Radiologists are already on their way to being obsolete.
Ha! Radiologists are in no way, shape or form becoming obsolete. Technology is making them more effective but they aren't in any danger of disappearing.
Radiologists will be replaced by Chicken Sexers
I'm afraid not. There is a lot more to radiology than simply trained pattern matching. They've had software to do exactly what you describe for quite some time now and there is no danger that radiologists will disappear anytime soon.
Swipe left for compound fracture, swipe right for non-compound fracture.
Do you seriously think that medicine is nothing more than a process of matching wall paper? There are some problems that a pattern matching system can help with and in fact radiologists actually have been using such software for a long time now. I did some engineering work in a radiology clinic that was using software to help with diagnostics over a decade ago and the software was good enough to sometimes catch things the radiologists missed. Guess what? Radiologists are still with us and will be for the foreseeable future.
Turns out if you ask a lot of people a question the average ends up being correct.
No. What happens is that under the right circumstances the average ends up being correct more often than for an individual. It's called Wisdom of Crowds among other things. It works well with certain types of decision making and predictions, particularly those regarding human psychology. Stock prices are based in a collective opinion of what the price of a stock should be so it's not surprising that a crowd would be better at guessing an average opinion of a crowd than an individual. But this doesn't work for everything.
Sure, if done right automation may replace a lot of what doctors do today.
Automation will supplement what they do but it will be more like accounting software boosting the productivity and accuracy of accountants. The problem isn't actually the medical treatment that desperately needs automation (though it can and does aid in places), it is the paperwork and support functions like billing. The paperwork burden in medical practice is immense and much of it is pointless paper shuffling by poorly paid clerical staff.
Just because someone has digitized some routine legal forms and advice isn't evidence that lawyers will be replaced. I have no reasonable expectation that the vast majority of what most lawyers do is readily amenable to automation. If you think it is then I don't think you really understand what is involved in their job. Rocketlaywer reportedly has about $20 million in revenue. That is NOT a big company and they aren't the first to do this. We're not talking earth shattering stuff here.
Expert radiologists are routinely outperformed by pattern-recognition software
Not really true except in rather narrow circumstances. I've actually worked in radiology clinics doing some engineering work and spoken to some radiologists about this very topic. They use software to help identify suspicious growths and the software does a pretty good job and sometimes catches things the human misses. But it's used as a supplement to help the radiologist because the radiologist will see things that the software does not. Together (human plus computer) does better than either alone.
diagnosticians by simple computer questionnaires
The examples you are thinking of are controlled tests with narrow parameters. Not out in the real world in real practices. People lie on medical history questionnaires all the time. There are women who go in for mammograms who will lie about having breast implants when asked even though they will show up plain as day on the xray. People leave off vital medical history constantly and no questionnaire will get the answer right if you feed it bad data. Test requisitions by medical professionals routinely do not include important medical history or even accurate descriptions of what to look for. My wife is a pathologist and she routinely gets requests to look for something that the doctor isn't at all concerned about or with no medical history or description of the problem or with the site of the biopsy wrong or incomplete. These problems can be addressed but not by any technology you or I are likely to see anytime soon. Medical expert systems will be a significant aid to doctors in developing differential diagnoses but they will not replace doctors and you shouldn't expect or want them to.
Silicon Valley investor Vinod Khosla predicted that algorithms and machines would replace 80% of doctors within a generation.
Oh, well then it must be the truth because a venture capitalist said so. They've never been wrong before [/sarcasm]. I am close to certain that 80% of doctors will not be replaced by machines within the lifetime of anyone reading this. Doctors will be aided greatly by machines but the human body is incredibly complicated and much of what doctor's do isn't terribly easy to automate. Furthermore even supplementing doctors with machines would require vast improvements in medical record documentation in a lot of cases. I don't know if you've looked at medical records lately but most aren't computerized and even those that are are frankly quite a mess with loads of inaccurate information. Why? The people entering the data make a lot of mistakes, leave things out, etc. This problem isn't even close to being solved.
What I get from shows like American pickers is that if you are not selling to the end collector then you have to leave significant profit for the dealer. It sounds like 50% of the final price is a fair percentage.
50% is a fairly typical division of the sales revenue for anything sold on consignment. Sometimes it's more, sometimes less. For random household items anything from 35%-50% is generally reasonable. The more expensive the item the lower the commission tends to be. Nobody (sane) is going to give a dealer half the sale price of a $30,000 car for example - 10% or so would be typical or maybe even a flat fee. 50% may sound like a lot but unless you are talking about big ticket items it really isn't, especially for anyone who employs staff.
If you are auctioning something it can vary but usually there are two important fees. A lot of auction houses will demand a buyer's premium of something like 10-20% and then a percentage of the final gavel price to the seller, typically something like another 10-20%. A lot of commissions will ratchet the percentage down as the sales price rises so it might be 20% for the first $100,000 and 15% on the amount above $100,000. I once auctioned a Lear Jet for example and we got a flat fee plus 3% since the asking price was around $3 million.
Oh, and in case anyone is wondering, it is basically impossible to make a reasonable profit selling stuff on consignment through eBay. eBay is too labor intensive and takes too large a commission to make it worthwhile. Furthermore eBay themselves are not easy to work with, particularly their "security" people. I speak from first hand experience. You can only make money on eBay doing liquidations of inventory/assets or by being a specialty dealer in a very narrow range of goods you can get for unusually good prices.
I've watched enough episodes of all kinds of shows like 'Pickers' and 'Salvage Hunters' in addition to my own experience to know that you'd not believe what stuff you have laying around in your garage or on your property that's worth money and it doesn't have to be a long lost Vermeer, the hitherto unknown seventh production Bugatti Royale or a Ming vase.
And I've actually owned an auction company in years gone by and I can assure you that almost all of the stuff people have lying around their garage is genuinely garbage or at best not worth much. Certainly not worth the hassle of trying to sell it on eBay in most cases. People tend to think old = valuable but in most cases that simply isn't true. Yes, sometimes you run across a genuine treasure but that is a seriously rare occurrence.
Shows like American Pickers are ludicrously unrealistic except in the sense that a lot of people who deal in secondhand goods (read junk) are seriously weird people. I've had to deal with a lot of them first hand. Some of the strangest people I've ever met. Some nice, some not so much, but rarely what you or I would consider "normal".
My sister even cleaned out her house last year, put the junk into one big box and flogged most of it on ebay for just under £200. The biggest problem you have when cleaning out a house or a property is not making money off of what might seem like junk at first glance, it's finding a dealer who isn't going to rip you off if you don't have time to sell your junk yourself.
