That happened because you paid out of pocket. Doctors charge a wide variety for the same thing. For the most part, it does not matter what a doctor charges for anything, the insurance company pays them whatever they feel they deserve. Thus, a typical visit is reimbursed with $50. Since you paid out of pocket, you did not have the leverage of a large insurance company on your side and paid the full amount that in reality is rarly if ever paid.
malpractice insurance is not what you take home so it doesn't figure in your earnings. Factoring that out as cost of doing business, you can certainly have a family and support yourself on 70K a year.
Sounds like a plan, that's not reality.
consider a case of a simple family doctor with a busy practice with one nurse
again, unrealistic. On avg there are three people per doctor on staff for support. Yes, a nurse. Medical assistant. Then people to take care of billing - because of the complexity of insurance companies, you either have people on staff who understand them and do the billing or you contract out to an indepentent company. There are receptionists and schdulers. Give me time, I could think of more
That's 40 patients a day for 350 days a year, i.e. 14000 visits per year
When you figure total amount of patients you are in part limited by call and someone has to take care of your patients that are in the hospital daily. You or one of you partners have to be available 24 hours a day to take call. One per on call can only handle so many calls. Many patients do not show up for visits as scheduled. Where I work, the rate of no show can be 30-50% daily. If you overbook too much, you risk running unbelievably behind.
Also, just because you feel you don't need a day off, doesn't mean everyone else should be held to that standard. (didn't I say something about that) That's insane and unrealistic, everyone deserves a day off or two a week, especially if you have a family, you owe it to your kids.
At $10 per visit
Average visit charge is usually $50. See the uncomprhensive list above of expensises above.
Or are you saying that malpractice insurance brings the rates up by an order of magnitude?
as you can now see, its one of many costs of doing business
Or maybe that doctors drop their rates once they have paid off med school loans?
No, I make no apoligies for how much a doctor makes. Read about stress and such in previous post. Good doctors deserve what they earn. For every easy patient (ie. healthy) we see many more complicated and time consuming patients in a day. I'd imagine your perspective is as a healthy individual.
Doctors salaries account for a small percentage of total healthcare cost and even eliminating them entirely would have very little effect on total heathcare expendatures. I haven't even touched on cost of labs, procedures, imaging, or inpatient stays, hospice, nursing homes. In the US, an individual on average will accrue by far the majority of their health care costs in the last year of life. I forget the number off hand, but its like 80-90% I believe.
What is my point in all this? Again, it is much more complicated that you try to make it in your ideal world. Then again, my experience with physics professors and those types is that they tend not to be in touch with reality.
And I intentionally did not go there because 1. that is a very simplistic and unrealistic thought 2. you obviously did not read into or think about what I stated in my original post. 3. i honestly don't care if you work more than myself or other physicans - expecting others to live by your own standards (no matter how high or low) is unrealistic - I certainly expect none of my patients to work as much as I do 4. its really not worth arguing about but now I can't help myself.
I'm limited to 80 hours technically, but, like I said, I work much longer than that. The details: I work two 31-34 hour shifts a week on average on call, and my good days are 10 to 12 hours. This is very typical for any resident. If I get a day off its usually closer to 90 in a week. If I do not get a day of its closer to 100. Add in reading time at home and research I do on the side - who the hell knows how many hours I put in.
About salary, I owe about $160,000 in debt just from med school alone (which is close to average). There is little/no time to work in med school so basically you live off loans unless you have rich parents. Then if I made 20,000 during residency as you implied we should and then earn 40,000 (or whatever salary it was you implied you might make) my entire life and pay malpractice insurance, wanted to have a family and support myself, no matter how much I want to do medicine, it would be financially impossible to do as someone who came from a low to middle class family. Perhaps I should have been more clear with the numbers.
Medical education is not cheap, if you want good doctors you have to pay for it.
Then I could go on to responsibility. Nothing against research, I've done plenty in my time and its fundemental to medicine, but its not like working 30 or so hours straight with a pager that will not stop going off with calls that range from ridiculous to extremely serious and its not always clear which to take seriously. Other people's well being and lives are not uncommonly at stake and the pressure to make the right decisions in situations that can be hectic is very very real. Second guessing yourself never goes away. You never can know for sure if you'd done something different maybe things would have turned out better. Simply, the hours spent working on a hospital floor or ICU are much more consuming of energy than any spent behind a bench.
