I've wondered why there is not an automated racing series.... most new performance technologies are vetted first on the racetrack.
Because there is no money in it. The fact that racing is a test bed for a lot of technology is incidental. Nobody watches auto racing because of that fact and they certainly don't pay money because of it.
This would be a great way to develop bulletproof software.
You run into a lot of pedestrians, bad weather, bad roads, wildlife, oncoming traffic, crossing traffic, traffic lights, etc on a racetrack? If so where are you watching racing? The only automotive racing that might make a credible test bed would be rally car racing and that doesn't deal with any of the city obstacles.
I've been a supporter of McLaren since I was a kid. I could never support an Apple F1 team.
Ok, honest question. Though I know who the teams are I'm not a follower of F1. Why do you care one way or the other about McLaren? What do they do that makes them particularly worthy of your adoration among F1 teams? And why would Apple owning them affect that adoration in any way? Obviously it doesn't bother you that the government of Bahrain is a 50% owner why should it matter if Apple is the owner instead? Not being critical I just don't understand your position.
I know it's a corporate entity and it shouldn't matter who owns/runs them- but on a basic level it would ruin it for me.
Not seeing the logic in your position. And frankly the F1 part of the company is merely the most visible part.
You have to pick or choose which shows you care to stop watching OR just go back to subscribing to the bloated service that was cable TV because it's getting to the point where the prices are even if you want a good selection of shows.
That's the problem. I want ala-carte service but I'm not about to pay for 12 different ersatz networks and end up paying more than I currently do. I'm certainly not going to pay for Netflix (or Hulu or...) for just one or two shows. Doesn't matter how good they are.
I miss the days it was just Netflix and Netflix had just about everything.
You'll have to remind me when that was because to me their streaming service has never "had just about everything" or even close to it. I tried and dropped Netflix twice because their content catalog was full of crap I had no interest in (lots of old shitty B movies and old tv shows I didn't care about) and missing a lot of stuff I actually did have some interest in. Maybe it suits your interests better than mine but I found Netflix streaming to be poor value for money.
The question, put more precisely here is: why does a car need to be on a packet switched network?
Lots of reasons. Map updates, traffic updates, relaying location, weather updates, infotainment, concierge services, updates to car features, etc. The list is almost endless if one thinks about it.
The conclusion I come to is that as a convenience factor for the company, it's easier to have it on a network.
It's not just a convenience for the car company though that is a real factor. It's also a convenience for the car owner. If there is a recall on something software related (which happens a lot these days) it is MUCH more convenient for the car owner to not have to waste a substantial portion of the day scheduling time at a repair facility to have the problem fixed or the update applied. It's also much easier to receive a lot of useful updates (maps, traffic, weather, etc) via a network and in time I think there will be some interesting safety features relating to how cars talk to each other to avoid accidents and minimize traffic delays.
However, it opens up a huge attack surface.
Yes it does and I discussed this somewhat in the post you responded to. There are well understood ways to mitigate the attack surface problem. One thing that will be key is keeping certain operational features (access, ignition, etc) separate from non-safety and physical security features. I think there will be some hard lessons learned in regards to this...
Overall, it appears not to be much of a benefit to the owner of the car, as the owner could accomplish the noted updating tasks using a USB drive, and any required vehicle telemetry could be cached on-vehicle and retrieved manually as required.
Disagree. I see all kinds of utility in having a car that has two way communication. There are risks of course but they are reasonably well understood risks. In any case I see it as a moot discussion. Cars are going to get networks and it's something we should figure out how to do in the best way possible starting today.
Does no one else think cars + computers + network connectivity = bad?
In principle no I do not. Cars have been loaded with computers for quite some time now for all sorts of good reasons. You just don't usually notice them - which is a good thing. As for network connectivity that is fine too. There are all sorts of useful things you can do with network access. Are there downsides? Sure, just like any technology. I haven't seen any showstoppers however. Just problems that will take some time to work through. I think the auto companies are going to struggle for a while to learn to deal with the security issues because they have no experience with them but they'll figure it out eventually. There also are some privacy issues but those too will eventually be sorted out to a reasonable degree.
Actually I think cars without computers are a much worse idea in most cases. Worse performance, worse fuel economy, more dangerous, less features, more maintenance, etc. I'm old enough to remember when cars mostly didn't have computers in them. They're better with computers.
Nobody in this country wants to keep using my old Pentium 4, which is why I threw it out. But in 3rd world countries, for free, that's a hell of a useful item.
You are making the potentially (likely) faulty presumption that it is economically worthwhile to send it there or that crappy, beat up, second hand electronics would have substantial utility there. In all likelihood by the time you refurbish the gear, ship it halfway around the world, and by some miracle hope that there is someone on the other end with an economic interest in doing something with the gear, the "lucky" recipients would probably be better served by getting something new for similar amounts of money that actually fits their needs which you probably know nothing about.