A decent part of my auction business was estate sales. If you don't want to go to the trouble of doing it yourself (which is VERY reasonable - it's a huge pain) then just accept the fact that you'll get something out of it but probably not the maximum possible. Get a separate person to appraise what is in the estate if you are concerned about being ripped off. Bear in mind that this will cost money. You hire someone to liquidate estate assets because you want to have a life and doing this is HUGELY time consuming. It's ok if the estate sale person/company makes a decent or even handsome profit. You'll avoid a huge time sink and you'll get some money you wouldn't have had otherwise. If you want certain items from the estate just set them aside ahead of time.
Florida Hospital Shows Normal Internet Lag Time Won't Affect Remote Robotic Surgeries
So what? It's not normal lag you are worried about. It's severe lag which on the normal internet you cannot guarantee you can eliminate. It's interesting information but I'm not sure if it's really useful information.
I wonder about the mindset of people who believe that Americans should be treated and dictated to like the subjects of European monarchy,
That's the most bizarre leap of bad logic I've heard in quite a while. Thanks for a good laugh over something absurd.
what is implicit in your and deGrasse-Tyson's argument that Queen Isabella's investments are comparable to US government spending.
In the sense that they are both government spending that would be correct. Money doesn't actually care if it comes from a monarchy or a democracy. Exploration of the truly unknown doesn't happen from the private sector. The Dutch East India Company did not precede government sponsored exploration. Columbus, Magellen and most every other explorer you've ever heard of was government sponsored. You cannot build a business model around "let's go explore over there where no one has ever been and see if we can find something profitable". No private company could have justified a Moon mission in the 1960s. Anyone who claims otherwise is delusional.
It would depend a lot on how it's implemented and how it's to be used. Yeah, it would very much suck if they are just scraping all your contacts and then mass spamming them.
I cannot think of a single legitimate business reason they would need my contact list information. I cannot think of anything they could offer me that I would want that would entice me to share that information with them.
Notice the "If" at the beginning? And it's really no different than any other app that allows you to post/share/sent something to a friend or family member.
That depends heavily on whether it is opt in or opt out and whether it is opt in by default and how hard they push you to opt in. Plus the fact that they are even asking is a bit shady as far as I'm concerned.
We started to the moon because JFK needed a spectacular - but once the cost estimates started coming in, he started seriously considering backing off. We went to the moon because JFK took a bullet to the head allowing LBJ to push it (and the associated pork) as a monument to JFK.
Citation please?
Apollo was essentially cancelled in the budget battles of '65-'67. The Soviets didn't get serious about their lunar programs until around '66-'67. (And most of them weren't cancelled until '72 or so.)
Hmm, let's see. The Soviet programs were cancelled in '72 according to you (actually that's not quite right but it's close enough). When was the last mission to the Moon? Oh that's right, December 1972. Quite a coincidence that...
Except he gets his facts completely wrong. For example, Columbus' Voyage was privately financed, and the risk of such voyages was generally privately insured.
You might want to check your facts. It was financed out of the royal treasury and commissioned by the Queen.
The asteroid belt alone is so full of easily reachable resources that there is almost no risk and spectacular gains being made. That's why the private sector is gearing up for private (robotic) space exploration and mining.
"Almost no risk"? Are you kidding me? Anyone who thinks asteroid mining is a viable business within the lifetime of anyone reading this is delusional and/or hasn't thought the economics through. Professionally I am an engineer and I'm also a certified cost accountant. What that means is that I evaluate business costs and risks for a living. Anyone who says there is no risk in asteroid mining has no idea what they are talking about. It might be feasible a long time from now but there will have to be a huge amount of government financed research before it is ever possible that private enterprise will go there.
The financial risk alone is enormous and there is no guarantee of success and basically none of the necessary technology currently exists. A mission like this is hugely expensive (many many $billions if not $trillions) and and good luck getting insurance since the risks are unknown and unquantifiable currently. We do not have ANY equipment capable of mining an asteroid nor any near term reasonable prospect of seeing any - particularly from the private sector. (When Caterpillar starts working on it then you should sit up and take notice) We don't have any equipment capable of refining such minerals in space either so that will have to be developed (along with an adequate and robust power supply) or you'll have to return raw ore to Earth.
As for the "spectacular gains", that requires returning the (hypothetically) mined minerals to Earth which is the only place they currently are useful. Even if you somehow manage to return a huge amount of a valuable mineral to Earth you'll disrupt the market value of that mineral most likely causing prices to drop while your costs (many many $billions) will remain fixed and large. While that doesn't preclude it being a profitable enterprise, it does make evaluating the return complicated. And I'm a certified cost accountant so I know first hand how hard calculating the ROI would be. (borderline impossible FYI)
Worst of all any mined materials have to be returned to Earth in large (heavy) quantities. If you drop a large amount of minerals onto the surface of the Earth from space, congratulations! You have just created a Weapon of Mass Destruction. If you can return an asteroid from orbit you can just as easily drop it (on purpose or on accident) on someone to catastrophic effect. Even the remote risk of someone accidentally doing this means the risk of this technology is enormous.
But a lot of people don't. I had a high school teacher that had a big sticker on his wall that said "no space cadets"... and he was talking about the space program and how he thought it was a waste of money. He wanted to spend it all on social programs.
His mistake is that he thinks we don't already spend the money on social programs. Our government expenditures on social programs outpace our expenditures on NASA something like 50 to 1. It's not even close. Sounds like your "science" teacher was a clueless fool.
What we need to do is take it out of the politician's hands. the government is if anything backsliding on space.
Ok, how do you propose to do that? Private enterprise isn't going to do basic research and exploration - not at a meaningful scale anyway. Exploration of the frontiers of knowledge and basic research is almost entirely government funded. Don't believe me? Take a look at who is behind almost all research grants. (hint, NIH, DARPA, NSF are good places to look)
The future is private space exploration. it is going to be different than what the government was doing but if they can actually figure out how to make money up there then there will be an explosion of development that will never stop.
No it isn't and it never will be. Not at the real frontiers of exploration anyway. I'm an accountant and I can assure you that you cannot make a credible financial business plan for a trip to Mars for example such that it will get financial backing. Why? 1) The risks are unknown and unquantifiable. We simply don't know what we don't know. 2) The financial capital required is huge and there is no reasonable guarantee of a return based on past experience. 3) The only institution that can fund exploration on a large scale without an expectation of a financial return is the government. Once the boundaries have been moved then private enterprise can come in behind (ala SpaceX) and make it more efficient and useful but you simply CANNOT make a credible business plan and get it funded for something like a manned mission to mars. Companies do not fund big things unless they can have some reasonable expectation of a return on their investment.