I could go on but i've spent too much time on slashdot today already and I am going to bed!:)
Not that I don't plan to make it overseas to do medicine where people really need it occasionally, but I'm very happy with where I am at despite all the debt. I'd make the same decision if I had the chance in a second.
I do not pay 100,000 year for insurance and I will not in the foreseable future, I will do general practice most likely. I stated some surgeons pay that much, you could add OB docs to that list. My insurance will be in the range of 10 to 20K per year when I am done.
The people in medicine whom make large sums of money are those than do procedures - dermatolgists, gastroenterologist (from colonoscopies and such), and surgeons for example.
Surgeons, whom this article is really about because they would be the ones affected by this, pay very large sums of money in insurance. In the 80's I am aware of some that made tons of money as you suggest. At present, I am not aware of any that regularly make $400K (Unless they exclusively serve the rich, which is a rarity). That is certainly not that norm. 200K is more like it, and that is gross. After insurance and paying for office stuff, that number shrinks quickly.
However, surgery has to among the hardest things a person can go into. The stress in enourmous, especially in residency. Lets just say,surgeons are not known for their great personalities and they put up with a lot shit from each other and their patients. The expectations placed on them by themselves and their patients is very high.
As far as quotas, I cannot comment, I'm not sure how or why they number of surgeons is what it is. I can say, though, the number of residency spots for surgery (as well as many other medical specialties) is greater than the spots that are filled every year. That is, there are many unfilled spots every year in the united states.
I might also suggest that it is limited because it does take quite a bit intelligence among other things to be a good physician. It was tough for me to get into a medical school at all and I virtually had all A's in college and had difficult majors - engineering and science.
If you want high quality doctors, you have to expect to pay for it. We have very high expectations (rightfully so) from our patients and weeding out those unwilling to work hard to be good and talented enough to do so, I believe, is part of ensuring good quality.
Anyway, most docs aren't out to rape their patients of money. Covering all our expenses is, well, expensive. If we did not we'd go broke. Pretty simple addition and subtraction to figure that out.
Ya, I work 80 hours a week (legally that is, in reality I work much more than that but I'm technically limited to 80 hours per week), owe twice as much in student loans as the cost of my condo (condo about $82,000, you do the math) and make 40,000 a year. Sure I'm a resisdent still, but as a general practitioner I'll still work at least 60 hours a week, and oh ya, by the way, I won't be finished with training until I'm 30. I've sacrificed many of my hobbies and pleasures in life to do this. I spend much of my spare time reading to keep up with the lately studies. Do I complain about this? NO. Absolutely not, this is what I choose to do, but comments like this really get on my nerves.
Also, I have to wonder what the legal environment is like in India? How much do these docs pay for legal insurance. Since some surgeons in the US can pay over 100,000/yr in insurance, I would suspect that might account for much of the cost.
I'm not sure that's the answer anymore. In my experience over the last few months, I've noticed AdAware isn't always getting the job done when I've tried to clean other people computers for them. In one instance, I physcially disconnected the machine from any other network, came back in two weeks with the latest Adaware updates, and still one of the programs still seemed to work its way back into existance. Anyone else noticed this type of behavior?
I certainly use Adaware when I have to, but I'd never install anything with a hint of spyware thinking Adaware will get it every time.
We do not only use 10% of our brain. Ask any Neurologist. It is a myth. We pretty much use our entire brain. Each portion has its own unique function/purpose.
I'll give it a look. I've not heard of it. Thanks for the tip. Might be a problem though for those IE only sites. Yes, a rarity now for me, but I do occasionaly have to fire it up for a site or two.
I wrote this above and I"ll post it again, using an alternate browser does not always protect you from IE holes. I cannot comment on these new holes because I'm not sure how they work, but some previous IE holes left the computer vulnerable whether or not you actually used IE at all! An unfortunate consequence of the browser integration with the OS.
So the fact that I'm using Mozilla on Win 98 right now, doe not mean I'm guarenteed immunity from these new holes.
I've been on a similar crusade for awhile now and quite a few friends have changed to Firebird.