I know all those older WiMax cell phones are considered trash in the US, but other countries still have WiMax networks, so why disallow exports to where they can keep being used?
If they have that sort of network chances are 100% they already have equipment available to use it. The probably do not need your beat up old second hand equipment. After all there IS a reason you are getting rid of it. I've been to more than a few "third world" countries over the years and most people here have a hugely mistaken idea about what life there is actually like. Geeks hear a few anecdotes about clever cases of re-purposing old gear and falsely extrapolate that this is something that can be economically repeated on a large scale. Reality is that your old gear is in most cases not terribly useful, requires substantial expensive labor to set up into something useful, is expensive to transport, has no one at the other end of the line with an economic interest in doing something with it, and wasn't asked for by the people you are trying to help.
Export of used vehicles to 3rd world countries seems to work wonderfully...
Used vehicles work wonderfully domestically too because the economic model for them makes sense. Basically if you cannot economically sell/donate used equipment here with all our advanced infrastructure and distribution channels and technological expertise, what makes you think it is going to make economic sense to send a device halfway around the world to a place with limited infrastructure, limited distribution and limited IT manpower? You're just hoping that there will be someone on the other end of that chain that somehow miraculously will find a use for your old equipment so you don't feel guilty about getting rid of it. I respect the impulse to not want to waste something with residual value but I don't think you are really thinking the economics of this through properly.
No kidding. Chinese government confirmed (yet again) for not valuing human life overly much.
The US and Russia have both had plenty of satellites re-enter the atmosphere completely uncontrolled. If you are going to throw shade at least don't be a hypocrite while you do it. If the thing malfunctioned then this is exactly the expected final result.
If the damned thing strikes in a populated area and people die, I say they drag them into The Hauge for a crime against humanity.
Got any other impotent rage you'd like to get out?
So get another kid to do it. There's got to be at least one kid around who's on insulin.
You might want to look up some actual data before spouting off something so stupid and easily disproven. The prevalence among children is somewhere around 1 to 2 per 1000.
And "training"? - it's simple as sh*t. Literally so easy that a kid can do it.
Missing the point. Unless you are going to provide training to basically everyone on injecting drugs then it isn't "easy as shit". Furthermore training the general public on how to administer drugs? The same general public with a HUGE drug problem? Oh yeah, no predictable side effects of that...
Seriously you think public health officials haven't thought about any of this stuff? If it was really that easy there would be no market for something like an epipen.
Kids with diabetes are sticking themselves all the time.
Kids with diabetes receive a lot of coaching and learn how to administer and dose insulin. They do not learn how to administer and dose epinephrine. Nobody is arguing that people are incapable of doing it with adequate instruction. The argument is that THEY HAVEN'T RECEIVED INSTRUCTION and there are a serious logistical problems with ensuring availability and proper dosing of the medication. Anyone who argues this is a trivial problem has no idea what they are talking about.
So your answer to the problem is to give the same government that caused the problem to begin with an even greater role in directly controlling prices?
The government didn't cause this problem. LACK of government caused this problem. The company that makes epipens has been given free reign to set the price however they want because of a reluctance by some to get government involved in keeping costs down.
Why would you believe that giving those same people direct price control would result in them lowering the price?
The government has no profit motive. If you need to see the effects of having governments setting prices for medical care I refer you to pretty much every other industrialized country in the world. They manage to keep cost much lower AND have better outcomes in many cases.
As sad as it seems, more than 100 million people in the USA have a BIG problem with a $500 investment:
Which is why the correct solution to the problem is to ensure that epipens or properly manufactured equivalents are available for reasonable amounts of money. This is a regulatory problem, not a technological one. If someone really is in a tough spot financially then of course they should do what they need to do and I have no problem with that at all. But that's not the solution to this problem in the long run.
These devices are one-shot deals. You just don't put more than a maximum safe dose of the drug into the pen in the first place. That prevents death or injury due to overdose. Completely negates it. No issue there.
Who is calculating the dose? The problem is that person. It can be REALLY easy to get that wrong. Even trained medical professionals get dosing wrong sometimes. It does NOT eliminate the possibility of an overdose because it does not eliminate the possibility of an error in calculating the correct dose. The assumption that the maximum safe dose will always be properly calculated is not a safe assumption.
Any under-dosing is unlikely to be massive, and as another poster pointed out, the drug has a shelf life anyway, so a pen giving you a lower dose of a fresh drug isn't going to be much different to a perfect dose of an older drug.
If the device fails (which absolutely could happen) there could easily be zero dose and then the person potentially dies from anaphylactic shock.
I'm pretty sure that someone for whom this device working could be a matter of life or death would be absolutely sure to follow these instructions to the letter.
You would think so but in reality that doesn't always happen. My mother tried to use a self injection system like this and her hand was shaking (scared) so bad that the medicine dribbled out on her skin. Nobody was around to help her at the time. Furthermore people in stressful situations are not exactly big on carefully reading instructions. People die because they forget how to do basic things in an emergency or get confused easily.