What the hell kind of race do you wait for the opponent to catch up?
If the opponent can never catch up then it isn't a race. A race is a competition by definition. If one side can never win then it was never actually a competition in any meaningful sense of the word.
The heated passion of rivalry does not make for good policy and planning decisions.
Sometimes it does and sometimes it does not. What is certain is that competition gets results. Our entire economy is based on it. The ONLY reason we went to the moon was because we were at (cold) war with the Soviets. Take away that driver and the Apollo missions simply would never have happened. Once it was clear the Soviets weren't going to the moon, the Apollo program was folded like a cheap tent and we haven't been back since.
As great as Apollo was for tangible technology spin offs, from a space policy perspective it was disaster. It did long term damage and did much to keep man in low orbit for following 50 years or longer.
I have seen no compelling argument or evidence to support this assertion and you certainly haven't presented either here.
How about collaboration, a team can do more than single entity
Because it won't work. There is a reason we have competitive markets instead of collaborative markets. Collaboration works on a small scale but you need to harness competition to really push the boundaries quickly. Not to say collaboration is a bad thing but it simply will not make things happen. Sad but true.
NdGT makes a very good point that the only technologies that are really expensive (like space travel) that get funded are either in response to existential threats (i.e. nuclear war, etc) or for tangible financial gain. When it comes to space exploration you simply cannot quantify the risks sufficiently to get a return on investment so financial gain is off the table for anything on the frontier of our technology and knowledge. We went to the moon because we were in a (cold) war with the Soviet Union at the time. That underpinned everything we did in the Apollo missions. Once the Soviets cancelled their moon missions, so did we and we haven't been back since.
They say no to specific requests which are stupid.
I truly wish that were always true. Problem is that it isn't far too often. I've experienced first hand IT departments (usually in larger companies though not always) deny very practical reasonable requests made nicely because it "wasn't policy" and in some cases because they simply didn't want to. I've seen them verbally demean fellow employees which is never acceptable even when they are being stupid.
Stop coming to the IT department like you know what you're doing, tell them what you need to do, and you'll get the results you're looking for.
If I actually do know what I'm doing then it is perfectly reasonable for me to not pretend to be stupid. I should be polite and respectful but there is nothing wrong with me saying what I think, especially if I actually do know the answer. Ever called a helpdesk when you actually know what the problem is? I have. It is a very frustrating experience to be walked through a bunch of pointless nonsense by someone who isn't listening to what you are telling them. A lot of us out here actually do know what we are doing and know where the limits of our knowledge are. (sadly and to your point some other people don't but that's a separate issue) IT departments that demand you play dumb are another symptom of the problem.
Also, come to them when you first know that you have an IT need, not at the last minute.
Fine advice but not really relevant to the problem being discussed which is why IT departments are seen as a barrier to be worked around. Believe me I'm on the side of IT here but there are a lot of them that just don't seem to grok that they are either getting in the way or perceived to be difficult to work with. You can't change the behavior of others but it's unreasonable to expect others to change their behavior until you've done everything you can do.
Yeah, that's not the problem. The IT department is plumbing. The problem is that shitting is considered essential, so nobody grumbles about paying for plumbing because they know they need to shit, but nobody seems to realize that IT is also essential. It's not a value-add, it's a value-enabler. Without it, you don't have a business.
Every job is (or should be) vital to the company. Accounting isn't value added activity but it certainly is vital. Inventory management isn't value added but it certainly is vital. Of course IT is a sort of plumbing in a figurative sense. But the maintenance department which does real plumbing doesn't belittle company employees for not knowing how to hook up a toilet. They aren't perceived as a barrier to be worked around and there is a reason for that. IT departments far too often get in the way and are needlessly difficult to work with. What they do is important but it isn't the only important thing going on in a company.
They didn't even ask, they just set it up, and then it got owned because they didn't know half as much as they thought they did. And that's why we IT workers don't want people thinking they know what they're doing. Mostly they don't.
You're missing the important question which is WHY didn't the guy trust his IT department to handle it? Why did he feel the need to go around them in the first place? Whether he knew what he was doing or not is mostly irrelevant. The problem is that he didn't trust his IT department so he went around them. THAT is the root of the problem. The fact that he got owned later on is merely the symptom of the problem.
This is EXACTLY the arrogant attitude that makes people not want to deal with their IT department.
I worked for a web design/hosting startup as the network manager. The boss' buddy set up an FTP server and it immediately got owned and we became a warez site
The question you should be asking is why didn't he go to his IT department first? Why didn't he trust them to listen to what he wanted and make it happen? There has to be a reason he thought his buddy would be more helpful. This is exactly what I would expect to see when people regard the IT department as an obstacle.
We don't want control of this stuff because we're control freaks. We want control of this stuff so that someone else doesn't get it horribly wrong.
First off I've dealt with WAY too many IT departments who actually ARE control freaks. Anecdotal to be sure but it's not hard to find examples. Second, you are missing the point. Yes IT can help get it right but that is not the problem. The problem is that they are seen as a barrier rather than an aid. They say "no" rather than "why don't we try this instead". I've seen far too many IT departments that treat their users as a burden to be endured rather than valued customers.
"it's troubling that close to half of all respondents (49%) said their department occasionally or frequently initiates IT projects with little or no direct involvement of IT."
That's typically because many IT departments rarely add value to what other departments are trying to accomplish. A good IT department's role is to facilitate and support the activities of other departments. Their job should be to ask "how can I help you accomplish your tasks?" The problem is that too many IT departments think their primary task is to control the network and IT resources without much regard paid to what other departments are trying to accomplish with those resources. IT too often thinks of itself as an end rather than a means. So it should surprise no one that many departments in many companies regard IT as a barrier to be worked around rather than a partner ready and willing to help.
It's open for debate, but my view is everybody DOES want every feature they can have.
Not really. If I've got a pickup I use for hauling dirt at work in sketchy neighborhoods I'm going to want a pretty minimal feature set. No point in having a fancy touch screen or satellite radio. If you are buying a car for your mom you might not want that 400HP turbocharged engine but you might want it for yourself along with that fancy rear spoiler wing. Different people have different needs and wants. Similarly many features cost significant cash and adding them can often put the cost of the vehicle out of reach for those of lesser means even if they desire.
