Really, the most disturbing thing to me in the article is the lack of remorse these girls displayed after the fact. I understand that high school is messed up, but who the hell makes jerk comments on a memorial page? That seems pretty damn sociopathic even by the standards of high school.
Kids these days are jaded as can be. I can't say that I know the cause of it, but I do know that each successive class following mine (graduated from college 2 years ago) that went through my high school was more and more jaded. I've heard a lot of folk say that it comes from an over exposure to, 'startling/shocking,' content via the internet and TV and such. I've heard a lot of folks attribute it to poor parenting. I've heard even more folks attribute it to drugs and loud music and the like.
I can't say that I agree with any of that, but one thing I do notice is that younger kids these days can be heartless, cutthroat, brutal, and downright apathetic. Maybe it comes from the fact that kids have fewer venues through which to meaningfully express their feelings and frustrations? If a kid writes a harsh poem or letter at school, he gets suspended/punished for expressing himself. If a kid gets bullied, he can't fight back without all hell being raised over violence at school. As a result, maybe, a lot of kids have just learned to bottle stuff up inside, glaze themselves over with a thick shell of, "I don't give a damn," and, thus, are capable of extraordinary acts of ruthlessness.
I agree with you that the lack of remorse displayed by the bullies is nauseating. I wouldn't claim that all kids are capable of such jacked up nonsense. However, I think kids may be getting more cynical, bitter, and just plain dark at younger ages these days. Then again, maybe I am just getting older.
Hey buddy, as a crotchety old retired man, those tall daunting stairs with all their possible hip breaks will look mighty risky even to the likes of you. =P
I call bullshit on that as a tried and true bullshitter! (ironic? interesting? weird?) We bullshitters know damned well that the shit we are flinging is utter filth and poppycock. We don't bullshit because be believe in some kind of moronic cause that we're preaching for. That's called willful ignorance and/or naivete. We bullshitters bullshit because it's funny to us. We bullshit because we learned that we can manipulate people who do not think rigorously by bullshitting. We bullshit because the fish really WAS THAT BIG. We bullshit because, at the end of the day, we bullshitters know that the world is what we make it out to be and if we bullshit and exaggerate just a little more, well then, maybe some of that bullshit can wash away some of that rampant cynicism that makes so many folks so drab to hang out with.
So as a loud, proud, slashdot bullshitter, I say to you my friend, bullshit! We don't believe a damned word that comes spewing out of our mouths. Our lives are satires. Our words, hypocrisy, Our actions are the punch line.
As a 24 year old, 2 years in industry Aerospace Engineer, I would like to ask, are you interested in restarting that apprenticeship program you talked about? I get the feeling I could learn a lot from you.
That's a fast dying stereotype my friend. You should check out: Shop Class as Soulcraft by Matthew B. Crawford. It's a hell of an interesting read and it makes for a good discussion of service sector jobs in an increasingly complex society like our own. Furthermore, it hits on some good old fashioned common sense discussions of white collar versus blue collar jobs. Personally, I've been thinking about opening a motorcycle shop since I read it (and yes, I do have prior experience working on motorcycles).
We could upload commands to our orbiting spacecraft to go into safe mode and shut down sensitive electronics and what not. Most modern spacecraft are designed with a safe mode that can be triggered manually just for cases involving heavy solar activity. Believe it or not, those of us on the spacecraft industry do plan ahead from time to time.
SpaceX has plans for a Super Heavy Falcon vehicle with a 27 engine configuration. That should be able to get large payloads out to GEO and some smaller payloads out to lunar orbit. That said, don't put it past COTs to try something completely batshit insane like that. They have the freedom to do so. NASA no longer does.
When in a field of nettle, even a dead Lotus flower looks beautiful.
It doesn't matter if other companies (American or otherwise) will or won't suck up to China. What matters is that there are some companies, hell, even one company that won't.
It didn't matter that most physicists considered time to be static in the early 1900's, all it took was one (Einstein) to say otherwise to have an impact.
