Given that everywhere I ago almost everyone drives at least a couple miles above the speed limit, and that there are places I've been to where it's routine to drive 10-20mph over the limit, I think the arguments you cite are entirely reasonable.
How the heck does monitoring help? If they do stupid shit and get into a wreck, it's too fucking late, monitoring or not. Monitoring your kid is useless.
You do realize, I hope, that, like, half of the words you have used in your post wouldn't even be understood by the people this will be marketed to? Yeah, sure as heck I'd like it to be designed the way you describe. Care for starting a Kickstarter campaign for such a product? Because I'm up. LoJack is a seriously shady outfit, as far as I'm concerned they'll be selling the data to guys who want to stalk teenage girls.
Especially if such ability is merely a software update away. That's really what people don't get. You get a cellphone, it's one remote and silent software update away from being turned into a snooping device that constantly records the audio and GPS location data, and periodically uploads it to a server somewhere. That's assuming that such functionality isn't present in the software from Day 1.
Unless you can cite a single case of a doctor taking action based solely on a 23andMe test, then they are not a medical diagnostic lab.
Thanks for admitting you have no clue. Whether a doctor uses it or not doesn't fucking matter. A freaking fever thermometer you buy at a grocery store is a regulated diagnostic device. Just as is, say, a pregnancy test. Condoms are medical devices too. And so on.
To simplify the rules for you: if it is marketed specifically as something that lets you make medical decisions, it is subject to regulation. And it fucking better be.
Or, to paraphrase: if you think it doesn't need to be regulated just because it's software, you're delusional. It doesn't matter if it's software or not. It provides a diagnostic function. It's no different than if someone offered a "family practitioner" software that makes medical diagnoses for you. It's been tried before, you know.
Software no government is going to have much luck restricting people from getting their hands on it.
If you seriously think that software that makes medical diagnostic claims is not regulated, you're not living in the same world as the rest of us does. If you try to publish such software as a US-based entity and the FDA gets wind of it, if you don't cooperate with them you'll be slammed down with an injunction, your web host will as well, and that'll be the end of it. Same thing will happen in many countries in the E.U.
You shouldn't be able to order such a test if it isn't regulated like any other medical diagnostic lab that tests much simpler things (routine urine and blood tests). You might as well be receiving people's lotto submissions.
Let me paraphrase for anyone who still doesn't have a clue: as far as I'm concerned, their customers were getting back results generated by a random number generator. That's all they are useful for, even if some fancy biochemical process was used -- it's all unsupervised hokum, and stupid people are falling for it. One that had nothing to do with random processes taking part during the egg fertilization and subsequent zygote division that gave rise to their selves, by the way.
I was wondering what the fuck were they thinking in the first place. In the U.S., anything that claims almost any diagnostic ability is subject to regulation. Even if said regulation is some grandfathering rule exempting the device from strong oversight - it's still regulated. Ultimately, those tests are used by people to make potentially life-altering decisions, and I fully welcome that FDA has finally caught up to them.
You won't know whether their services are useful, precisely because they were exempting themselves from regulation. There's absolutely no oversight, they may be telling you results from a random number generator for all we know. You're absolutely crazy to be using their services. I was listening to their ads on various NPR-related podcasts, and was seriously concerned about possible fallout from such services. They are, for all intents and purposes, a medical diagnostic lab. Their customers treat them like one, the regulators should too.
the really big benefit is to get above all cloud cover
This thing won't be allowed to fly over densely populated areas, so you might as well choose a remote desert location with little to no cloud cover and be done with it. It's really totally pointless.
The wing is the rotor. The rotors on the turbines are as just big as they need to be. I mean, surely you have done some engineering there, why won't you apply for a job there to help them out? I'm sure they could use your, um, talents.
Working better, to me, is an order of magnitude better, to at least some decent integer factor better. I mean something has to offset the huge inconvenience of flying the darn thing, it better be good. So, still meh.
Somehow I don't think out atmosphere quite extends to a "constant noon orbit", neither does our material science quite catch up to the thermal requirements of such flight, even if there was enough atmosphere up there to keep that thing flying (airfoil + lift).
There's really no point in flying solar cells, they don't work any better than down on Earth, and they shade what's under just the same. It's quite pointless, if you ask me. If you're going to fly something, use the flying aspect of it to generate power. What a let-down.
IMHO the way of using flying-anything for power has been demonstrated by Makani Power. I somehow trust Makani's engineering a tad better. They've been a bit more open about their engineering process, and they have some pretty damn good talent. Oh, and their areal power density (per are of flying "stuff") is at least order of magnitude better than an ideal 100% efficient solar cell would be. So, meh. Big meh.
Finally someone who gets this. All those millionaire execs are really not special. They'd love us all to think that way, but it's a pure manufactured fantasy.