We only run into this problem because we have a portion of our population who will sue anyone over anything bad that happens.
You will have either regulation through government or regulation through legal action. You cannot opt out of having one or the other. You don't get both and you don't get neither. Having neither would be a TERRIBLE idea because that's how you get quacks. Without having regulations or tort action you have no means for people to get redress when they are injured. And make no mistake that there are plenty of people who would sacrifice your life to make a few extra bucks.
My father has passed, he was a working Pharmacist, worked his way through Medical school, he would keep some medicines in the fridge and if needed, administer via a syringe.
Very few people are trained medical professionals. That is a rare circumstance not relevant to 99% of the population.
What is the minimum training required to administer a syringe of anything effectively....bet it is cheaper than the 'idiot-proof' pin with zero risk of administering the wrong dosage....as long as your eyesight is good enough to read the syringe.
It's cheaper until you kill someone. And rest assured that someone would. Even trained medical professionals screw up with some regularity on dosing drugs. Furthermore the whole point of something like an epipen is that you don't need to be trained. Maybe you live in a hospital but most of my day I am not around anyone who is trained to administer medications and even if they were the supplies are not readily available. Nobody keeps syringes and vials of epinephrine around. In many work places unused syringes would disappear faster than doughnuts at a weight watchers meeting. (Druggies aren't shy about stealing that sort of stuff)
Sure hope the industry and politicians never manage to restrict or outlaw vitamins...know big pharma wants them too.
You mean the same vitamin industry that has been selling fake supplements for years. They ABSOLUTELY should be regulated. The only reason they aren't is that the supplement manufacturers evidently have a very effective lobby and managed to get key members of congress to squash any attempt to regulate them by the FDA despite the fact that it has been proven that in many cases they are selling products that do not contain what is on the label.
1) Dosing is a big issue. Huge. Not just determining the correct dose but mechanically and reliably administering the correct dose. This is NOT a trivial concern. Both under and overdosing with epinephrine can be a very serious matter.
2) Quality control in a device like this is essentially nonexistent. It might work but you can virtually guarantee that it won't always work. If it doesn't then that will very likely result in serious injury or possibly death. I work in a company that makes components for medical devices. The quality control standards are VERY stringent for very good reasons.
3) Sourcing the medication. Sure you might be able to buy it but there are VERY good reasons why we have a controlled supply chain in the pharmaceutical industry. You are seriously rolling the dice if you buy outside the normal supply chain.
4) The person who administers the injection is quite likely to not be the person who built the device. This raises a whole host of problems.
I don't think any amount of regulation will help with this, because it comes down to greed.
Untrue. In most countries the government is in charge of health care and they have a VERY easy way to regulate price gouging such as this. In any single payer system the national health service basically sets the price they are willing to pay and that's what it costs. End of story. We only run into this problem because we have a portion of our population who breaks out in hives anytime they hear the words "socialized medicine".
What we need is mandatory price regulation of the pharmaceutical industry. Will there be less R&D?
The only way to do that is to go to a single payer health care system. Has worked well for a lot of countries so it's not a bad idea.
Possibly, but the majority of new drugs produced now are just new formulations of old compounds that are no longer covered by patents.
That is easily disproven. Yes there are some shenanigans like what you describe but it does not constitute the "majority of new drugs".
You don't even need an epipen to deliver the medicine, just a syringe and an epinephrine vial. Any school nurse worth her salt will know how to use a needle.
I coach school sports teams so I've been on staff at a number of schools. Most school nurses I've ever met are prohibited from administering any injectable medications and I've met more than a few who were not trained nurses at all. School nurses are not on the school grounds at all times either, particularly after school hours. Schools are certainly not about to start storing syringes and vials of medications. The whole point of something like an epipen is that it can be administered by someone with no medical training whatsoever because there is a very high chance that whoever administers the epipen will not be a trained medical professional.
The issue here is that Mylan (the makers of the pen) lobbied the FDA and government to require its purchase be done by school districts and then jacking the price up to gouge the taxpayer (ie you and me). Now school districts have to purchase the pen instead of going the route I outlined above.
That's a minor part of this problem. Most buyers of epipens are not schools but individuals. School districts might be getting ripped off but that's small potatoes compared with individuals getting ripped off.
But you can see here why Musk is a successful and important tech entrepreneur. He didn't set out to make an electric car because it made economic or technical sense; he set out to do that because he wanted one.
Which is to some degree a load of crap. Yes I know he has claimed that and for the most part I think that claim is largely nonsense. People set out to do all sorts of things but they don't actually happen unless there is an actual path to success. You'll notice that Elon Musk has yet to start a company that is truly clean sheet. People built financial software before he did. People built rockets before he did. People built electric cars before he did. He was in a position to improve on what had come before but make no mistake that none of his businesses were started without a path to profitability. He knew from day one that it was feasible to build an electric car. What he didn't know was whether he could build a viable electric car business. If all he wanted was an electric car he could have done that in his garage in his spare time.