Different ranges will cater to different markets (more revenue), but not necessarily more profit.
I think you may not fully understand the economics at work. My apologies if what I'm about to outline is already known to you. I'm a certified accountant and have done some of this work in my day job. This is an over-simplification but more features = more cost to the manufacturer = higher price to customer.
Margins are usually higher with more features but every vehicle has a minimum required profit margin which is typically called a hurdle rate by finance folks. As a general practice the auto maker won't make the car unless they can get at least the hurdle rate margin for it. (the exact rate is arbitrarily chosen but is indexed for the risk of the investment) They also have fixed costs (tooling, assembly lines, salaries, engineering costs, etc) that they need to recoup and which don't change whether they sell 1 vehicle or 1 million vehicles. If they only sell fully pimped out vehicles they are leaving profit on the table because they will have to amortize those fixed costs over fewer vehicles. Even though the might make less margin on the less optioned out vehicle, their unit costs will fall because they sell more of them and can spread their fixed costs over more vehicles.
It's more complex than this but companies maximize profit when when marginal revenue = marginal cost. That is the additional revenue gained from selling one more car just equals the additional cost of selling that one more car. By offering vehicles with fewer options at a lower price point they push out to the point where marginal cost hockey sticks up from over production and increases profit to the manufacturer. Wikipedia has a good article on what is going on.
No. Most cars aren't works of art, because art is one of the few "industries" where uniqueness is key. Save for some limited-edition, luxury cars, that point is moot. Extras rarely value a car, age and exclusivity do.
Has nothing to do with cars being (or not) works of art. People don't (usually) demand that their car be truly unique but they do demand that they be personalized to a significant degree. People choose different paint colors, different engines, different wheels, etc. Car customization is a multi-billion dollar industry both at the OEM and aftermarket levels. I work in the industry and I can assure you that people do not want exactly the same vehicle as the next guy and many are willing to pay to get it. Companies that do not accommodate this to some degree are leaving money on the table. The US manufacturers tend to offer more options and the Japanese less with the Europeans somewhere in between. Even Tesla offers several power trains, trim packages and other options - roughly on par with what you see from the Japanese automakers for certain vehicles.
Really? I know quite a few and am married to one and many of them are quite good at business. Many are terrible and/or disinterested but your brush is a little to broad. If doctors in general were terrible at business in general then they would lose money and there is very little evidence of that occurring on a widespread basis.
I work in the patient refunds department for a very large insurer and it's absolutely out of control.
Ahh, so you only see the problem cases but lack the larger perspective of seeing all the things that happen correctly.
It often takes them 4 years to notice a payment which wasn't even for them.
Ahh, I see you are confusing what the doctor does (administer medicine and oversee the business) with what their accounting staff does. Doctors typically have a large staff to administer a rather ludicrously large paperwork burden. The fact that some payments get lost between the cracks should surprise no one. I'm an accountant (among other things) and I can assure you that it is not terrible difficult in a busy organization for a payment to get mishandled. I also have worked in healthcare systems and doctors offices and have a pretty good appreciation for what goes on there. It's not nearly as easy as you seem to think it is.
It's bad when they do their own books but it's still bad when you let them hire their own office staff.
Sounds like you have never tried to run a business yourself. Might give it a go before you start throwing stones at others.
No matter how old it is, I still can't fathom the "extra" scheme applied to the automotive industry.
It's rather simple so let me break it down for you. 1) Not everybody wants, needs or can afford every feature. 2) Automakers can sell more cars if they offer them at a range of prices. 3) People like to customize their vehicles because having something a little unique is valued. 4) If people weren't willing to pay extra for options then they would quickly not be offered. 5) Bundling options keeps complexity down to a manageable level and if done right improves profits for the manufacturer.
Why can't all cars be more like a Model S and ship with the most relevant technological developments "out of the box"
If people start gravitating with their dollars towards that business model then that is what will happen. I think it is unlikely but stranger things have happened. However remember that you are talking about a $100,000 luxury car so the rules are quite a bit different than for the market for a minivan or pickup that costs 1/3 of the price of the Tesla.
When people are on the job I see no reason they can't be monitored, that's why cops wear body cameras, their cars have dash cams, that's why trains should have cameras, and so should pilots, because if you knew what pilots were doing you probably wouldn't fly.
In some cases monitoring is quite reasonable and appropriate. In others it is pointless, wasteful and/or intrusive. Reflexively saying they should all be monitored at all times shows that you don't grasp all the nuances involved. Like you I support cameras as a general proposition but there are times when they are either useless or wasteful. There is no one size fits all answer.
Oh and I know very well what pilots do in the cockpit. I also know they have a rather spectacular safety record so I'm not especially worried about it.
There's no good reason NOT to have a camera in a train cab, cockpit, body cam, dash cam, etc, if it's ON THE JOB.
If the camera has minimal or no demonstrable safety benefit or if there are alternatives to the camera that would have a bigger bang for the buck in improving safety then there is a very good reason to not have the camera.
There also are significant (though often solvable) practical logistical and technology and economic issues in deploying cameras and saving the results. Do not be so quick to dismiss these challenges because they are not trivial or unimportant. Camera deployment isn't simply a matter of walking over to best buy and buying a few GoPros.
Whether or not it's "law" he has no right to privacy when my life is on the line.
That's a nonsense argument in such a general form because your life is constantly on the line. You ever drive a car? Do you insist that every other driver be monitored? Because you are at FAR higher statistical risk in your car than you are on any train or airplane and yet we don't insist on monitoring there.
The question is whether monitoring is reasonably likely to have a significant safety benefit. Black boxes in airliners and trains have obvious value in determining causes of crashes after the fact. Video monitoring of retail establishments has a clear benefit in reducing theft. Video monitoring of train engineers? Maybe... but the case isn't obvious because there are other options worth considering. Might be that a better solution is automation of speed controls. Might be that a better solution is a second engineer. Financial resources are finite so we should take a little time to figure out what the best solution is rather than reflexively going to the first idea we think of.
Now don't get me wrong, I agree that professionals responsible for public safety can and should expect reasonable monitoring while engaged in their professional duties. But note the word reasonable because it is important. There are legal, ethical and practical limits to what we can and should monitor. We don't have a right to view them on the toilet even if they are on duty.
Slashdot Mirror
Radiologists are already on their way to being obsolete.
Ha! Radiologists are in no way, shape or form becoming obsolete. Technology is making them more effective but they aren't in any danger of disappearing.