The US can take care of themselves, but not at a reasonable cost. All these gadgets we're addicted to are imports, and some of the largest employers are the technology companies that "produce" them.
Remember that all this money would stay within, and it wouldn't take long for the gadgets to be locally made. I'd think that there'd be a domestic tech-boom that would probably temporarily outshine the biggest of the Asian tech booms. U.S. was quite prosperous when manufacturing and mining was mostly local. Again, I'm not saying that it'd be manna from heaven. Places like Pittsburgh would probably quickly degenerate into their old dirty selves, and many new dirty manufacturing towns would pop up as well, and environment would be a big fucking mess for a while - when you're after basic needs, environmental issues sort of fade. If the sanctions were to be lifted, all this would come crashing down and we'd be arguably in an even bigger doo-doo than at the time the sanctions were imposed.
There's a big difference between an isolated country and a non-isolated one. At the moment, the non-isolated one is pursuing all avenues at keeping the costs down - that means globalizing manufacturing, resources, etc. If that weren't possible, you'd be looking at a quite different situation.
In spite of everything, U.S. is still a big country with a lot of natural resources. The only reason most of those resources are not being exploited is availability of cheap resources from elsewhere. Sanctions that isolate the U.S. will merely shift the opportunity inwards. There'd be a whole lot of growth of the industry. Yeah, there'd also be the environmental problems that it brings, but oh well, at the moment we're merely exporting them.
Consider me dumb, but how on Earth will capping executive pay on a scale of an entire country lead to increased poverty? You think that people who can live with earning a bit less than their current excesses will magically perform worse? That someone who doesn't earn millions USD per year can't lead a large multinational corporation? The heck? Do you really think that people's performance is solely determined by their pay? Really? That's your rational position?
This is not about economic growth and got nothing to do with it. It's all about people in the top positions earning commensurately with the human nature. Just because you're a CEO doesn't magically make you perform 3+ orders of magnitude better than the rest of us.
The "a lot of stuff in the way" is a one part-per-trillion effect, so it's not all that easy to tell if there "is" a lot of stuff other than by dispersion! You'll not see it in purely transmissive/absorptive spectral properties unless we have spectrometers that good - ones that have to work from optical all the way to gamma rays, by the way.
Slashdot Mirror
Given that everywhere I ago almost everyone drives at least a couple miles above the speed limit, and that there are places I've been to where it's routine to drive 10-20mph over the limit, I think the arguments you cite are entirely reasonable.
where I go with company-provided assets makes sense
It's not anybody's business where I elope with my secretary, thank you very much.
How the heck does monitoring help? If they do stupid shit and get into a wreck, it's too fucking late, monitoring or not. Monitoring your kid is useless.
You do realize, I hope, that, like, half of the words you have used in your post wouldn't even be understood by the people this will be marketed to? Yeah, sure as heck I'd like it to be designed the way you describe. Care for starting a Kickstarter campaign for such a product? Because I'm up. LoJack is a seriously shady outfit, as far as I'm concerned they'll be selling the data to guys who want to stalk teenage girls.
Especially if such ability is merely a software update away. That's really what people don't get. You get a cellphone, it's one remote and silent software update away from being turned into a snooping device that constantly records the audio and GPS location data, and periodically uploads it to a server somewhere. That's assuming that such functionality isn't present in the software from Day 1.
Unless you can cite a single case of a doctor taking action based solely on a 23andMe test, then they are not a medical diagnostic lab.
Thanks for admitting you have no clue. Whether a doctor uses it or not doesn't fucking matter. A freaking fever thermometer you buy at a grocery store is a regulated diagnostic device. Just as is, say, a pregnancy test. Condoms are medical devices too. And so on.
To simplify the rules for you: if it is marketed specifically as something that lets you make medical decisions, it is subject to regulation. And it fucking better be.
Or, to paraphrase: if you think it doesn't need to be regulated just because it's software, you're delusional. It doesn't matter if it's software or not. It provides a diagnostic function. It's no different than if someone offered a "family practitioner" software that makes medical diagnoses for you. It's been tried before, you know.
Software no government is going to have much luck restricting people from getting their hands on it.
If you seriously think that software that makes medical diagnostic claims is not regulated, you're not living in the same world as the rest of us does. If you try to publish such software as a US-based entity and the FDA gets wind of it, if you don't cooperate with them you'll be slammed down with an injunction, your web host will as well, and that'll be the end of it. Same thing will happen in many countries in the E.U.
You shouldn't be able to order such a test if it isn't regulated like any other medical diagnostic lab that tests much simpler things (routine urine and blood tests). You might as well be receiving people's lotto submissions.