Pure engineers and MBA types don't advance the state of technology.
Some do, most don't. You could say that about every single profession out there. Even among those who are trying to advance technology most fail at it. The biggest reason is that the key to success in most cases is being able to manage people and get them to do something collectively. Advancing human knowledge is rarely a solo endeavor so your argument that particular types of individuals often fail is a flawed argument because you could say that about most people in most professions most of the time and it would be equally true. This includes most entrepreneurs.
The argument that there's a high probability we live in a simulation has been seriously discussed by philosophers such as Nick Bostrom.
Just because some people have "seriously discussed" an idea doesn't make the idea a credible one. The whole "we are in a simulation" is just a modern repackaging of philosophical questions that have been discussed in some cases literally for centuries.
I disagree with the argument but it isn't by itself a wacky idea or one we should dismiss out of hand.
Oh it's a pretty wacky idea but to date the evidence to support it is for all practical purposes nonexistent. Find a way to make the concept falsifiable and then it will become worth discussing. As it stands it is as much a waste of time as wondering if god exists.
THE REAL issue is where is the cure for cancer? Where is the FUSION POWER? Where is clean energy production? How do we care and feed for 7 billion people?
That argument is completely moronic. There are endless numbers of problems yet to be solved. You solve the ones that you have the means and ability to solve and hope others work on the rest. You don't have to pick one and all the others can bugger off. The notion that we shouldn't try to go to space because we haven't solved every conceivable problem on Earth is idiotic and short sighted. Trying to go to space HAS solved a lot of terrestrial problems. The value of satellites alone justifies everything we've done in space 100 fold and those same satellites help to some degree with every single problem you just mentioned. Most estimates of the value of the space program indicate it has in the worst possible case somewhere between a 3-8X return on every dollar spent. The only shocking thing is that we are too short sighted to spend more on the space program and related research.
And asking Elon Musk "where is clean energy production" is a pretty stupid question given the particular ventures he's involved in.
These problems should come before billionaires playing model rockets.
"Playing model rockets"? Weird, last I checked SpaceX was a real business carrying real cargo and doing something genuinely useful in driving down the cost to orbit. What have you done with your life that was anywhere close to as valuable to the human race?
While I'm totally on board with trying to visit other parts of our solar system, here's the bit I don't quite get. Who exactly is going to pay for these trips to Mars or wherever else? Despite their general success I don't see SpaceX being able to fund it themselves any time soon and there is no obvious economic return from such a trip given that at this point it is purely exploratory in nature. The only institution with enough money and no need for a profit is the government so how does he propose to get the government to pay for it OR where is the ROI on the trip for any would be private investors?
I don't ask this question to be snarky but it's a pretty important question and I think it's being glossed over at this point. I don't have any problem with tax dollars being used for this kind of exploration but some parts of our congress are pretty against raising the taxes that would be necessary to pay for a trip like this. NASA doesn't have the budget at this point nor do they have a congressional mandate to support what Mr. Musk is proposing. And I just don't see private sponsors with deep enough pockets to fund the trip stepping up to the plate.
Back when Ellsberg released the Pentagon Papers, there was an actual chance at fairness if you went to court, which is why Ellsberg is not in jail for the rest of his life.
I think the only reason Ellsberg didn't go to jail is because the government completely bungled the investigation and engaged in clearly illegal actions while investigating the case. Had they been more restrained they might very well have gotten a conviction.
Today? The possibility that anyone would get a fair shake in a courtroom is laughable.
But you've completely mischaracterized what happened. Uber didn't raise prices to take advantage of a terrible situation. Rather, a terrible situation triggered a surge in demand, to which Uber's algorithms correctly responded.
Uber's algorithms responded but I would argue there was nothing correct about their response. At MINIMUM Uber should donate any extra profit generated to help offset the costs to the victims and/or refund the extra charges to those who sought out their service.
A lot of people suddenly wanted rides, and Uber used it's algorithm to activate more drivers. That's not a market failure, That's the market "magically" solving the problem, efficiently and effectively.
WRONG. That absolutely is a market failure because it permitted self interested profiteering at a completely inappropriate time. It is no different than people who drive into hurricane disaster areas and charge obscene markups on vital supplies like water. That isn't efficient allocation of goods and services, that is a breakdown of efficient allocation.
How would you make the uber drivers go into an area they don't want to go into, if it isn't by offering them more money?? Armed police?
You ask for volunteers just like we do for most disasters. If none volunteer you find other means to deal with the situation up to and including the national guard. Uber making bonus profit in a situation like that is reprehensible. If they do jack up rates to get drivers to go there then they should donate the extra profit to charity or to the victim's families.
Slashdot Mirror
I've wondered why there is not an automated racing series.... most new performance technologies are vetted first on the racetrack.
Because there is no money in it. The fact that racing is a test bed for a lot of technology is incidental. Nobody watches auto racing because of that fact and they certainly don't pay money because of it.