Radiologists will be replaced by Chicken Sexers
I'm afraid not. There is a lot more to radiology than simply trained pattern matching. They've had software to do exactly what you describe for quite some time now and there is no danger that radiologists will disappear anytime soon.
Swipe left for compound fracture, swipe right for non-compound fracture.
Do you seriously think that medicine is nothing more than a process of matching wall paper? There are some problems that a pattern matching system can help with and in fact radiologists actually have been using such software for a long time now. I did some engineering work in a radiology clinic that was using software to help with diagnostics over a decade ago and the software was good enough to sometimes catch things the radiologists missed. Guess what? Radiologists are still with us and will be for the foreseeable future.
Turns out if you ask a lot of people a question the average ends up being correct.
No. What happens is that under the right circumstances the average ends up being correct more often than for an individual. It's called Wisdom of Crowds among other things. It works well with certain types of decision making and predictions, particularly those regarding human psychology. Stock prices are based in a collective opinion of what the price of a stock should be so it's not surprising that a crowd would be better at guessing an average opinion of a crowd than an individual. But this doesn't work for everything.
Sure, if done right automation may replace a lot of what doctors do today.
Automation will supplement what they do but it will be more like accounting software boosting the productivity and accuracy of accountants. The problem isn't actually the medical treatment that desperately needs automation (though it can and does aid in places), it is the paperwork and support functions like billing. The paperwork burden in medical practice is immense and much of it is pointless paper shuffling by poorly paid clerical staff.
Tell that to RocketLawyer.
Just because someone has digitized some routine legal forms and advice isn't evidence that lawyers will be replaced. I have no reasonable expectation that the vast majority of what most lawyers do is readily amenable to automation. If you think it is then I don't think you really understand what is involved in their job. Rocketlaywer reportedly has about $20 million in revenue. That is NOT a big company and they aren't the first to do this. We're not talking earth shattering stuff here.
Expert radiologists are routinely outperformed by pattern-recognition software
Not really true except in rather narrow circumstances. I've actually worked in radiology clinics doing some engineering work and spoken to some radiologists about this very topic. They use software to help identify suspicious growths and the software does a pretty good job and sometimes catches things the human misses. But it's used as a supplement to help the radiologist because the radiologist will see things that the software does not. Together (human plus computer) does better than either alone.
diagnosticians by simple computer questionnaires
The examples you are thinking of are controlled tests with narrow parameters. Not out in the real world in real practices. People lie on medical history questionnaires all the time. There are women who go in for mammograms who will lie about having breast implants when asked even though they will show up plain as day on the xray. People leave off vital medical history constantly and no questionnaire will get the answer right if you feed it bad data. Test requisitions by medical professionals routinely do not include important medical history or even accurate descriptions of what to look for. My wife is a pathologist and she routinely gets requests to look for something that the doctor isn't at all concerned about or with no medical history or description of the problem or with the site of the biopsy wrong or incomplete. These problems can be addressed but not by any technology you or I are likely to see anytime soon. Medical expert systems will be a significant aid to doctors in developing differential diagnoses but they will not replace doctors and you shouldn't expect or want them to.
Silicon Valley investor Vinod Khosla predicted that algorithms and machines would replace 80% of doctors within a generation.
Oh, well then it must be the truth because a venture capitalist said so. They've never been wrong before [/sarcasm]. I am close to certain that 80% of doctors will not be replaced by machines within the lifetime of anyone reading this. Doctors will be aided greatly by machines but the human body is incredibly complicated and much of what doctor's do isn't terribly easy to automate. Furthermore even supplementing doctors with machines would require vast improvements in medical record documentation in a lot of cases. I don't know if you've looked at medical records lately but most aren't computerized and even those that are are frankly quite a mess with loads of inaccurate information. Why? The people entering the data make a lot of mistakes, leave things out, etc. This problem isn't even close to being solved.
What I get from shows like American pickers is that if you are not selling to the end collector then you have to leave significant profit for the dealer. It sounds like 50% of the final price is a fair percentage.
50% is a fairly typical division of the sales revenue for anything sold on consignment. Sometimes it's more, sometimes less. For random household items anything from 35%-50% is generally reasonable. The more expensive the item the lower the commission tends to be. Nobody (sane) is going to give a dealer half the sale price of a $30,000 car for example - 10% or so would be typical or maybe even a flat fee. 50% may sound like a lot but unless you are talking about big ticket items it really isn't, especially for anyone who employs staff.
If you are auctioning something it can vary but usually there are two important fees. A lot of auction houses will demand a buyer's premium of something like 10-20% and then a percentage of the final gavel price to the seller, typically something like another 10-20%. A lot of commissions will ratchet the percentage down as the sales price rises so it might be 20% for the first $100,000 and 15% on the amount above $100,000. I once auctioned a Lear Jet for example and we got a flat fee plus 3% since the asking price was around $3 million.
Oh, and in case anyone is wondering, it is basically impossible to make a reasonable profit selling stuff on consignment through eBay. eBay is too labor intensive and takes too large a commission to make it worthwhile. Furthermore eBay themselves are not easy to work with, particularly their "security" people. I speak from first hand experience. You can only make money on eBay doing liquidations of inventory/assets or by being a specialty dealer in a very narrow range of goods you can get for unusually good prices.
I've watched enough episodes of all kinds of shows like 'Pickers' and 'Salvage Hunters' in addition to my own experience to know that you'd not believe what stuff you have laying around in your garage or on your property that's worth money and it doesn't have to be a long lost Vermeer, the hitherto unknown seventh production Bugatti Royale or a Ming vase.
And I've actually owned an auction company in years gone by and I can assure you that almost all of the stuff people have lying around their garage is genuinely garbage or at best not worth much. Certainly not worth the hassle of trying to sell it on eBay in most cases. People tend to think old = valuable but in most cases that simply isn't true. Yes, sometimes you run across a genuine treasure but that is a seriously rare occurrence.
Shows like American Pickers are ludicrously unrealistic except in the sense that a lot of people who deal in secondhand goods (read junk) are seriously weird people. I've had to deal with a lot of them first hand. Some of the strangest people I've ever met. Some nice, some not so much, but rarely what you or I would consider "normal".
My sister even cleaned out her house last year, put the junk into one big box and flogged most of it on ebay for just under £200. The biggest problem you have when cleaning out a house or a property is not making money off of what might seem like junk at first glance, it's finding a dealer who isn't going to rip you off if you don't have time to sell your junk yourself.