Unfortunately for windows users, that does not necessarily protect you from IE holes. I'm not sure about these new exploits, but previous IE holes left the computer vulnerable whether or not you actually used IE at all! So the fact that I'm using Mozilla on Win 98 right now, doe not mean I'm immune from these new holes.
Rather than moderate this, as I have some points to burn, I'd like to respond to this...unfortunately I can't make an intelligent response, because (surprise, surprise) you gave absolutely no sources. You show me where I can find the article that supports these 'proven' claims of yours, or the journal that showed this, and I'd love to read and crtique it for myself. Otherwise, I'll stick with the peer reviewed and well substantiated research that shows otherwise.
In medicine we do a lot of debatable things. Vacines, however, IMO have been the most effective, simple and safe things we have ever done to decrease the mortality and morbitiy to the human race.
Agreed, it definately could be used for good, no doubt. I doubt anyone could argue against that. Obviously there is a trade off, especially in this case, however. The thought of creating a virus that has a 100% mortality is scary regardless of its usefulness. My guess is I would be in favor of the guys reseach if I was up on all the issues involved, but that doesn't mean it is not concerning.
This might really scare you then, but I know at least in the medical world we do things all the time that we are not fundimentally sure why it works (or doesn't work). An example, antidepressents. They do one hell of a job most the time of improving a persons mood and decreasing anxiety. We know they raise the levels of certain neurotransmitter and that in doing so, peoples moods improve. Why does increasing the neurotransmitters concentration improve mood? To date, I'm not aware of anyone that really knows. This is one of many examples that I'm sure would include the basic scients just as much if not more.
I'm pretty sure Pfizer would do just fine with its other drugs....viagra to name one among many others such as cadiovascular drugs that include lipitor. Not that I have any interest in seeing them do well, but treating viral infections is a small part of their business. If I remember they put out some pretty expensive antibiotics for bacteria too...i believe zosyn is among them.
Mostly agree, which would explain why the IL-4 has not been incorportated by viri so far as mentioned by the article. However, just because it hasn't happened yet (that we know of - perhaps it has and killed small isolated populations), does not mean we could not help the process along. I'm not an expert on viri or anything, but I do not see a large pressure by nature to cause viri to because extremely deadly, in fact, it seems to me that would more likely be detrimental to its spread. HIV is an exception because of its long incubation period, but otherwise if a virus has a huge mortality rate, I would think it would limit its spread because it would change peoples behavior to avoid it. Again, just my thoughts.
I graduated from St. Louis University Med school last spring and I had a friend in the grad program there who had mentioned to me several times they messed with some really deadly viruses that they had created. I always figured she was exaggerating....guess not.
The interesting thing about this, according to the article, is the IL-4 gene gives the virus its potency, but at the same time keeps it from being contagious. Apparently, they are not sure why. Sounds like the real scary part will be once they figure that out and someone figures out a work around.
I have a similar CD I use for family and friends to "optimize" their computers (that all run windows). I use those programs you have listed, but I'd add one I've really grown to appreciate on windows that is largely unheralded. That is Fast Defrag Standard . It is freeware and basically defrags the RAM occasionally. You can play with the settings to get the effect you'd like. My experience is that is has greatly extended the time necessary for reboot on these machines.
Not a big deal to most users yet, but they are catching on. I'm a big fan of them personally - more reliable than floppies and easy to carry around ie. your keychain. Drives me nuts when I'm using a public lab or work computers and I'm not supposed to use one because I'm not allowed to install a new device. Yes there are ways around that;), but most normal users wouldn't know that.
Anyway, if you're gonna restrict people from installing a new device on your windows machine, go ahead and install the USB flash drive ahead a time for everyone...i'm betting it'll pay off eventually.
At the risk of sounding like a troll or rumor monger (and burning my karma), I have a friend that is a Mac developer and attends many of their confrences and such. I consider him reliable as he really seems to really know his stuff (unlike most of my tech friends) and he is really anal about being accurate. Anyway, he claims he has seen OSX running on x86. (much to my disbelief) He says its beta and buggy as hell last he saw it. He had no idea what the future plans for it were.
