would mean that a serious error in one can be debunked by another system. This would definitely help prevent cases of mistaken identity due to database corruption and make it more difficult for the database to be hacked.
Despite the fact that I agree with you, I do believe the author makes a point. I'm a design engineer and I look at this similarly to the sensitivity matrices that we make when dealing with the design space.
In other words, the typical discovery cycle is to observe, hypothesize, challenge, validate. Now, the idea in the article is that with current data collection techniques, the rate of testing, when we observe a correlation, we use the simpler hypothesis of A->B and validate that. We don't have to wait for why, as large numbers of tests can show this to a high degree of statistical certainty. If we have a sufficiently discrete set of A's and matching B's we can form a regression that can be used to interpolate between the gaps.
Essentially the purpose of a model is to relate inputs to outputs. What makes a model good is when it's outputs for a given set of inputs matches closely the outputs for a given system. That is the measure of success of a model. And a model working does not mean it is correct, it simply means that it works. The success of a model does not prove that there is no other model that might also work.
Essentially what's being said here is that due to the large amount of experimentation being preformed we can back out from the data a matrix that relates each input to all the outputs proportionally. The matrix might adjust with the values of the inputs but still, we can derive a sensitivity to each input based on experimentation. The matrix is the model, and there is no theory involved in it's creation other than all the state assumed is completely documented.
This is already a common practice, and can be seen in things like, for example, state tables for compressed, superheated steam. There's a real gas law model that should predict the nature of steam, but no one uses it, as the tables have proven more accurate over time. And as a designer I don't really care why the steam does what it does, I just care that the tables actually match what happens in reality. they're a good mimic, and thats the point of the model.
Again, this assumes that we can test all the configurations or at least quantify and document them. Despite this being a false assumption for many systems, it is true for many others, and is especially useful when dealing within sets of knowns for design issues and optimization. I don't necessarily think it makes good science, but it does however yield valuable goods for engineering and design in the absence of theory and should not be summarily dismissed. Although I believe there is added value in forming a theoretical model based on assumptions of how the inner workings of a system function, I don't discard the value of not needing such a model in order to have a clear understanding of what outputs will occur for a given set of inputs.
The point of the last story was horribly miscommunicated. There were two main points. The first is that data is expanding in such scope that hierarchal organization systems don't work and that the second is we're approaching a time where the method or analysis of data to show causation will come from correlation, because you can determine all the variances due to the fact that all the variables have been accounted for. Look at the human genome project or folding at home. I don't think this is completely true, but lets not bash the idea or miss the point just cause the original author's a complete bumbling moron.
It's called a bail bondsman, they only need to raise 5k and if they aren't doing that then I'm pretty sure it's because the time served plays well in both the press and the sentencing.
Laws are laws. They were written for a reason and now if has broken those laws he should be punished by those laws. Don't use "kids will be kids" arguments here, as they undermine the value of rule of law. What the hell are you teaching kids when they do something wrong that we say " oh oh well we'll give you a freebe on this one cause your young and smart and that's cute". The laws should be written in such a way that the judge has some discretion in sentence if they are really minor things. And lots of first time offenders draw a "sentence" but serve probation instead and the whole mess gets expunged if they meet the requirements set by the court. More than likely this is not a "life ruining" experience.
Courtney Love gives a much more accurate account for how the racket works. All these "BIG" record deals aren't that "BIG" at all because typically the advance given the band is not just payment to the members, but also supposed to cover production expenses. In other words record company gives you 1.3 million and you go to the recording studio, art studio, and post possessing guys and give 1 million back to the record studio and you're left with 300,000 with which you pay the manager and the artist, making it a 5 or 6 way split. That's 50 grand a piece. And then you never see a penny from your album because that 1.3 million was an advance. Thats why going gold, silver and platinum are such big deals, because they're when the artist starts actually seeing 1.3 cents per song.
I still have my VCR... as far as I know it works seamlessly recording what's coming out of the cable box.
The above poster is very on point. The issue with water injection in automobiles is weight. I'm guessing the above poster used a small tank, and drove short distances so he could afford to fill the water tank many times more frequently than the petrol tank. I did research on this in college when I was studying Marine Engineering and the ratios on some of the engines I worked with approach 50%. There are also startup and shutdown concerns, as well as condensation and corrosion. Larger medium speed diesels in a marine environment with technologies already in place to protect the oil from water contamination, have a low penalty to pay for this technology. For a car this is all added weight and initial cost. And for those who missed the initial posters comment about the injection sequence, the injectors kick in (on marine diesels) right before top dead center. This drops the temperature to just above the auto ignition temperature for the oil. Then the oil is injected and as the oil starts to burn a second blast is given to constrain the temperature (flattening the top of the pressure/temperature cycle and bringing it closer to ideal.) Oh, and it fits well for ships because they can use the exhaust to desalinate the water for injection.
And trust me getting around without a license is pretty god damn difficult. Taxis are expensive and not everything is next to a train station. I think 18 months is a fitting time frame given I lost mine for 3 months just by doubling the speed limit ;)
Open standard? almost every business in the world already has a micros*ft computer. If M$ makes the technology, then how wide spread the implementation is dependent on how much they want to offer it for. If they offer the software for free and then little sender for $10 bucks, it won't matter that they're the only one on the market. And anyone who doesn't believe this look at web development five years ago. I still need to use IE to render pages "correctly" despite Firefox penetration. IF they pull this off and get a wide enough market share then again, they'll be the de-facto standard.