A decent part of my auction business was estate sales. If you don't want to go to the trouble of doing it yourself (which is VERY reasonable - it's a huge pain) then just accept the fact that you'll get something out of it but probably not the maximum possible. Get a separate person to appraise what is in the estate if you are concerned about being ripped off. Bear in mind that this will cost money. You hire someone to liquidate estate assets because you want to have a life and doing this is HUGELY time consuming. It's ok if the estate sale person/company makes a decent or even handsome profit. You'll avoid a huge time sink and you'll get some money you wouldn't have had otherwise. If you want certain items from the estate just set them aside ahead of time.
Florida Hospital Shows Normal Internet Lag Time Won't Affect Remote Robotic Surgeries
So what? It's not normal lag you are worried about. It's severe lag which on the normal internet you cannot guarantee you can eliminate. It's interesting information but I'm not sure if it's really useful information.
I wonder about the mindset of people who believe that Americans should be treated and dictated to like the subjects of European monarchy,
That's the most bizarre leap of bad logic I've heard in quite a while. Thanks for a good laugh over something absurd.
what is implicit in your and deGrasse-Tyson's argument that Queen Isabella's investments are comparable to US government spending.
In the sense that they are both government spending that would be correct. Money doesn't actually care if it comes from a monarchy or a democracy. Exploration of the truly unknown doesn't happen from the private sector. The Dutch East India Company did not precede government sponsored exploration. Columbus, Magellen and most every other explorer you've ever heard of was government sponsored. You cannot build a business model around "let's go explore over there where no one has ever been and see if we can find something profitable". No private company could have justified a Moon mission in the 1960s. Anyone who claims otherwise is delusional.
It would depend a lot on how it's implemented and how it's to be used. Yeah, it would very much suck if they are just scraping all your contacts and then mass spamming them.
I cannot think of a single legitimate business reason they would need my contact list information. I cannot think of anything they could offer me that I would want that would entice me to share that information with them.
Notice the "If" at the beginning? And it's really no different than any other app that allows you to post/share/sent something to a friend or family member.
That depends heavily on whether it is opt in or opt out and whether it is opt in by default and how hard they push you to opt in. Plus the fact that they are even asking is a bit shady as far as I'm concerned.
We started to the moon because JFK needed a spectacular - but once the cost estimates started coming in, he started seriously considering backing off. We went to the moon because JFK took a bullet to the head allowing LBJ to push it (and the associated pork) as a monument to JFK.
Citation please?
Apollo was essentially cancelled in the budget battles of '65-'67. The Soviets didn't get serious about their lunar programs until around '66-'67. (And most of them weren't cancelled until '72 or so.)
Hmm, let's see. The Soviet programs were cancelled in '72 according to you (actually that's not quite right but it's close enough). When was the last mission to the Moon? Oh that's right, December 1972. Quite a coincidence that...
Except he gets his facts completely wrong. For example, Columbus' Voyage was privately financed, and the risk of such voyages was generally privately insured.
You might want to check your facts. It was financed out of the royal treasury and commissioned by the Queen.
The asteroid belt alone is so full of easily reachable resources that there is almost no risk and spectacular gains being made. That's why the private sector is gearing up for private (robotic) space exploration and mining.
"Almost no risk"? Are you kidding me? Anyone who thinks asteroid mining is a viable business within the lifetime of anyone reading this is delusional and/or hasn't thought the economics through. Professionally I am an engineer and I'm also a certified cost accountant. What that means is that I evaluate business costs and risks for a living. Anyone who says there is no risk in asteroid mining has no idea what they are talking about. It might be feasible a long time from now but there will have to be a huge amount of government financed research before it is ever possible that private enterprise will go there.
The financial risk alone is enormous and there is no guarantee of success and basically none of the necessary technology currently exists. A mission like this is hugely expensive (many many $billions if not $trillions) and and good luck getting insurance since the risks are unknown and unquantifiable currently. We do not have ANY equipment capable of mining an asteroid nor any near term reasonable prospect of seeing any - particularly from the private sector. (When Caterpillar starts working on it then you should sit up and take notice) We don't have any equipment capable of refining such minerals in space either so that will have to be developed (along with an adequate and robust power supply) or you'll have to return raw ore to Earth.
As for the "spectacular gains", that requires returning the (hypothetically) mined minerals to Earth which is the only place they currently are useful. Even if you somehow manage to return a huge amount of a valuable mineral to Earth you'll disrupt the market value of that mineral most likely causing prices to drop while your costs (many many $billions) will remain fixed and large. While that doesn't preclude it being a profitable enterprise, it does make evaluating the return complicated. And I'm a certified cost accountant so I know first hand how hard calculating the ROI would be. (borderline impossible FYI)
Worst of all any mined materials have to be returned to Earth in large (heavy) quantities. If you drop a large amount of minerals onto the surface of the Earth from space, congratulations! You have just created a Weapon of Mass Destruction. If you can return an asteroid from orbit you can just as easily drop it (on purpose or on accident) on someone to catastrophic effect. Even the remote risk of someone accidentally doing this means the risk of this technology is enormous.
But a lot of people don't. I had a high school teacher that had a big sticker on his wall that said "no space cadets"... and he was talking about the space program and how he thought it was a waste of money. He wanted to spend it all on social programs.
His mistake is that he thinks we don't already spend the money on social programs. Our government expenditures on social programs outpace our expenditures on NASA something like 50 to 1. It's not even close. Sounds like your "science" teacher was a clueless fool.
What we need to do is take it out of the politician's hands. the government is if anything backsliding on space.
Ok, how do you propose to do that? Private enterprise isn't going to do basic research and exploration - not at a meaningful scale anyway. Exploration of the frontiers of knowledge and basic research is almost entirely government funded. Don't believe me? Take a look at who is behind almost all research grants. (hint, NIH, DARPA, NSF are good places to look)
The future is private space exploration. it is going to be different than what the government was doing but if they can actually figure out how to make money up there then there will be an explosion of development that will never stop.
No it isn't and it never will be. Not at the real frontiers of exploration anyway. I'm an accountant and I can assure you that you cannot make a credible financial business plan for a trip to Mars for example such that it will get financial backing. Why? 1) The risks are unknown and unquantifiable. We simply don't know what we don't know. 2) The financial capital required is huge and there is no reasonable guarantee of a return based on past experience. 3) The only institution that can fund exploration on a large scale without an expectation of a financial return is the government. Once the boundaries have been moved then private enterprise can come in behind (ala SpaceX) and make it more efficient and useful but you simply CANNOT make a credible business plan and get it funded for something like a manned mission to mars. Companies do not fund big things unless they can have some reasonable expectation of a return on their investment.