So that's what I've been told. I'm only passing it on because I consider him reliable. Take it for what it is worth.
Personally, I'm not sure what benefit apple could derive from releasing a very of OSX for the x86 arcithecture as they have a lot to lose. First, they'd potentially lose much of its hardware sales. Second, they'd loose the stabilility associated with having tight control on the hardware on which it runs.
Of course, this article doesn't it would run on the x86, just that Intel might make their chips, and the authors credibility is questionable. But my friend did say he saw it on the x86. Perhaps it will give them future leverage? I'm not sure
You bring up a good point, but it does not account for the full picture. First, publicly funded research is generally that, public. Anyone can build on it.
Second, much of the research pharmacutical companies do is proving drugs are safe and they do indeed work. This process is extremely time consuming and costly. I resently posted on this very topic here.
pasted below is what I said in the link, perhaps it will shed some light onto why drug companies have to do much of there own research, even if they start out on publicly funded research.
puck
Let me start by saying I am not an expert on the matter, but I believe I have more experience with this than most people here. I am almost a doctor and did some research at Monsanto doing basic research to develop new drugs.
I can say fairly confidently your theory, at least in the pharmacutical business, is mostly wrong. Relatively speaking, developing the process to manufactor drugs is cheap. Once a compound had been identified, its not very hard to make it.
The hard part in the drug business is *finding* new compounds, proving they are relatively *safe*, and finally proving they are actually *efficatious*. This is a very long and hard trail.
Generally, one first starts by identifying compounds that have a desired property (they inhibit a certain enzyme or activate a cerain receptor for example). Candidate compounds are then tested for toxic effects to cells in petri dishes. From this several candidates move onto ex-vivo experiments or straight to animal studies. So far you've spent tons and there is no guarentee you'll get anything. Now you need to find a good animal model for the process you are interested in. You can easily spend a few millions on the animal studies while testing a compound or two. This process can be as short as a year if you get damn lucky.
Moving on, you find one of the compounds seems to do what you want and without any bad effects. You're lucky but not done. It only gets more expensive. Now a large human study must be done to prove safey (ie. no bad effects in humans). So that study goes on for a year or two and again we can breath a sigh of relief, its not hurting anyone. Still not done yet, though. Another study must be carried out on humans to determine efficacy. We are talking a large multicenter study blinded and randomized comparing our new drug with placebo or another drug. These studies cost many millions of dollars and typically take years to carry out. If the company is lucky, the drug works and they cash in and milk the drug for what it is worth. By far this is the exception, now the rule as many, many compounds to do pass all these 'tests'. Basically, it is a long and risky process with absolutely no guarentee of success.
So, anyway, my point is that the cost is mostly not in making the drug. An extemely larger amount of money and effort goes into reseach to prove safty and efficacy of the drug after screening and animal studies that are expensive as well.
It would be grossly unfair to expect a single company to bare these costs only to have other companies copy the drug after it has been proven safe and effective.
Do I side completely with drug companies? hardly. But they do have some valid points.
Let me start by saying I am not an expert on the matter, but I believe I have more experience with this than most people here. I am almost a doctor and did some research at Monsanto doing basic research to develop new drugs.
I can say fairly confidently your theory, at least in the pharmacutical business, is mostly wrong. Relatively speaking, developing the process to manufactor drugs is cheap. Once a compound had been identified, its not very hard to make it.
The hard part in the drug business is *finding* new compounds, proving they are relatively *safe*, and finally proving they are actually *efficatious*. This is a very long and hard trail.
Generally, one first starts by identifying compounds that have a desired property (they inhibit a certain enzyme or activate a cerain receptor for example). Candidate compounds are then tested for toxic effects to cells in petri dishes. From this several candidates move onto ex-vivo experiments or straight to animal studies. So far you've spent tons and there is no guarentee you'll get anything. Now you need to find a good animal model for the process you are interested in. You can easily spend a few millions on the animal studies while testing a compound or two. This process can be as short as a year if you get damn lucky.