So sure, wallow in your apathetic complacency and pretend like you are enlightened for doing so. In the mean time, the folk that work at Google are actually wrestling with ethical dilemmas instead of shrugging their shoulders and saying, effectively, "Meh, fuck it, the world's a shitty place and I don't want to deal with it." For that, they earn my respect. You, sir, however, do not.
The most wide spread vulnerability to internet activity today is not something that can be fixed with an anti virus program, or any kind of program for that matter. When it comes down to it, the primary vulnerability is the meat bag sitting at the keyboard. People are stupid. They don't mean to be. They don't try to be. Still, they are (myself included on plenty of occasions). As a result, all a successful hack has to rely on is convincing a large number of stupid people to do something stupid. That's really not that hard.
We see this in other fields. People do stupid shit all over the place and we try to fix it by teaching people that they can't keep doing dumb stuff. For instance, if you give a pissed off teenager the keys to a car, he/she will drive it recklessly fast. So we have cops out there to teach them different. We hope parents try to teach them different. If all else fails, we have to take forceful action to protect them from themselves (court, gavel, community service and/or jail time). On a large scale, if some group of people pick a fight with another group of people over something stupid (like some kind of zealous ideal or discrimination), sometimes we have to intervene with force to tell them to knock it the crap off (war). It seems terrible. It is a pain in the ass. But it stems from the fact that, often, competent and intelligent folk often need to protect the stupid folk from themselves (or at least we humans convince ourselves of that).
So, those blurry analogies drawn, it all boils down to a simple fact. People are stupid. And as Ron White put it, "You can't fix stupid."
At best, those who are less stupid than others need to work (and sometimes fight) to protect the stupid people from themselves. In other words, the cyber security model needs to evolve from a passive defense, to an aggressive offense taken against the stupid attackers who continually exploit stupid users. In other words, out-compete the sheisters.
This material could be another boom material for the spacecraft industry. Some of the heavier hardware on any given space payload is the thermal control system. Using a combination of heat pipes and surfaces coated in various colors of paint for heat control can add a significant amount of weight to a spacecraft. If this material can be added as a thermal layer to the MLI layers that are tacked onto the outside of a spacecraft, it may go a long way in reducing and simplifying the thermal control subsystem of the given payload. In fact, since it is a simple plastic, it should be significantly lighter than various metal contacts and conduction paths within a spacecraft that are used today.
The single dimension (not direction) transfer mechanism could also be very useful. If you can ensure that heat will move along only a single axis, you have a bit more freedom in placing sensitive components in and around your conduction paths within your spacecraft. All in all, this could be a really useful material, if it can ever be scaled up for use in industrial applications. Here's hoping.
They also get raped and stabbed pretty regularly. I know a few folks who are prison guards. Despite all the perks you list, I would rather live my (according to you) less glamorous life on the outside where I am not going to get shivved for looking at someone the wrong way.
Make no mistake about it, prison in the USA sucks for the most part. It's not a rehabilitation program. For many folks, its a death sentence, whether that's what the courts ruled their punishment to be or not.
I hear Andorra and Sweden are a bit better depending on what, specifically, you are looking for. Most of the German folk I've met have pretty major gripes about their government. However, I've never visited Andorra or Sweden...yet anyways.
Don't be ridiculous. This is a story posted by kdawson. If it doesn't involve some maniacal government conspiracy to rape the public it's not worth posting.
It takes me 30 minutes to drive to work every day. It is a 22 mi (no I am not converting it to km for the rest of you) drive one way. So if I follow the windy ass road through the farm fields and behind all of the big rigs and tractors, I get there in 30 minutes. If I get thirty minutes in the air, point my jet pack at the proper flight azimuth to go straight to work, I wager I could make it most of the way there every morning. At the least, I could make it to the petrol station and refill.
You will get engine failures on these every couple of hundred hours of flying time, and most likely it'll occur when the engine is under load in initial takeoff or landing.
That's probably why the company suggest that proper maintenance includes:
100 hours engine TBO (Time Between Overhaul)
In other words, having the engine tuned and overhauled before you reach that couple hundred flying hours. Don't let RTFA get in the way of your unhinged cynicism or anything though. That would be inconvenient.