Let me paraphrase for anyone who still doesn't have a clue: as far as I'm concerned, their customers were getting back results generated by a random number generator. That's all they are useful for, even if some fancy biochemical process was used -- it's all unsupervised hokum, and stupid people are falling for it. One that had nothing to do with random processes taking part during the egg fertilization and subsequent zygote division that gave rise to their selves, by the way.
I was wondering what the fuck were they thinking in the first place. In the U.S., anything that claims almost any diagnostic ability is subject to regulation. Even if said regulation is some grandfathering rule exempting the device from strong oversight - it's still regulated. Ultimately, those tests are used by people to make potentially life-altering decisions, and I fully welcome that FDA has finally caught up to them.
You won't know whether their services are useful, precisely because they were exempting themselves from regulation. There's absolutely no oversight, they may be telling you results from a random number generator for all we know. You're absolutely crazy to be using their services. I was listening to their ads on various NPR-related podcasts, and was seriously concerned about possible fallout from such services. They are, for all intents and purposes, a medical diagnostic lab. Their customers treat them like one, the regulators should too.
the really big benefit is to get above all cloud cover
This thing won't be allowed to fly over densely populated areas, so you might as well choose a remote desert location with little to no cloud cover and be done with it. It's really totally pointless.
The wing is the rotor. The rotors on the turbines are as just big as they need to be. I mean, surely you have done some engineering there, why won't you apply for a job there to help them out? I'm sure they could use your, um, talents.
Working better, to me, is an order of magnitude better, to at least some decent integer factor better. I mean something has to offset the huge inconvenience of flying the darn thing, it better be good. So, still meh.
Somehow I don't think out atmosphere quite extends to a "constant noon orbit", neither does our material science quite catch up to the thermal requirements of such flight, even if there was enough atmosphere up there to keep that thing flying (airfoil + lift).
There's really no point in flying solar cells, they don't work any better than down on Earth, and they shade what's under just the same. It's quite pointless, if you ask me. If you're going to fly something, use the flying aspect of it to generate power. What a let-down.
IMHO the way of using flying-anything for power has been demonstrated by Makani Power. I somehow trust Makani's engineering a tad better. They've been a bit more open about their engineering process, and they have some pretty damn good talent. Oh, and their areal power density (per are of flying "stuff") is at least order of magnitude better than an ideal 100% efficient solar cell would be. So, meh. Big meh.
Bingo.
I think frankly that nobody cares about that extra $1B in tax revenue. It's noise.
Good for them. Maybe their replacements would worry more about longer-term corporate performance than their golden parachutes.
Finally someone who gets this. All those millionaire execs are really not special. They'd love us all to think that way, but it's a pure manufactured fantasy.
The US can take care of themselves, but not at a reasonable cost. All these gadgets we're addicted to are imports, and some of the largest employers are the technology companies that "produce" them.
Remember that all this money would stay within, and it wouldn't take long for the gadgets to be locally made. I'd think that there'd be a domestic tech-boom that would probably temporarily outshine the biggest of the Asian tech booms. U.S. was quite prosperous when manufacturing and mining was mostly local. Again, I'm not saying that it'd be manna from heaven. Places like Pittsburgh would probably quickly degenerate into their old dirty selves, and many new dirty manufacturing towns would pop up as well, and environment would be a big fucking mess for a while - when you're after basic needs, environmental issues sort of fade. If the sanctions were to be lifted, all this would come crashing down and we'd be arguably in an even bigger doo-doo than at the time the sanctions were imposed.
There's a big difference between an isolated country and a non-isolated one. At the moment, the non-isolated one is pursuing all avenues at keeping the costs down - that means globalizing manufacturing, resources, etc. If that weren't possible, you'd be looking at a quite different situation.
In spite of everything, U.S. is still a big country with a lot of natural resources. The only reason most of those resources are not being exploited is availability of cheap resources from elsewhere. Sanctions that isolate the U.S. will merely shift the opportunity inwards. There'd be a whole lot of growth of the industry. Yeah, there'd also be the environmental problems that it brings, but oh well, at the moment we're merely exporting them.
Consider me dumb, but how on Earth will capping executive pay on a scale of an entire country lead to increased poverty? You think that people who can live with earning a bit less than their current excesses will magically perform worse? That someone who doesn't earn millions USD per year can't lead a large multinational corporation? The heck? Do you really think that people's performance is solely determined by their pay? Really? That's your rational position?
This is not about economic growth and got nothing to do with it. It's all about people in the top positions earning commensurately with the human nature. Just because you're a CEO doesn't magically make you perform 3+ orders of magnitude better than the rest of us.
The "a lot of stuff in the way" is a one part-per-trillion effect, so it's not all that easy to tell if there "is" a lot of stuff other than by dispersion! You'll not see it in purely transmissive/absorptive spectral properties unless we have spectrometers that good - ones that have to work from optical all the way to gamma rays, by the way.