What the hell kind of race do you wait for the opponent to catch up?
If the opponent can never catch up then it isn't a race. A race is a competition by definition. If one side can never win then it was never actually a competition in any meaningful sense of the word.
The heated passion of rivalry does not make for good policy and planning decisions.
Sometimes it does and sometimes it does not. What is certain is that competition gets results. Our entire economy is based on it. The ONLY reason we went to the moon was because we were at (cold) war with the Soviets. Take away that driver and the Apollo missions simply would never have happened. Once it was clear the Soviets weren't going to the moon, the Apollo program was folded like a cheap tent and we haven't been back since.
As great as Apollo was for tangible technology spin offs, from a space policy perspective it was disaster. It did long term damage and did much to keep man in low orbit for following 50 years or longer.
I have seen no compelling argument or evidence to support this assertion and you certainly haven't presented either here.
Does China even have a man rated launcher yet?
There is this thing called Wikipedia that is just chock full of answers to questions like that.
How about collaboration, a team can do more than single entity
Because it won't work. There is a reason we have competitive markets instead of collaborative markets. Collaboration works on a small scale but you need to harness competition to really push the boundaries quickly. Not to say collaboration is a bad thing but it simply will not make things happen. Sad but true.
NdGT makes a very good point that the only technologies that are really expensive (like space travel) that get funded are either in response to existential threats (i.e. nuclear war, etc) or for tangible financial gain. When it comes to space exploration you simply cannot quantify the risks sufficiently to get a return on investment so financial gain is off the table for anything on the frontier of our technology and knowledge. We went to the moon because we were in a (cold) war with the Soviet Union at the time. That underpinned everything we did in the Apollo missions. Once the Soviets cancelled their moon missions, so did we and we haven't been back since.
With houses as big as they are, we ( USA ) need to think about going to 220v to save on copper.
Will never happen. Retrofit costs are far too high and I shudder to imagine the technical support nightmare that would cause.
They say no to specific requests which are stupid.
I truly wish that were always true. Problem is that it isn't far too often. I've experienced first hand IT departments (usually in larger companies though not always) deny very practical reasonable requests made nicely because it "wasn't policy" and in some cases because they simply didn't want to. I've seen them verbally demean fellow employees which is never acceptable even when they are being stupid.
Stop coming to the IT department like you know what you're doing, tell them what you need to do, and you'll get the results you're looking for.
If I actually do know what I'm doing then it is perfectly reasonable for me to not pretend to be stupid. I should be polite and respectful but there is nothing wrong with me saying what I think, especially if I actually do know the answer. Ever called a helpdesk when you actually know what the problem is? I have. It is a very frustrating experience to be walked through a bunch of pointless nonsense by someone who isn't listening to what you are telling them. A lot of us out here actually do know what we are doing and know where the limits of our knowledge are. (sadly and to your point some other people don't but that's a separate issue) IT departments that demand you play dumb are another symptom of the problem.
Also, come to them when you first know that you have an IT need, not at the last minute.
Fine advice but not really relevant to the problem being discussed which is why IT departments are seen as a barrier to be worked around. Believe me I'm on the side of IT here but there are a lot of them that just don't seem to grok that they are either getting in the way or perceived to be difficult to work with. You can't change the behavior of others but it's unreasonable to expect others to change their behavior until you've done everything you can do.
Yeah, that's not the problem. The IT department is plumbing. The problem is that shitting is considered essential, so nobody grumbles about paying for plumbing because they know they need to shit, but nobody seems to realize that IT is also essential. It's not a value-add, it's a value-enabler. Without it, you don't have a business.
Every job is (or should be) vital to the company. Accounting isn't value added activity but it certainly is vital. Inventory management isn't value added but it certainly is vital. Of course IT is a sort of plumbing in a figurative sense. But the maintenance department which does real plumbing doesn't belittle company employees for not knowing how to hook up a toilet. They aren't perceived as a barrier to be worked around and there is a reason for that. IT departments far too often get in the way and are needlessly difficult to work with. What they do is important but it isn't the only important thing going on in a company.
They didn't even ask, they just set it up, and then it got owned because they didn't know half as much as they thought they did. And that's why we IT workers don't want people thinking they know what they're doing. Mostly they don't.
You're missing the important question which is WHY didn't the guy trust his IT department to handle it? Why did he feel the need to go around them in the first place? Whether he knew what he was doing or not is mostly irrelevant. The problem is that he didn't trust his IT department so he went around them. THAT is the root of the problem. The fact that he got owned later on is merely the symptom of the problem.
That's what the fuckups always say.
This is EXACTLY the arrogant attitude that makes people not want to deal with their IT department.
I worked for a web design/hosting startup as the network manager. The boss' buddy set up an FTP server and it immediately got owned and we became a warez site
The question you should be asking is why didn't he go to his IT department first? Why didn't he trust them to listen to what he wanted and make it happen? There has to be a reason he thought his buddy would be more helpful. This is exactly what I would expect to see when people regard the IT department as an obstacle.
We don't want control of this stuff because we're control freaks. We want control of this stuff so that someone else doesn't get it horribly wrong.
First off I've dealt with WAY too many IT departments who actually ARE control freaks. Anecdotal to be sure but it's not hard to find examples. Second, you are missing the point. Yes IT can help get it right but that is not the problem. The problem is that they are seen as a barrier rather than an aid. They say "no" rather than "why don't we try this instead". I've seen far too many IT departments that treat their users as a burden to be endured rather than valued customers.
"it's troubling that close to half of all respondents (49%) said their department occasionally or frequently initiates IT projects with little or no direct involvement of IT."
That's typically because many IT departments rarely add value to what other departments are trying to accomplish. A good IT department's role is to facilitate and support the activities of other departments. Their job should be to ask "how can I help you accomplish your tasks?" The problem is that too many IT departments think their primary task is to control the network and IT resources without much regard paid to what other departments are trying to accomplish with those resources. IT too often thinks of itself as an end rather than a means. So it should surprise no one that many departments in many companies regard IT as a barrier to be worked around rather than a partner ready and willing to help.
It's open for debate, but my view is everybody DOES want every feature they can have.
Not really. If I've got a pickup I use for hauling dirt at work in sketchy neighborhoods I'm going to want a pretty minimal feature set. No point in having a fancy touch screen or satellite radio. If you are buying a car for your mom you might not want that 400HP turbocharged engine but you might want it for yourself along with that fancy rear spoiler wing. Different people have different needs and wants. Similarly many features cost significant cash and adding them can often put the cost of the vehicle out of reach for those of lesser means even if they desire.