This would be a great way to develop bulletproof software.
You run into a lot of pedestrians, bad weather, bad roads, wildlife, oncoming traffic, crossing traffic, traffic lights, etc on a racetrack? If so where are you watching racing? The only automotive racing that might make a credible test bed would be rally car racing and that doesn't deal with any of the city obstacles.
I've been a supporter of McLaren since I was a kid. I could never support an Apple F1 team.
Ok, honest question. Though I know who the teams are I'm not a follower of F1. Why do you care one way or the other about McLaren? What do they do that makes them particularly worthy of your adoration among F1 teams? And why would Apple owning them affect that adoration in any way? Obviously it doesn't bother you that the government of Bahrain is a 50% owner why should it matter if Apple is the owner instead? Not being critical I just don't understand your position.
I know it's a corporate entity and it shouldn't matter who owns/runs them- but on a basic level it would ruin it for me.
Not seeing the logic in your position. And frankly the F1 part of the company is merely the most visible part.
You have to pick or choose which shows you care to stop watching OR just go back to subscribing to the bloated service that was cable TV because it's getting to the point where the prices are even if you want a good selection of shows.
That's the problem. I want ala-carte service but I'm not about to pay for 12 different ersatz networks and end up paying more than I currently do. I'm certainly not going to pay for Netflix (or Hulu or ...) for just one or two shows. Doesn't matter how good they are.
I miss the days it was just Netflix and Netflix had just about everything.
You'll have to remind me when that was because to me their streaming service has never "had just about everything" or even close to it. I tried and dropped Netflix twice because their content catalog was full of crap I had no interest in (lots of old shitty B movies and old tv shows I didn't care about) and missing a lot of stuff I actually did have some interest in. Maybe it suits your interests better than mine but I found Netflix streaming to be poor value for money.
The question, put more precisely here is: why does a car need to be on a packet switched network?
Lots of reasons. Map updates, traffic updates, relaying location, weather updates, infotainment, concierge services, updates to car features, etc. The list is almost endless if one thinks about it.
The conclusion I come to is that as a convenience factor for the company, it's easier to have it on a network.
It's not just a convenience for the car company though that is a real factor. It's also a convenience for the car owner. If there is a recall on something software related (which happens a lot these days) it is MUCH more convenient for the car owner to not have to waste a substantial portion of the day scheduling time at a repair facility to have the problem fixed or the update applied. It's also much easier to receive a lot of useful updates (maps, traffic, weather, etc) via a network and in time I think there will be some interesting safety features relating to how cars talk to each other to avoid accidents and minimize traffic delays.
However, it opens up a huge attack surface.
Yes it does and I discussed this somewhat in the post you responded to. There are well understood ways to mitigate the attack surface problem. One thing that will be key is keeping certain operational features (access, ignition, etc) separate from non-safety and physical security features. I think there will be some hard lessons learned in regards to this...
Overall, it appears not to be much of a benefit to the owner of the car, as the owner could accomplish the noted updating tasks using a USB drive, and any required vehicle telemetry could be cached on-vehicle and retrieved manually as required.
Disagree. I see all kinds of utility in having a car that has two way communication. There are risks of course but they are reasonably well understood risks. In any case I see it as a moot discussion. Cars are going to get networks and it's something we should figure out how to do in the best way possible starting today.
Does no one else think cars + computers + network connectivity = bad?
In principle no I do not. Cars have been loaded with computers for quite some time now for all sorts of good reasons. You just don't usually notice them - which is a good thing. As for network connectivity that is fine too. There are all sorts of useful things you can do with network access. Are there downsides? Sure, just like any technology. I haven't seen any showstoppers however. Just problems that will take some time to work through. I think the auto companies are going to struggle for a while to learn to deal with the security issues because they have no experience with them but they'll figure it out eventually. There also are some privacy issues but those too will eventually be sorted out to a reasonable degree.
Actually I think cars without computers are a much worse idea in most cases. Worse performance, worse fuel economy, more dangerous, less features, more maintenance, etc. I'm old enough to remember when cars mostly didn't have computers in them. They're better with computers.
Nobody in this country wants to keep using my old Pentium 4, which is why I threw it out. But in 3rd world countries, for free, that's a hell of a useful item.
You are making the potentially (likely) faulty presumption that it is economically worthwhile to send it there or that crappy, beat up, second hand electronics would have substantial utility there. In all likelihood by the time you refurbish the gear, ship it halfway around the world, and by some miracle hope that there is someone on the other end with an economic interest in doing something with the gear, the "lucky" recipients would probably be better served by getting something new for similar amounts of money that actually fits their needs which you probably know nothing about.
I know all those older WiMax cell phones are considered trash in the US, but other countries still have WiMax networks, so why disallow exports to where they can keep being used?
