Not true. Religion is in sharp decline in many first-world countries. A cultural attitude that prevalently paints religion as an outdated custom has had enormous success; the Church of Sweden claimed to have 82.9% of the country's population as followers in 2000 and 72.9% in 2008. The US is pretty remarkable in its capacity to continually invent tribal shamans.
Indeed not—but it does mean we need to change our rhetoric towards the unenlightened. "This whole 'god' thing was nice for all those thousands years and all that we kept re-inventing religion, but it's time to move on from old instincts; you're smart enough to grow beyond that system of social control" comes across a lot more pleasantly than "you're stupid and you should reject everything that you believe because it's all made-up trash."
I said the treatments in question were nonsense, not that stem cell therapy is bad. This is like prescribing a cancer drug for a broken femur: powerful, but irrelevant.
(b) Genetic therapy could work for some of these diseases, but the topic of discussion is stem cell therapy. That's used for repairing damaged organs. It can't fix developmental problems within tissue that isn't being removed.
(c) I am a biologist and I have worked in a lab studying autistic spectrum disorders.
It's snake oil. None of the treatments work, or could possibly work. Employing them is about as unscientific as homeopathy; merely more cleverly disguised through the use of a subject that is not well-understood. In most cases, the injected stem cells probably die after a few days.
Yeah... another person pointed out that you can just take off your insulin pump and use needles until a less-fallible replacement can be obtained. It would be a pretty empty threat even if put into practice.
Still, that being said, kidnappings for ransom do happen on a rampant level in e.g. Mexico. I wouldn't say "mine bitcoins" is quite the end-all be-all of criminal organisation. But your point is taken.
...but yeah, there's that, too. (I think there was supposed to be a sarcastic, "and who exactly can afford American health insurance?" in there somewhere.)
1. Find some kind of radio that (a) is online, (b) is common, (c) can be hacked into, and (d) can be tuned to interact with the medical devices. This lets you connect the medical devices to the Internet. It may very well be impossible to find such a device, or it may be as common as a cheap Chinese phone with built-in FM transmission for car dashboard integration. I dunno. Too tired to RTFA.
2. Break into a large number of these radios and scan the area around them for potential targets: anyone with the right insulin pump will do.
3. Figure out who they are, through proximity to the base station over a long period of time, and social network activity.
4. Send e-mails threatening to give them a lethal dose of insulin unless they send a bunch of money.
Like malware that demands money or destroys your computer, it's a pretty comprehensive form of blackmail. And unlike your gun proposal, it's a lot harder to trace. I agree that this offers very limited benefit to an assassin, largely because of the convenience of so many non-insulin-pump-related methods of murder, but for something like mass blackmail, where the incentive is to make money rather than kill, the potential is much more scary. Never before have people been able to threaten death on people without being physically present in some way.
Okay, perhaps not any old wireless router will be sufficiently reconfigurable, but there's probably [i]something[/i] common enough that's online and could be rewired to act as a scanner for these things.
That lacks the benefits of internet anonymity as cherished by organized crime. This sort of strategy has done wonders for holding up offshore online casinos with DDoS threats.
You're thinking about the problem backward—just scan for people with diabetes and hold them hostage. If they've got one of these expensive insulin injectors and they're in the US, then they're probably filthy rich already.
Who needs a high-value target when you could hold any diabetic hostage for ransom? All it takes is a vulnerable wireless router with a sufficiently flexible transmitter, and the ability to scan for a nearby victim. Barring the implacable reality of device incompatibility, this is scary stuff.
Because they exclusively produced bitty-boxes, Commodore really isn't as well-recognized for the hackish culture of its staff as it should be. But in fact, the people who worked there really had a lot of great ideas and a great mindset. This video from 1994 was shot by Dave Haynie on the day Commodore's headquarters in West Chester, PA finally shuttered. Toward the end there's a really neat segment where he goes into the lab where new Amigas were developed. At long last, a chance to see who was on the other side of those diagrams.:)
I know how you feel! I wish I could say the same about my stalkers. The trollish ones are all creepy. (The rest are great, though.)
Although I think this time he may have a point... congressmen are pretty affordable. 3.7 million might be enough to get a small piece of legislation introduced, even if not seriously discussed.
Slashdot Mirror
Not true. Religion is in sharp decline in many first-world countries. A cultural attitude that prevalently paints religion as an outdated custom has had enormous success; the Church of Sweden claimed to have 82.9% of the country's population as followers in 2000 and 72.9% in 2008. The US is pretty remarkable in its capacity to continually invent tribal shamans.
