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Comments · 479

  1. iChat + Jabber = ? on AOL Opening Up AIM Community to Third Parties · · Score: 1
    I wonder what Steve Jobs is thinking right now, with iChat tying in with AIM. I wonder if iChat users will end up getting a whole slew of weird AIM-based spams and such with it becoming much more open to the world.

    What I think is interesting is that apparently the next version of iChat, which will ship with Tiger, will have Jabber capability. What does this mean for the direction of iChat in the future?

  2. Re:Similar to astronaut montioring on Taking Care of Mobile Patients · · Score: 1
    What is worse your risk is of really nasty (Germ Warfare types etc) bugs getting to you like MRSA and Hemolytic Strep etc.

    In my community, MRSA makes up 50% of the outpatient wound cultures. It's pretty much everywhere at this point. More worrisome are things like a bad influenza strain. We just had a flu death in our hospital--30 year old otherwise healthy female. Now that's a scary bug!

  3. Re:Sorry to say this on Taking Care of Mobile Patients · · Score: 2, Insightful
    Here's a great example from my own experience (Disclaimer: I am a physician who works in Emergency Services). Home blood-pressure monitoring devices are widespread now, such that many patients maintain these devices in their own homes. I sometimes see a half-dozen patients a day who present because they got a "high" number on their blood pressure machine.

    I know exactly what you mean about these patients. The way I've started dealing with them is to take a piece of paper and draw a quick graph that shows the normal variation in various vital signs, particularly blood pressure. "See, this is when you get angry, this is right after your morning coffee hits, this is you right now because you're stuck in the ER with lots of sick people and expecting bad news, etc. Then I explain to them that they may have caught their blood pressure at one of those high peaks, even though their blood pressure is fine overall.

    It can also help to draw a hypothetical line, presumably above where the patient happens to be at the moment (say 200 mmHg), at which point I would explain that it deserves immediate attention.

    It's easier to counter their concern over a hard, concrete number when you visually show them the normal variation in a hard, concrete manner.

  4. Re:Profits at a pharmaceutical company on Patents and Eminent Domain · · Score: 1
    One recent example of a real cure was for ulcers. Someone found the fungus that was causing the problem and a common drug kills the fungus. That killed a two billion dollar a year industry. A related fungicide was found to stop dandruff with the same effect.

    Actually, Helicobacter pylori is a bacteria, though you're right in that it is easily killed with inexpensive antibiotics in combination with other medications. That said, I don't see common antacids like H2 blockers or proton pump inhibitors being withdrawn from the market for lack of sales, either.

  5. Re:Return on Equity at a pharmaceutical company on Patents and Eminent Domain · · Score: 1
    This, too, is easily available. Return on equity is a good measure of whether investors in drug companies are enjoying disproportionate returns. For Pfizer, RoE is 13.46%; for Eli Lilly 17.06%; for Merck 38.46%. For Home Depot, RoE is 21.71%; for Wal-Mart 22.99%; for Staples 18.45%; for Anheuser-Busch 82.26%. The conclusion is the same.

    Not completely disagreeing with your conclusion, but it's not quite fair to compare the big drug companies with a cherry-picked selection of the most profitable companies in different sectors of the economy. Try comparing them to the return on investment of the top 3 or 4 retailers, not just Wal-Mart. Include K-Mart, Target, Sears, or whomever as well. Maybe the top 3 or 4 book publishers or restaurant chains as well.

  6. Re:$1,000 for reading all the way through EULAs? on Man Finds $1,000 Prize in EULA · · Score: 2, Interesting
    Interestingly, in 2002 the ER staff were shocked when I insisted on reading the consent for surgery form before signing it. Most people don't read things that are put in front of them that they're told is standard and must be signed.

    In my ER, the staff would be more surprised that you were even educated enough to read the consent for surgery.

    Anyway, the other reply was correct in that they all pretty much say the same thing--basically that you've been informed about the risks (which pretty much always include death and other nasty things) and benefits (not being dead) and agree to the procedure.