If they have that sort of network chances are 100% they already have equipment available to use it. The probably do not need your beat up old second hand equipment. After all there IS a reason you are getting rid of it. I've been to more than a few "third world" countries over the years and most people here have a hugely mistaken idea about what life there is actually like. Geeks hear a few anecdotes about clever cases of re-purposing old gear and falsely extrapolate that this is something that can be economically repeated on a large scale. Reality is that your old gear is in most cases not terribly useful, requires substantial expensive labor to set up into something useful, is expensive to transport, has no one at the other end of the line with an economic interest in doing something with it, and wasn't asked for by the people you are trying to help.
Export of used vehicles to 3rd world countries seems to work wonderfully...
Used vehicles work wonderfully domestically too because the economic model for them makes sense. Basically if you cannot economically sell/donate used equipment here with all our advanced infrastructure and distribution channels and technological expertise, what makes you think it is going to make economic sense to send a device halfway around the world to a place with limited infrastructure, limited distribution and limited IT manpower? You're just hoping that there will be someone on the other end of that chain that somehow miraculously will find a use for your old equipment so you don't feel guilty about getting rid of it. I respect the impulse to not want to waste something with residual value but I don't think you are really thinking the economics of this through properly.
Sure. You volunteering?
I just love Internet Tough Guys. Do you seriously think your pretend threat would actually concern anyone?
I don't like the Chinese government...
Nobody cares. Especially those of us who have actually been outside the USA at some point.
No kidding. Chinese government confirmed (yet again) for not valuing human life overly much.
The US and Russia have both had plenty of satellites re-enter the atmosphere completely uncontrolled. If you are going to throw shade at least don't be a hypocrite while you do it. If the thing malfunctioned then this is exactly the expected final result.
If the damned thing strikes in a populated area and people die, I say they drag them into The Hauge for a crime against humanity.
Got any other impotent rage you'd like to get out?
So get another kid to do it. There's got to be at least one kid around who's on insulin.
You might want to look up some actual data before spouting off something so stupid and easily disproven. The prevalence among children is somewhere around 1 to 2 per 1000.
And "training"? - it's simple as sh*t. Literally so easy that a kid can do it.
Missing the point. Unless you are going to provide training to basically everyone on injecting drugs then it isn't "easy as shit". Furthermore training the general public on how to administer drugs? The same general public with a HUGE drug problem? Oh yeah, no predictable side effects of that...
Seriously you think public health officials haven't thought about any of this stuff? If it was really that easy there would be no market for something like an epipen.
Kids with diabetes are sticking themselves all the time.
Kids with diabetes receive a lot of coaching and learn how to administer and dose insulin. They do not learn how to administer and dose epinephrine. Nobody is arguing that people are incapable of doing it with adequate instruction. The argument is that THEY HAVEN'T RECEIVED INSTRUCTION and there are a serious logistical problems with ensuring availability and proper dosing of the medication. Anyone who argues this is a trivial problem has no idea what they are talking about.
So your answer to the problem is to give the same government that caused the problem to begin with an even greater role in directly controlling prices?
The government didn't cause this problem. LACK of government caused this problem. The company that makes epipens has been given free reign to set the price however they want because of a reluctance by some to get government involved in keeping costs down.
Why would you believe that giving those same people direct price control would result in them lowering the price?
The government has no profit motive. If you need to see the effects of having governments setting prices for medical care I refer you to pretty much every other industrialized country in the world. They manage to keep cost much lower AND have better outcomes in many cases.
As sad as it seems, more than 100 million people in the USA have a BIG problem with a $500 investment:
Which is why the correct solution to the problem is to ensure that epipens or properly manufactured equivalents are available for reasonable amounts of money. This is a regulatory problem, not a technological one. If someone really is in a tough spot financially then of course they should do what they need to do and I have no problem with that at all. But that's not the solution to this problem in the long run.
These devices are one-shot deals. You just don't put more than a maximum safe dose of the drug into the pen in the first place. That prevents death or injury due to overdose. Completely negates it. No issue there.
Who is calculating the dose? The problem is that person. It can be REALLY easy to get that wrong. Even trained medical professionals get dosing wrong sometimes. It does NOT eliminate the possibility of an overdose because it does not eliminate the possibility of an error in calculating the correct dose. The assumption that the maximum safe dose will always be properly calculated is not a safe assumption.
Any under-dosing is unlikely to be massive, and as another poster pointed out, the drug has a shelf life anyway, so a pen giving you a lower dose of a fresh drug isn't going to be much different to a perfect dose of an older drug.
If the device fails (which absolutely could happen) there could easily be zero dose and then the person potentially dies from anaphylactic shock.
I'm pretty sure that someone for whom this device working could be a matter of life or death would be absolutely sure to follow these instructions to the letter.
You would think so but in reality that doesn't always happen. My mother tried to use a self injection system like this and her hand was shaking (scared) so bad that the medicine dribbled out on her skin. Nobody was around to help her at the time. Furthermore people in stressful situations are not exactly big on carefully reading instructions. People die because they forget how to do basic things in an emergency or get confused easily.