Moving on, you find one of the compounds seems to do what you want and without any bad effects. You're lucky but not done. It only gets more expensive. Now a large human study must be done to prove safey (ie. no bad effects in humans). So that study goes on for a year or two and again we can breath a sigh of relief, its not hurting anyone. Still not done yet, though. Another study must be carried out on humans to determine efficacy. We are talking a large multicenter study blinded and randomized comparing our new drug with placebo or another drug. These studies cost many millions of dollars and typically take years to carry out. If the company is lucky, the drug works and they cash in and milk the drug for what it is worth. By far this is the exception, now the rule as many, many compounds to do pass all these 'tests'. Basically, it is a long and risky process with absolutely no guarentee of success.
So, anyway, my point is that the cost is mostly not in making the drug. An extemely larger amount of money and effort goes into reseach to prove safty and efficacy of the drug after screening and animal studies that are expensive as well.
It would be grossly unfair to expect a single company to bare these costs only to have other companies copy the drug after it has been proven safe and effective.
Do I side completely with drug companies? hardly. But they do have some valid points.
Slashdot Mirror
That happened because you paid out of pocket. Doctors charge a wide variety for the same thing. For the most part, it does not matter what a doctor charges for anything, the insurance company pays them whatever they feel they deserve. Thus, a typical visit is reimbursed with $50. Since you paid out of pocket, you did not have the leverage of a large insurance company on your side and paid the full amount that in reality is rarly if ever paid.
malpractice insurance is not
what you take home so it doesn't figure in your
earnings. Factoring that out as cost of doing business,
you can certainly have a family and support yourself
on 70K a year.
Sounds like a plan, that's not reality.
consider a case of a simple
family doctor with a busy practice with one nurse
again, unrealistic. On avg there are three people per doctor on staff for support. Yes, a nurse. Medical assistant. Then people to take care of billing - because of the complexity of insurance companies, you either have people on staff who understand them and do the billing or you contract out to an indepentent company. There are receptionists and schdulers. Give me time, I could think of more
That's 40 patients a day for 350
days a year, i.e. 14000 visits per year
When you figure total amount of patients you are in part limited by call and someone has to take care of your patients that are in the hospital daily. You or one of you partners have to be available 24 hours a day to take call. One per on call can only handle so many calls. Many patients do not show up for visits as scheduled. Where I work, the rate of no show can be 30-50% daily. If you overbook too much, you risk running unbelievably behind.
Also, just because you feel you don't need a day off, doesn't mean everyone else should be held to that standard. (didn't I say something about that) That's insane and unrealistic, everyone deserves a day off or two a week, especially if you have a family, you owe it to your kids.
At $10 per visit
Average visit charge is usually $50. See the uncomprhensive list above of expensises above.
Or are you saying that malpractice insurance
brings the rates up by an order of magnitude?
as you can now see, its one of many costs of doing business
Or maybe that doctors drop their rates once they
have paid off med school loans?
No, I make no apoligies for how much a doctor makes. Read about stress and such in previous post. Good doctors deserve what they earn. For every easy patient (ie. healthy) we see many more complicated and time consuming patients in a day. I'd imagine your perspective is as a healthy individual.
Doctors salaries account for a small percentage of total healthcare cost and even eliminating them entirely would have very little effect on total heathcare expendatures. I haven't even touched on cost of labs, procedures, imaging, or inpatient stays, hospice, nursing homes. In the US, an individual on average will accrue by far the majority of their health care costs in the last year of life. I forget the number off hand, but its like 80-90% I believe.
What is my point in all this? Again, it is much more complicated that you try to make it in your ideal world. Then again, my experience with physics professors and those types is that they tend not to be in touch with reality.
And I intentionally did not go there because 1. that is a very simplistic and unrealistic thought 2. you obviously did not read into or think about what I stated in my original post. 3. i honestly don't care if you work more than myself or other physicans - expecting others to live by your own standards (no matter how high or low) is unrealistic - I certainly expect none of my patients to work as much as I do 4. its really not worth arguing about but now I can't help myself.
:)
I'm limited to 80 hours technically, but, like I said, I work much longer than that. The details: I work two 31-34 hour shifts a week on average on call, and my good days are 10 to 12 hours. This is very typical for any resident. If I get a day off its usually closer to 90 in a week. If I do not get a day of its closer to 100. Add in reading time at home and research I do on the side - who the hell knows how many hours I put in.