Yes, while some of the land used will be plowed over crop land, some of it will also probably be converted from livestock feed and that would be a good thing. After energy production, livestock production accounts for 18% of green house gas emissions. And as far as switch grass goes, this was an initiative that started out with the goal to use recycled lawn clippings, in which case the harvesting cost would have already been paid, as people are still going to mow and water their yard, no mater how much the price of gas goes up.
Ok, fear and doubt I'll give you, but money? Obama is a cash cow!
It also doesn't hold up in court, that's why that one guy was on the show two times. Not to mention the fame associated with actually being the "volunteer" who catches a predator on live tv raises an inherent conflict of interest.
I've never met a GPL code developer who released his code under GPL because he was forced. I support GPL because I believe if something is important it should be codified and that if you develop something for the community you should protect it for the community. But that doesn't mean that releasing something under an FOSS license without a "recontribute/openness" clause doesn't mean that there won't be active community development. Something built on and from sharing will always foster more sharing, it's an issue of principal.
My point is not that the constitution's restrictions on government's actions has nothing to do with PRIVACY. Protecting PRIVACY was never the intent. It's intent has been expanded over the years, but initially it only covered physical search. The US constitution is a document regulating the INTERACTIONS of the government. PRIVACY is not an interaction and therefore not covered. You have no "Right to Privacy". Arguing that they shouldn't do something because it violates "Your Right to Privacy" is false. Unreasonable search is forbidden by the constitution. If you want to fight something, do so on the grounds that it's based, instead of making things up imaginary "rights". If you really want to have a factual basis for your argument, don't just read the constitution, take the time to understand it. And with out that you don't stand a fat chance of changing a thing. You can't win this by claiming violation of a "Right" that doesn't exist. The only issue here is the reasonable or unreasonable nature of the search. You don't have a right to hide your actions or data from the government. All you have is restrictions on how the government is allowed to uncover those actions. That may seem like a fine line, but it's an important one. There is no restriction on the gathering of information on you, simply the means in which it is gathered. It's not the what but the how that is important.
Show me where in the bill of rights, or anywhere in the constitution, we are granted a "Right to Privacy". The Fourth Amendment stipulates the government reserved the right to search, with limits. You have no right to privacy, not in the US, and as far as I know, in any western country. As far as I know, the only countries with privacy laws are predominately Muslim, as intruding on someone's private space uninvited is considered a crime by their culture.
yeah, I mean all those terrorist plots were completely benign in nature... I swear!
You have missed my point. Creating this data base allows the officer to more quickly gather data he already had access to. Nothing in this database is anything that a zealous officer (or agent of the state for the sake of your conspiracy theory) couldn't dig up on their own. And although you site a figure without any supporting evidence, I will go ahead and back you up and say it's true that in totalitarian nations crime tends to be higher, but correlation and causation are not the same. Causal links have been shown between poverty and crime and it just so happens totalitarian states and poverty have a strong trend as well I don't have a link to back that up, just a minor in the subject. As a good refrence though, try reading the Violence and Terrorism annual editions put out by McGraw-Hill/Dushkin.
Although I agree with you to a large point, facebook didn't start as an anonymous entity. you had to provide a school address to join. and that address was linked to a real life student of faculty account with a real history of your personal identification. And in a way I liked that, because it meant that the persons whose page I was viewing was at least minimally authentic.
The fact of the matter is that most "innocent" civilians aren't at all "innocent". We all break the law, on a daily basis. Be it five over the speed limit, downloading music, misreporting income, littering, whatever, we almost all break some part of the law. It's left up to the officer's discretion to enforce or not enforce. And giving him more information with which to make that decision isn't a bad thing. You can't say we can't have more efficient tools because they can be abused more efficiently. You obviously don't live anywhere where there's a real crime problem. The same analysis tools that are used in this database could be applied to the police force and used to examine the cops for abuses. This should increase transparency, and that should decrease abuse.
These exist and they have them in New Jersey. They are a large part why the registration sticker was removed from the license plate, because now it's a redundancy.
The problem with the NPT is that, like copyright, like pattents, it's really regulating knowledge. And that knowledge, once given, cannot be recinded. That's how North Korea got nuclear technology. They signed the treaty worked with the "Big 5" completely fairly and openly, reached a certain degree of sophistication, and broke ways and developed their own program which weaponized it. So playing by the rules got them in a fair amount of trouble. And with Nukes, I want to see less, not more. Therefore given the gravity of the situation Iran SHOULD be treated with caution given the fact that IT BROKE THE RULES of the NPT by pursuing uranium enrichment in secret.
I think the detection method and patch solution should be handed off to the ISP. They are the ones that suffer the most damage from the worm besides the host and already have the identifying information for the customer so they can contact them in prior to the push. And to everyone saying heart monitors are no big thing, people who use network attached heart monitors do so because they have some need to be monitored. So a monitor going off line is likely going to result in a false alarm generating a trip to the hospital or at the very minimum an emergency response team being dispatched to the residence. And for someone with already substantial medical conditions, the extra expense might not be a non-trivial thing.