  7. Re:It's like the theory of evolution... on Macrovision Releases DVD Copy Protection · · Score: 2, Informative
    I don't know about you, but whenever I see previews I always press the "Next chapter" button.

    You obviously don't watch enough dvd's to have encountered the already common feature of disabling the navigation buttons during previews and commercials before the main feature starts. Practically every DVD produced today now does this.

  8. Re:This is a Good Thing, IMHO on Sci-Fi Channel Renews Battlestar Galactica · · Score: 2, Insightful
    a) They know they have potential infiltrators but they haven't secured their amories.

    Yeah, because we all know that in real life a competent military organization would never leave a large stockpile of weapons and explosives unsecured even though they knew nearby enemy insurgents might use them to kill members of that same military organization.

    I find this story point completely believable myself.

  9. How? on How GPS Is Killing Lighthouses · · Score: 1
    How GPS Is Killing Lighthouses

    Lemme guess. GPS makes it much easier to hit lighthouses with precision -guided missiles?

  10. Re:Even better on GNOME 2.10 Beta 1 Screenshot Demo · · Score: 1
    Better yet, you can even run KDE and GNOME through X11, in OS X.

    Better yet, you can run KDE applications in OS X natively . It's still alpha and therefore pretty buggy, but it looks pretty good (KDE app icons in the Dock, for instance), and it's making progress. Konqueror seems to work reasonably well as a native app.

  11. Re:What the hell? on Skype For Mac OS X and Linux · · Score: 2, Funny
    Yeah, she has a Mac. =) I use Linux. (But mind you, I am building her a new PC pretty soon... hehe)

    You're building her a new PC when she already uses a Mac? In that case, don't you mean your soon-to-be-former-girlfriend? :)

  12. Re:Apple ///, anyone? on Top 10 Apple Flops · · Score: 1
    They never used "///" again, or any roman numeral above it.

    Umm.... ever heard of Mac OS X? :)

  13. Re:Portland OR: A comment on the town from a resid on Oregon's Governor Backs Open Source Development · · Score: 1

    Normally, I don't bother with people too cowardly to register, but Austin is about Portland's size and is only 65% white. Oklahoma City is almost exactly Portland's size and is also about 65% white. Atlanta has a populuation of 416,000 and is only 33% white. Need I continue? Portland is pretty damned white compared to much of America.

  14. Re:I used to work in the Oregon DOT, and on Oregon's Governor Backs Open Source Development · · Score: 1
    Dont think that a smaller company is any less prone to this type of activity, either. I just got laid off from a 'small comany' (77 employees) - that recently threw 500k into a massivly failed CRM implementation. The key is finding a good company. Size is irrelevant

    The difference is that a big company can continue to waste money like that for years and still stay in business. A small company will often go out of business with a mistake like that. That's why you don't see so many small companies being that wasteful, because the ones that are that wasteful get culled from the herd.

  15. Re:Portland OR: A comment on the town from a resid on Oregon's Governor Backs Open Source Development · · Score: 1
    According to census information, Portland is 78% white. While that is obviously mostly white, there aren't many cities in this country of Portland's size outside of the southwest or southern Florida that are LESS white.

    You're joking, right? In San Francisco county (which is neither Southwest nor in southern Florida) "whites" aren't even a majority. There is no ethnic majority in San Francisco, just minorities of differing numbers. "Whites" make up 49.7% of the population in San Francisco. If you take the Hispanic "whites" out of it, then "whites" are only 43.6% of the population.

    Another example, Dallas County (I don't consider Dallas "southwest" having grown up there) is only 58% "white" according to the 2000 census. I can't find the data just for the city of Dallas, but I'll guarantee you that the city has a higher percentage of ethnic minorities than the county as a whole.

    New Orleans is only 28% white.

    I love Portland, but it's considerably whiter than most of the southern half of this country when compared to other metropolitan areas.

  16. Re:Or Apple hears Anandtech's cry on Price Drops For Mac mini Upgrades · · Score: 1
    No I meant halogen, but there must be different types.