I would make a comment that folk shouldn't go through with such an invasive treatment without thoroughly researching the possible consequences. Then again, we are talking about folk with degenerative joint conditions that have been given the possibility to walk again. That said, I can see how the patients would have made a less than rational assessment. So, yeah, another fair point.
In most sane and civilized contexts, rebel, hacker, and free thinker are not compliments either. Luckily for us both, the world is not always a sane and civilized place.
A fair point. That's why I said I can't really testament to the medical benefits/drawbacks. I just find the attitude displayed by the doctor to be, while reckless, somewhat refreshing in the States these days.
Now, the article does say:
Importantly, RSI seems to be upfront with patients about the limits of their own technique. The website FAQ clearly states that not all results will be like the testimonials, and they even have a dedicated page explaining that stem cell therapies won’t work for everyone. Furthermore, RSI has published the largest study of risks and complications associated with stem cell treatments yet produced in the US (N=227). That paper demonstrates the very low harm associated with stem cell therapies – much lower than the alternative surgery(published in Current Stem Cell Research & Therapy).
Which at least seems to imply that Dr. Centeno is trying to be honest with his patients. Unfortunately, the paper linked to in the article (which claims to show that there are not harmful complications involving this particular therapy) is authored by Centeno. So its hard to say that the paper is unbiased. However, the full paper does appear to be available for download and is linked to in the article. I would hope that someone with a medical background would shoot it down if it is, indeed, BS.
At first glance, the major flaw that I can find in the paper is that it is based on a study where follow up times on patients treated was 10.6 months (mean, +- 7.3). That said, that probably is not enough time to see if cancer is going to develop in a significant number of the patients. At least, it doesn't seem like enough time to me. However, I don't have a biological background so I can't claim to know how fast it would take stem cells to develop into a cancer.
What it comes down to, therefore, is a matter of time. As you said, time will tell how dangerous/effective this particular treatment is.
I will still stand by my original claim, however, that this kind of, 'get-shit-done,' attitude is a refreshing break from the norm for US society. Sometimes progress requires risk. Sometimes those risks get the better of us and we all pay the consequences. Sometimes those risks get us to new heights. Dr. Centeno is, very obviously, a risk taker. His patients, too, are risk takers (supposing they have been properly informed about the subject). For that, I praise all of them, and wish them luck.
I can't speak to the medical benefits/drawbacks of stem cell therapies as I am not a doctor. However, I have to say that the attitude and gumption displayed by Dr. Centeno in his field is inspiring. Despite all the legal bullshittery and political asshatting going on around the country with regards to stem cell therapy, he managed to pioneer forward, develop some techniques and facilities, and find enough of a technicality to bring an actual treatment to his actual patients. That's a classic American cowboy attitude on display right there. He didn't let his exhaustion or cynicism get him down. He pioneered and worked hard and now ~80% of his patients are reaping the benefits. I have to say, that is very inspiring.
Folk like Dr. Centeno deserve a lot of recognition and thanks. I, for one, wish him luck. As soon as the blood-sucking lawyers get ahold of him, he's going to need it.
Yep, and at the time, the US was NOT the major power player in the world. Nowadays, the US has buy-in to the current system. Everyone from the politicians to the homeless folk on the streets have something to lose if the status quo changes in any significant manner. That said, rather than be the cocky young new kid on the block, that can try new things and write strongly worded declarations denouncing the old way of doing things, the US has grown into the upper management, middle aged, slick haired fellow that will screw you for a dollar, not out of maliciousness, but out of a desire for the preservation of his own way of life.
Once a country has something to lose, they will fight damn hard to keep it.
Slashdot Mirror
Really, the most disturbing thing to me in the article is the lack of remorse these girls displayed after the fact. I understand that high school is messed up, but who the hell makes jerk comments on a memorial page? That seems pretty damn sociopathic even by the standards of high school.