We only run into this problem because we have a portion of our population who will sue anyone over anything bad that happens.
You will have either regulation through government or regulation through legal action. You cannot opt out of having one or the other. You don't get both and you don't get neither. Having neither would be a TERRIBLE idea because that's how you get quacks. Without having regulations or tort action you have no means for people to get redress when they are injured. And make no mistake that there are plenty of people who would sacrifice your life to make a few extra bucks.
My father has passed, he was a working Pharmacist, worked his way through Medical school, he would keep some medicines in the fridge and if needed, administer via a syringe.
Very few people are trained medical professionals. That is a rare circumstance not relevant to 99% of the population.
What is the minimum training required to administer a syringe of anything effectively....bet it is cheaper than the 'idiot-proof' pin with zero risk of administering the wrong dosage....as long as your eyesight is good enough to read the syringe.
It's cheaper until you kill someone. And rest assured that someone would. Even trained medical professionals screw up with some regularity on dosing drugs. Furthermore the whole point of something like an epipen is that you don't need to be trained. Maybe you live in a hospital but most of my day I am not around anyone who is trained to administer medications and even if they were the supplies are not readily available. Nobody keeps syringes and vials of epinephrine around. In many work places unused syringes would disappear faster than doughnuts at a weight watchers meeting. (Druggies aren't shy about stealing that sort of stuff)
Sure hope the industry and politicians never manage to restrict or outlaw vitamins...know big pharma wants them too.
You mean the same vitamin industry that has been selling fake supplements for years. They ABSOLUTELY should be regulated. The only reason they aren't is that the supplement manufacturers evidently have a very effective lobby and managed to get key members of congress to squash any attempt to regulate them by the FDA despite the fact that it has been proven that in many cases they are selling products that do not contain what is on the label.
So many problems with this:
1) Dosing is a big issue. Huge. Not just determining the correct dose but mechanically and reliably administering the correct dose. This is NOT a trivial concern. Both under and overdosing with epinephrine can be a very serious matter.
2) Quality control in a device like this is essentially nonexistent. It might work but you can virtually guarantee that it won't always work. If it doesn't then that will very likely result in serious injury or possibly death. I work in a company that makes components for medical devices. The quality control standards are VERY stringent for very good reasons.
3) Sourcing the medication. Sure you might be able to buy it but there are VERY good reasons why we have a controlled supply chain in the pharmaceutical industry. You are seriously rolling the dice if you buy outside the normal supply chain.
4) The person who administers the injection is quite likely to not be the person who built the device. This raises a whole host of problems.
I don't think any amount of regulation will help with this, because it comes down to greed.
Untrue. In most countries the government is in charge of health care and they have a VERY easy way to regulate price gouging such as this. In any single payer system the national health service basically sets the price they are willing to pay and that's what it costs. End of story. We only run into this problem because we have a portion of our population who breaks out in hives anytime they hear the words "socialized medicine".
What we need is mandatory price regulation of the pharmaceutical industry. Will there be less R&D?
The only way to do that is to go to a single payer health care system. Has worked well for a lot of countries so it's not a bad idea.
Possibly, but the majority of new drugs produced now are just new formulations of old compounds that are no longer covered by patents.
That is easily disproven. Yes there are some shenanigans like what you describe but it does not constitute the "majority of new drugs".
You don't even need an epipen to deliver the medicine, just a syringe and an epinephrine vial. Any school nurse worth her salt will know how to use a needle.
I coach school sports teams so I've been on staff at a number of schools. Most school nurses I've ever met are prohibited from administering any injectable medications and I've met more than a few who were not trained nurses at all. School nurses are not on the school grounds at all times either, particularly after school hours. Schools are certainly not about to start storing syringes and vials of medications. The whole point of something like an epipen is that it can be administered by someone with no medical training whatsoever because there is a very high chance that whoever administers the epipen will not be a trained medical professional.
The issue here is that Mylan (the makers of the pen) lobbied the FDA and government to require its purchase be done by school districts and then jacking the price up to gouge the taxpayer (ie you and me). Now school districts have to purchase the pen instead of going the route I outlined above.
That's a minor part of this problem. Most buyers of epipens are not schools but individuals. School districts might be getting ripped off but that's small potatoes compared with individuals getting ripped off.
But you can see here why Musk is a successful and important tech entrepreneur. He didn't set out to make an electric car because it made economic or technical sense; he set out to do that because he wanted one.
Which is to some degree a load of crap. Yes I know he has claimed that and for the most part I think that claim is largely nonsense. People set out to do all sorts of things but they don't actually happen unless there is an actual path to success. You'll notice that Elon Musk has yet to start a company that is truly clean sheet. People built financial software before he did. People built rockets before he did. People built electric cars before he did. He was in a position to improve on what had come before but make no mistake that none of his businesses were started without a path to profitability. He knew from day one that it was feasible to build an electric car. What he didn't know was whether he could build a viable electric car business. If all he wanted was an electric car he could have done that in his garage in his spare time.