Indeed not—but it does mean we need to change our rhetoric towards the unenlightened. "This whole 'god' thing was nice for all those thousands years and all that we kept re-inventing religion, but it's time to move on from old instincts; you're smart enough to grow beyond that system of social control" comes across a lot more pleasantly than "you're stupid and you should reject everything that you believe because it's all made-up trash."
I said the treatments in question were nonsense, not that stem cell therapy is bad. This is like prescribing a cancer drug for a broken femur: powerful, but irrelevant.
Wow. Jump out a window much?
(a) It's in the fucking article.
(b) Genetic therapy could work for some of these diseases, but the topic of discussion is stem cell therapy. That's used for repairing damaged organs. It can't fix developmental problems within tissue that isn't being removed.
(c) I am a biologist and I have worked in a lab studying autistic spectrum disorders.
Have a nice day.
It's snake oil. None of the treatments work, or could possibly work. Employing them is about as unscientific as homeopathy; merely more cleverly disguised through the use of a subject that is not well-understood. In most cases, the injected stem cells probably die after a few days.
I have a simpler way of phrasing it: "law enforcement cannot be held responsible for not respecting people."
Yyyyyyeah... someone else already pointed that out. In the absence of a profit motive, though, it'll probably never be worthwhile to actually do.
No! All we need to do is throw more money at the problem! Money always solves everything!
Yeah... another person pointed out that you can just take off your insulin pump and use needles until a less-fallible replacement can be obtained. It would be a pretty empty threat even if put into practice.
Still, that being said, kidnappings for ransom do happen on a rampant level in e.g. Mexico. I wouldn't say "mine bitcoins" is quite the end-all be-all of criminal organisation. But your point is taken.
Perhaps, but it would suffice to subvert any threat on one's life.
But I have a business PIN number too!
Oh... oh no.
...but yeah, there's that, too. (I think there was supposed to be a sarcastic, "and who exactly can afford American health insurance?" in there somewhere.)
It was a silly idea; diabetics can just take off the pump and use manual injections. It'd never really work.
Dammit! Nothing. Good show.
No, no, that's not the idea. The plan is this:
1. Find some kind of radio that (a) is online, (b) is common, (c) can be hacked into, and (d) can be tuned to interact with the medical devices. This lets you connect the medical devices to the Internet. It may very well be impossible to find such a device, or it may be as common as a cheap Chinese phone with built-in FM transmission for car dashboard integration. I dunno. Too tired to RTFA.
2. Break into a large number of these radios and scan the area around them for potential targets: anyone with the right insulin pump will do.
3. Figure out who they are, through proximity to the base station over a long period of time, and social network activity.
4. Send e-mails threatening to give them a lethal dose of insulin unless they send a bunch of money.
Like malware that demands money or destroys your computer, it's a pretty comprehensive form of blackmail. And unlike your gun proposal, it's a lot harder to trace. I agree that this offers very limited benefit to an assassin, largely because of the convenience of so many non-insulin-pump-related methods of murder, but for something like mass blackmail, where the incentive is to make money rather than kill, the potential is much more scary. Never before have people been able to threaten death on people without being physically present in some way.
I don't want to live on this planet any more.
No! Not BB-style italics! The one true faux pas! My family's honour is destroyed!
Okay, perhaps not any old wireless router will be sufficiently reconfigurable, but there's probably [i]something[/i] common enough that's online and could be rewired to act as a scanner for these things.
That lacks the benefits of internet anonymity as cherished by organized crime. This sort of strategy has done wonders for holding up offshore online casinos with DDoS threats.
You're thinking about the problem backward—just scan for people with diabetes and hold them hostage. If they've got one of these expensive insulin injectors and they're in the US, then they're probably filthy rich already.
Who needs a high-value target when you could hold any diabetic hostage for ransom? All it takes is a vulnerable wireless router with a sufficiently flexible transmitter, and the ability to scan for a nearby victim. Barring the implacable reality of device incompatibility, this is scary stuff.
One can only hope. Take care, and good luck with you endeavours!
Crud... my mistake. That video segment doesn't include the lab. It's out there on the internet somewhere!
Because they exclusively produced bitty-boxes, Commodore really isn't as well-recognized for the hackish culture of its staff as it should be. But in fact, the people who worked there really had a lot of great ideas and a great mindset. This video from 1994 was shot by Dave Haynie on the day Commodore's headquarters in West Chester, PA finally shuttered. Toward the end there's a really neat segment where he goes into the lab where new Amigas were developed. At long last, a chance to see who was on the other side of those diagrams. :)
I know how you feel! I wish I could say the same about my stalkers. The trollish ones are all creepy. (The rest are great, though.)
Although I think this time he may have a point... congressmen are pretty affordable. 3.7 million might be enough to get a small piece of legislation introduced, even if not seriously discussed.