Kids these days are jaded as can be. I can't say that I know the cause of it, but I do know that each successive class following mine (graduated from college 2 years ago) that went through my high school was more and more jaded. I've heard a lot of folk say that it comes from an over exposure to, 'startling/shocking,' content via the internet and TV and such. I've heard a lot of folks attribute it to poor parenting. I've heard even more folks attribute it to drugs and loud music and the like.
I can't say that I agree with any of that, but one thing I do notice is that younger kids these days can be heartless, cutthroat, brutal, and downright apathetic. Maybe it comes from the fact that kids have fewer venues through which to meaningfully express their feelings and frustrations? If a kid writes a harsh poem or letter at school, he gets suspended/punished for expressing himself. If a kid gets bullied, he can't fight back without all hell being raised over violence at school. As a result, maybe, a lot of kids have just learned to bottle stuff up inside, glaze themselves over with a thick shell of, "I don't give a damn," and, thus, are capable of extraordinary acts of ruthlessness.
I agree with you that the lack of remorse displayed by the bullies is nauseating. I wouldn't claim that all kids are capable of such jacked up nonsense. However, I think kids may be getting more cynical, bitter, and just plain dark at younger ages these days. Then again, maybe I am just getting older.
Step 1: Get your damn units straightened out ahead of time.
Following that, the rest should be a piece of cake.
Hey buddy, as a crotchety old retired man, those tall daunting stairs with all their possible hip breaks will look mighty risky even to the likes of you. =P
Bullshitters believe the crap they spout.
I call bullshit on that as a tried and true bullshitter! (ironic? interesting? weird?) We bullshitters know damned well that the shit we are flinging is utter filth and poppycock. We don't bullshit because be believe in some kind of moronic cause that we're preaching for. That's called willful ignorance and/or naivete. We bullshitters bullshit because it's funny to us. We bullshit because we learned that we can manipulate people who do not think rigorously by bullshitting. We bullshit because the fish really WAS THAT BIG. We bullshit because, at the end of the day, we bullshitters know that the world is what we make it out to be and if we bullshit and exaggerate just a little more, well then, maybe some of that bullshit can wash away some of that rampant cynicism that makes so many folks so drab to hang out with.
So as a loud, proud, slashdot bullshitter, I say to you my friend, bullshit! We don't believe a damned word that comes spewing out of our mouths. Our lives are satires. Our words, hypocrisy, Our actions are the punch line.
As a 24 year old, 2 years in industry Aerospace Engineer, I would like to ask, are you interested in restarting that apprenticeship program you talked about? I get the feeling I could learn a lot from you.
but none of these jobs pay very well
That's a fast dying stereotype my friend. You should check out: Shop Class as Soulcraft by Matthew B. Crawford. It's a hell of an interesting read and it makes for a good discussion of service sector jobs in an increasingly complex society like our own. Furthermore, it hits on some good old fashioned common sense discussions of white collar versus blue collar jobs. Personally, I've been thinking about opening a motorcycle shop since I read it (and yes, I do have prior experience working on motorcycles).
But what could we DO about it?
We could upload commands to our orbiting spacecraft to go into safe mode and shut down sensitive electronics and what not. Most modern spacecraft are designed with a safe mode that can be triggered manually just for cases involving heavy solar activity. Believe it or not, those of us on the spacecraft industry do plan ahead from time to time.
SpaceX has plans for a Super Heavy Falcon vehicle with a 27 engine configuration. That should be able to get large payloads out to GEO and some smaller payloads out to lunar orbit. That said, don't put it past COTs to try something completely batshit insane like that. They have the freedom to do so. NASA no longer does.
When in a field of nettle, even a dead Lotus flower looks beautiful.
It doesn't matter if other companies (American or otherwise) will or won't suck up to China. What matters is that there are some companies, hell, even one company that won't.
It didn't matter that most physicists considered time to be static in the early 1900's, all it took was one (Einstein) to say otherwise to have an impact.
So sure, wallow in your apathetic complacency and pretend like you are enlightened for doing so. In the mean time, the folk that work at Google are actually wrestling with ethical dilemmas instead of shrugging their shoulders and saying, effectively, "Meh, fuck it, the world's a shitty place and I don't want to deal with it." For that, they earn my respect. You, sir, however, do not.