Pure engineers and MBA types don't advance the state of technology.
Some do, most don't. You could say that about every single profession out there. Even among those who are trying to advance technology most fail at it. The biggest reason is that the key to success in most cases is being able to manage people and get them to do something collectively. Advancing human knowledge is rarely a solo endeavor so your argument that particular types of individuals often fail is a flawed argument because you could say that about most people in most professions most of the time and it would be equally true. This includes most entrepreneurs.
The argument that there's a high probability we live in a simulation has been seriously discussed by philosophers such as Nick Bostrom.
Just because some people have "seriously discussed" an idea doesn't make the idea a credible one. The whole "we are in a simulation" is just a modern repackaging of philosophical questions that have been discussed in some cases literally for centuries.
I disagree with the argument but it isn't by itself a wacky idea or one we should dismiss out of hand.
Oh it's a pretty wacky idea but to date the evidence to support it is for all practical purposes nonexistent. Find a way to make the concept falsifiable and then it will become worth discussing. As it stands it is as much a waste of time as wondering if god exists.
THE REAL issue is where is the cure for cancer? Where is the FUSION POWER? Where is clean energy production? How do we care and feed for 7 billion people?
That argument is completely moronic. There are endless numbers of problems yet to be solved. You solve the ones that you have the means and ability to solve and hope others work on the rest. You don't have to pick one and all the others can bugger off. The notion that we shouldn't try to go to space because we haven't solved every conceivable problem on Earth is idiotic and short sighted. Trying to go to space HAS solved a lot of terrestrial problems. The value of satellites alone justifies everything we've done in space 100 fold and those same satellites help to some degree with every single problem you just mentioned. Most estimates of the value of the space program indicate it has in the worst possible case somewhere between a 3-8X return on every dollar spent. The only shocking thing is that we are too short sighted to spend more on the space program and related research.
And asking Elon Musk "where is clean energy production" is a pretty stupid question given the particular ventures he's involved in.
These problems should come before billionaires playing model rockets.
"Playing model rockets"? Weird, last I checked SpaceX was a real business carrying real cargo and doing something genuinely useful in driving down the cost to orbit. What have you done with your life that was anywhere close to as valuable to the human race?
While I'm totally on board with trying to visit other parts of our solar system, here's the bit I don't quite get. Who exactly is going to pay for these trips to Mars or wherever else? Despite their general success I don't see SpaceX being able to fund it themselves any time soon and there is no obvious economic return from such a trip given that at this point it is purely exploratory in nature. The only institution with enough money and no need for a profit is the government so how does he propose to get the government to pay for it OR where is the ROI on the trip for any would be private investors?
I don't ask this question to be snarky but it's a pretty important question and I think it's being glossed over at this point. I don't have any problem with tax dollars being used for this kind of exploration but some parts of our congress are pretty against raising the taxes that would be necessary to pay for a trip like this. NASA doesn't have the budget at this point nor do they have a congressional mandate to support what Mr. Musk is proposing. And I just don't see private sponsors with deep enough pockets to fund the trip stepping up to the plate.
Back when Ellsberg released the Pentagon Papers, there was an actual chance at fairness if you went to court, which is why Ellsberg is not in jail for the rest of his life.
I think the only reason Ellsberg didn't go to jail is because the government completely bungled the investigation and engaged in clearly illegal actions while investigating the case. Had they been more restrained they might very well have gotten a conviction.
Today? The possibility that anyone would get a fair shake in a courtroom is laughable.
Sadly you might be correct.
But you've completely mischaracterized what happened. Uber didn't raise prices to take advantage of a terrible situation. Rather, a terrible situation triggered a surge in demand, to which Uber's algorithms correctly responded.
Uber's algorithms responded but I would argue there was nothing correct about their response. At MINIMUM Uber should donate any extra profit generated to help offset the costs to the victims and/or refund the extra charges to those who sought out their service.
A lot of people suddenly wanted rides, and Uber used it's algorithm to activate more drivers. That's not a market failure, That's the market "magically" solving the problem, efficiently and effectively.
WRONG. That absolutely is a market failure because it permitted self interested profiteering at a completely inappropriate time. It is no different than people who drive into hurricane disaster areas and charge obscene markups on vital supplies like water. That isn't efficient allocation of goods and services, that is a breakdown of efficient allocation.
How would you make the uber drivers go into an area they don't want to go into, if it isn't by offering them more money?? Armed police?
You ask for volunteers just like we do for most disasters. If none volunteer you find other means to deal with the situation up to and including the national guard. Uber making bonus profit in a situation like that is reprehensible. If they do jack up rates to get drivers to go there then they should donate the extra profit to charity or to the victim's families.
People called an Uber driver *into* a disaster area and/or potential terror/war zone for a ride home and are pissed that the rates went up?
Of course they are. You were expecting a different reaction? When was the last time you saw someone who was grateful for an act of war profiteering?