Different ranges will cater to different markets (more revenue), but not necessarily more profit.
I think you may not fully understand the economics at work. My apologies if what I'm about to outline is already known to you. I'm a certified accountant and have done some of this work in my day job. This is an over-simplification but more features = more cost to the manufacturer = higher price to customer.
Margins are usually higher with more features but every vehicle has a minimum required profit margin which is typically called a hurdle rate by finance folks. As a general practice the auto maker won't make the car unless they can get at least the hurdle rate margin for it. (the exact rate is arbitrarily chosen but is indexed for the risk of the investment) They also have fixed costs (tooling, assembly lines, salaries, engineering costs, etc) that they need to recoup and which don't change whether they sell 1 vehicle or 1 million vehicles. If they only sell fully pimped out vehicles they are leaving profit on the table because they will have to amortize those fixed costs over fewer vehicles. Even though the might make less margin on the less optioned out vehicle, their unit costs will fall because they sell more of them and can spread their fixed costs over more vehicles.
It's more complex than this but companies maximize profit when when marginal revenue = marginal cost. That is the additional revenue gained from selling one more car just equals the additional cost of selling that one more car. By offering vehicles with fewer options at a lower price point they push out to the point where marginal cost hockey sticks up from over production and increases profit to the manufacturer. Wikipedia has a good article on what is going on.
No. Most cars aren't works of art, because art is one of the few "industries" where uniqueness is key. Save for some limited-edition, luxury cars, that point is moot. Extras rarely value a car, age and exclusivity do.
Has nothing to do with cars being (or not) works of art. People don't (usually) demand that their car be truly unique but they do demand that they be personalized to a significant degree. People choose different paint colors, different engines, different wheels, etc. Car customization is a multi-billion dollar industry both at the OEM and aftermarket levels. I work in the industry and I can assure you that people do not want exactly the same vehicle as the next guy and many are willing to pay to get it. Companies that do not accommodate this to some degree are leaving money on the table. The US manufacturers tend to offer more options and the Japanese less with the Europeans somewhere in between. Even Tesla offers several power trains, trim packages and other options - roughly on par with what you see from the Japanese automakers for certain vehicles.
Doctors are terrible businesspeople.
Really? I know quite a few and am married to one and many of them are quite good at business. Many are terrible and/or disinterested but your brush is a little to broad. If doctors in general were terrible at business in general then they would lose money and there is very little evidence of that occurring on a widespread basis.
I work in the patient refunds department for a very large insurer and it's absolutely out of control.
Ahh, so you only see the problem cases but lack the larger perspective of seeing all the things that happen correctly.
It often takes them 4 years to notice a payment which wasn't even for them.
Ahh, I see you are confusing what the doctor does (administer medicine and oversee the business) with what their accounting staff does. Doctors typically have a large staff to administer a rather ludicrously large paperwork burden. The fact that some payments get lost between the cracks should surprise no one. I'm an accountant (among other things) and I can assure you that it is not terrible difficult in a busy organization for a payment to get mishandled. I also have worked in healthcare systems and doctors offices and have a pretty good appreciation for what goes on there. It's not nearly as easy as you seem to think it is.
It's bad when they do their own books but it's still bad when you let them hire their own office staff.
Sounds like you have never tried to run a business yourself. Might give it a go before you start throwing stones at others.
No matter how old it is, I still can't fathom the "extra" scheme applied to the automotive industry.
It's rather simple so let me break it down for you. 1) Not everybody wants, needs or can afford every feature. 2) Automakers can sell more cars if they offer them at a range of prices. 3) People like to customize their vehicles because having something a little unique is valued. 4) If people weren't willing to pay extra for options then they would quickly not be offered. 5) Bundling options keeps complexity down to a manageable level and if done right improves profits for the manufacturer.
Why can't all cars be more like a Model S and ship with the most relevant technological developments "out of the box"
If people start gravitating with their dollars towards that business model then that is what will happen. I think it is unlikely but stranger things have happened. However remember that you are talking about a $100,000 luxury car so the rules are quite a bit different than for the market for a minivan or pickup that costs 1/3 of the price of the Tesla.
When people are on the job I see no reason they can't be monitored, that's why cops wear body cameras, their cars have dash cams, that's why trains should have cameras, and so should pilots, because if you knew what pilots were doing you probably wouldn't fly.
In some cases monitoring is quite reasonable and appropriate. In others it is pointless, wasteful and/or intrusive. Reflexively saying they should all be monitored at all times shows that you don't grasp all the nuances involved. Like you I support cameras as a general proposition but there are times when they are either useless or wasteful. There is no one size fits all answer.
Oh and I know very well what pilots do in the cockpit. I also know they have a rather spectacular safety record so I'm not especially worried about it.
There's no good reason NOT to have a camera in a train cab, cockpit, body cam, dash cam, etc, if it's ON THE JOB.
If the camera has minimal or no demonstrable safety benefit or if there are alternatives to the camera that would have a bigger bang for the buck in improving safety then there is a very good reason to not have the camera.
There also are significant (though often solvable) practical logistical and technology and economic issues in deploying cameras and saving the results. Do not be so quick to dismiss these challenges because they are not trivial or unimportant. Camera deployment isn't simply a matter of walking over to best buy and buying a few GoPros.
Whether or not it's "law" he has no right to privacy when my life is on the line.
That's a nonsense argument in such a general form because your life is constantly on the line. You ever drive a car? Do you insist that every other driver be monitored? Because you are at FAR higher statistical risk in your car than you are on any train or airplane and yet we don't insist on monitoring there.
The question is whether monitoring is reasonably likely to have a significant safety benefit. Black boxes in airliners and trains have obvious value in determining causes of crashes after the fact. Video monitoring of retail establishments has a clear benefit in reducing theft. Video monitoring of train engineers? Maybe... but the case isn't obvious because there are other options worth considering. Might be that a better solution is automation of speed controls. Might be that a better solution is a second engineer. Financial resources are finite so we should take a little time to figure out what the best solution is rather than reflexively going to the first idea we think of.
Now don't get me wrong, I agree that professionals responsible for public safety can and should expect reasonable monitoring while engaged in their professional duties. But note the word reasonable because it is important. There are legal, ethical and practical limits to what we can and should monitor. We don't have a right to view them on the toilet even if they are on duty.