Chuck Norris....or Picard, you pick.
The most wide spread vulnerability to internet activity today is not something that can be fixed with an anti virus program, or any kind of program for that matter. When it comes down to it, the primary vulnerability is the meat bag sitting at the keyboard. People are stupid. They don't mean to be. They don't try to be. Still, they are (myself included on plenty of occasions). As a result, all a successful hack has to rely on is convincing a large number of stupid people to do something stupid. That's really not that hard.
We see this in other fields. People do stupid shit all over the place and we try to fix it by teaching people that they can't keep doing dumb stuff. For instance, if you give a pissed off teenager the keys to a car, he/she will drive it recklessly fast. So we have cops out there to teach them different. We hope parents try to teach them different. If all else fails, we have to take forceful action to protect them from themselves (court, gavel, community service and/or jail time). On a large scale, if some group of people pick a fight with another group of people over something stupid (like some kind of zealous ideal or discrimination), sometimes we have to intervene with force to tell them to knock it the crap off (war). It seems terrible. It is a pain in the ass. But it stems from the fact that, often, competent and intelligent folk often need to protect the stupid folk from themselves (or at least we humans convince ourselves of that).
So, those blurry analogies drawn, it all boils down to a simple fact. People are stupid. And as Ron White put it, "You can't fix stupid."
At best, those who are less stupid than others need to work (and sometimes fight) to protect the stupid people from themselves. In other words, the cyber security model needs to evolve from a passive defense, to an aggressive offense taken against the stupid attackers who continually exploit stupid users. In other words, out-compete the sheisters.
This material could be another boom material for the spacecraft industry. Some of the heavier hardware on any given space payload is the thermal control system. Using a combination of heat pipes and surfaces coated in various colors of paint for heat control can add a significant amount of weight to a spacecraft. If this material can be added as a thermal layer to the MLI layers that are tacked onto the outside of a spacecraft, it may go a long way in reducing and simplifying the thermal control subsystem of the given payload. In fact, since it is a simple plastic, it should be significantly lighter than various metal contacts and conduction paths within a spacecraft that are used today.
The single dimension (not direction) transfer mechanism could also be very useful. If you can ensure that heat will move along only a single axis, you have a bit more freedom in placing sensitive components in and around your conduction paths within your spacecraft. All in all, this could be a really useful material, if it can ever be scaled up for use in industrial applications. Here's hoping.
*crosses fingers*
What exactly does he eat?
Babies. He's a politician.
They also get raped and stabbed pretty regularly. I know a few folks who are prison guards. Despite all the perks you list, I would rather live my (according to you) less glamorous life on the outside where I am not going to get shivved for looking at someone the wrong way.
Make no mistake about it, prison in the USA sucks for the most part. It's not a rehabilitation program. For many folks, its a death sentence, whether that's what the courts ruled their punishment to be or not.
Cheers.
What's the interest in Star Wars movies anyway?
Secondly, with regards to:
It would be interesting to see a James Bond like movie in space setting
Finally, you can turn in your geek card at the door on your way out. Thanks for playing.
I hear Andorra and Sweden are a bit better depending on what, specifically, you are looking for. Most of the German folk I've met have pretty major gripes about their government. However, I've never visited Andorra or Sweden...yet anyways.
Don't be ridiculous. This is a story posted by kdawson. If it doesn't involve some maniacal government conspiracy to rape the public it's not worth posting.
[insert you must be new joke here]
It takes me 30 minutes to drive to work every day. It is a 22 mi (no I am not converting it to km for the rest of you) drive one way. So if I follow the windy ass road through the farm fields and behind all of the big rigs and tractors, I get there in 30 minutes. If I get thirty minutes in the air, point my jet pack at the proper flight azimuth to go straight to work, I wager I could make it most of the way there every morning. At the least, I could make it to the petrol station and refill.
Good enough for me.
You will get engine failures on these every couple of hundred hours of flying time, and most likely it'll occur when the engine is under load in initial takeoff or landing.