    He didn't say "desklamp", he just said "lamp". Freestanding halogen lamps usually come in 300 W models. They used to come in 500 W models in the US until some people set their drapes on fire with them and died.

  17. Re:about time on Federal Obscenity Rule Nixed In Internet Porn Case · · Score: 1
    There is not a big difference, risk-wise, between alcohol and marijuana

    Actually, I think there is a big difference in the risk of use and/or abuse of alcohol vs. marijuana. Alcohol is clearly more dangerous to abuse, and far more dangerous in withdrawal. Marijuana withdrawal is incapable of causing death or even serious symptoms. Alcohol withdrawal kills lots of people all the time.

  18. Re:Creative wins in sound quality on Creative Gunning For the iPod · · Score: 2, Informative
    My friend was bitching about the quality of his ipod on his $1000 sound system so I hooked up the Creative Nomad Zen Xtra. The sound was louder, with less loss of quality. The difference was frankly, amazing. And the Zen cost $100 less.

    You'll pardon me if I lend absolutely zero relevance to this claim. Unless you're doing at least volume normalizing with a meter, with identical tracks, preferably not lossy-compressed, preferably blinded comparisons, sound quality comparisons are useless. Louder music almost ALWAYS sounds better, as proven by many blinded tests with listeners with far better ears than you or me.

    You'll also pardon me if I don't give much importance to somebody with a $1000 sound system. $1000 isn't really much in the realm of audio systems. My front speakers cost more than that alone, and mine isn't what I would consider audiophile quality.

  19. Re:Poor analogy... on Robots in Medicine · · Score: 1
    oh, yea, Malpractice is up 25% in 10 years (but medical costs have risen much higher...).

    Nice try. In Florida where I used to practice, our malpractice insurance premiums increased 50% in the last two years. Medical costs aren't rising at anything like that fast. Sure we make a comfortable living, but nobody likes to be paid a lot less for a lot more work. Keep that up for a few years, and it really starts to get old.

  20. Ben Affleck is our solution on Introducing Asteroid 2004 MN4 · · Score: 4, Funny
    It sounds like we (or the machines) will need a huge bomb to alter its course. I propose that Ben Affleck and J-Lo make just one more movie together. Then we can launch that at the asteroid. I'm guessing it explodes with enough force to vaporize the asteroid completely.

    Gigli was almost enough to destroy the U.S. by itself. An asteroid should be no problem.

  21. Re:I NEED A DECENT PALM on Palm OS To Run On Linux · · Score: 1
    Yep, it's huge - like 5 gigs compared to 256 megs.

    You mean 5 GB compared to 1 GB . There are 2 GB SD cards coming out now too.

  22. Re:Adult stem cells on Paralyzed Woman Walks Again · · Score: 1
    Prell said:

    Once conception has taken place, it is inevitable that birth will take place.

    I guess you don't know enough about human reproduction to realize that the a large percentage of human conceptions result in spontaneous abortions. Full-term birth, or even premature delivery, is far from assured at the point of fertilization.

  23. Re:This trend is already over on Does Redskins Loss Presage A Kerry Win? · · Score: 1
    Yeah seriously heh. That was my bad guys.

    That's all right. You have a 6-digit UID after all. Hey wait....

    :-)

  24. Re:This trend is already over on Does Redskins Loss Presage A Kerry Win? · · Score: 4, Informative
    It died in 1996 - the Redskins lost to the Bills 38-13 and Bill Clinton was reelected two days later.

    No, it didn't. The tradition states that the last Washington home game before the election is predictive. The game you refer to was played in Buffalo. The last home game before that election was against Indianapolis, which the Redskins won. Thus, they predicted the win for the incumbent Democrat. This is also noted on snopes.com.

  25. Re:Shenanigans! on New Mexico Touchscreen Voting Problems · · Score: 1
    But I'm confident that the predicted widespread failure of these machines and the untold number of votes to be lost from poll worker error will be due primarily to widespread incompetence, and not malice.

    It's not necessarily either/or. There can easily be both widespread incompetence AND malice. I'm capable of believing the government of both, particularly the current administration.