That's probably why the company suggest that proper maintenance includes:
100 hours engine TBO (Time Between Overhaul)
In other words, having the engine tuned and overhauled before you reach that couple hundred flying hours. Don't let RTFA get in the way of your unhinged cynicism or anything though. That would be inconvenient.
I would make a comment that folk shouldn't go through with such an invasive treatment without thoroughly researching the possible consequences. Then again, we are talking about folk with degenerative joint conditions that have been given the possibility to walk again. That said, I can see how the patients would have made a less than rational assessment. So, yeah, another fair point.
In most sane and civilized contexts, rebel, hacker, and free thinker are not compliments either. Luckily for us both, the world is not always a sane and civilized place.
See also, "aristocrat"
Well, he has this paper that he wrote: Safety and Complications Reporting on the Re-implantation of Culture-Expanded Mesenchymal Stem Cells using Autologous Platelet Lysate Technique
I don't know how credible that particular journal/magazine is as I am not familiar with it. But it is published openly.
Now, the article does say:
Importantly, RSI seems to be upfront with patients about the limits of their own technique. The website FAQ clearly states that not all results will be like the testimonials, and they even have a dedicated page explaining that stem cell therapies won’t work for everyone. Furthermore, RSI has published the largest study of risks and complications associated with stem cell treatments yet produced in the US (N=227). That paper demonstrates the very low harm associated with stem cell therapies – much lower than the alternative surgery(published in Current Stem Cell Research & Therapy).
Which at least seems to imply that Dr. Centeno is trying to be honest with his patients. Unfortunately, the paper linked to in the article (which claims to show that there are not harmful complications involving this particular therapy) is authored by Centeno. So its hard to say that the paper is unbiased. However, the full paper does appear to be available for download and is linked to in the article. I would hope that someone with a medical background would shoot it down if it is, indeed, BS.
At first glance, the major flaw that I can find in the paper is that it is based on a study where follow up times on patients treated was 10.6 months (mean, +- 7.3). That said, that probably is not enough time to see if cancer is going to develop in a significant number of the patients. At least, it doesn't seem like enough time to me. However, I don't have a biological background so I can't claim to know how fast it would take stem cells to develop into a cancer.
What it comes down to, therefore, is a matter of time. As you said, time will tell how dangerous/effective this particular treatment is.
I will still stand by my original claim, however, that this kind of, 'get-shit-done,' attitude is a refreshing break from the norm for US society. Sometimes progress requires risk. Sometimes those risks get the better of us and we all pay the consequences. Sometimes those risks get us to new heights. Dr. Centeno is, very obviously, a risk taker. His patients, too, are risk takers (supposing they have been properly informed about the subject). For that, I praise all of them, and wish them luck.
I can't speak to the medical benefits/drawbacks of stem cell therapies as I am not a doctor. However, I have to say that the attitude and gumption displayed by Dr. Centeno in his field is inspiring. Despite all the legal bullshittery and political asshatting going on around the country with regards to stem cell therapy, he managed to pioneer forward, develop some techniques and facilities, and find enough of a technicality to bring an actual treatment to his actual patients. That's a classic American cowboy attitude on display right there. He didn't let his exhaustion or cynicism get him down. He pioneered and worked hard and now ~80% of his patients are reaping the benefits. I have to say, that is very inspiring.
Folk like Dr. Centeno deserve a lot of recognition and thanks. I, for one, wish him luck. As soon as the blood-sucking lawyers get ahold of him, he's going to need it.
Yep, and at the time, the US was NOT the major power player in the world. Nowadays, the US has buy-in to the current system. Everyone from the politicians to the homeless folk on the streets have something to lose if the status quo changes in any significant manner. That said, rather than be the cocky young new kid on the block, that can try new things and write strongly worded declarations denouncing the old way of doing things, the US has grown into the upper management, middle aged, slick haired fellow that will screw you for a dollar, not out of maliciousness, but out of a desire for the preservation of his own way of life.
Once a country has something to lose, they will fight damn hard to keep it.
The US has a lot to lose these days.