About salary, I owe about $160,000 in debt just from med school alone (which is close to average). There is little/no time to work in med school so basically you live off loans unless you have rich parents. Then if I made 20,000 during residency as you implied we should and then earn 40,000 (or whatever salary it was you implied you might make) my entire life and pay malpractice insurance, wanted to have a family and support myself, no matter how much I want to do medicine, it would be financially impossible to do as someone who came from a low to middle class family. Perhaps I should have been more clear with the numbers.
Medical education is not cheap, if you want good doctors you have to pay for it.
Then I could go on to responsibility. Nothing against research, I've done plenty in my time and its fundemental to medicine, but its not like working 30 or so hours straight with a pager that will not stop going off with calls that range from ridiculous to extremely serious and its not always clear which to take seriously. Other people's well being and lives are not uncommonly at stake and the pressure to make the right decisions in situations that can be hectic is very very real. Second guessing yourself never goes away. You never can know for sure if you'd done something different maybe things would have turned out better. Simply, the hours spent working on a hospital floor or ICU are much more consuming of energy than any spent behind a bench.
I could go on but i've spent too much time on slashdot today already and I am going to bed!
:)
I think I'll stick with the US and my family! lol
Not that I don't plan to make it overseas to do medicine where people really need it occasionally, but I'm very happy with where I am at despite all the debt. I'd make the same decision if I had the chance in a second.
And like me, I'm sure you were well aware of that when you choose to go into academic physics. I do not feel sorry for myself nor you.
I do not pay 100,000 year for insurance and I will not in the foreseable future, I will do general practice most likely. I stated some surgeons pay that much, you could add OB docs to that list. My insurance will be in the range of 10 to 20K per year when I am done.
The people in medicine whom make large sums of money are those than do procedures - dermatolgists, gastroenterologist (from colonoscopies and such), and surgeons for example.
Surgeons, whom this article is really about because they would be the ones affected by this, pay very large sums of money in insurance. In the 80's I am aware of some that made tons of money as you suggest. At present, I am not aware of any that regularly make $400K (Unless they exclusively serve the rich, which is a rarity). That is certainly not that norm. 200K is more like it, and that is gross. After insurance and paying for office stuff, that number shrinks quickly.
However, surgery has to among the hardest things a person can go into. The stress in enourmous, especially in residency. Lets just say,surgeons are not known for their great personalities and they put up with a lot shit from each other and their patients. The expectations placed on them by themselves and their patients is very high.
As far as quotas, I cannot comment, I'm not sure how or why they number of surgeons is what it is. I can say, though, the number of residency spots for surgery (as well as many other medical specialties) is greater than the spots that are filled every year. That is, there are many unfilled spots every year in the united states.
I might also suggest that it is limited because it does take quite a bit intelligence among other things to be a good physician. It was tough for me to get into a medical school at all and I virtually had all A's in college and had difficult majors - engineering and science.
If you want high quality doctors, you have to expect to pay for it. We have very high expectations (rightfully so) from our patients and weeding out those unwilling to work hard to be good and talented enough to do so, I believe, is part of ensuring good quality.
Anyway, most docs aren't out to rape their patients of money. Covering all our expenses is, well, expensive. If we did not we'd go broke. Pretty simple addition and subtraction to figure that out.
Ya, I work 80 hours a week (legally that is, in reality I work much more than that but I'm technically limited to 80 hours per week), owe twice as much in student loans as the cost of my condo (condo about $82,000, you do the math) and make 40,000 a year. Sure I'm a resisdent still, but as a general practitioner I'll still work at least 60 hours a week, and oh ya, by the way, I won't be finished with training until I'm 30. I've sacrificed many of my hobbies and pleasures in life to do this. I spend much of my spare time reading to keep up with the lately studies. Do I complain about this? NO. Absolutely not, this is what I choose to do, but comments like this really get on my nerves.
Also, I have to wonder what the legal environment is like in India? How much do these docs pay for legal insurance. Since some surgeons in the US can pay over 100,000/yr in insurance, I would suspect that might account for much of the cost.
I'm not sure that's the answer anymore. In my experience over the last few months, I've noticed AdAware isn't always getting the job done when I've tried to clean other people computers for them. In one instance, I physcially disconnected the machine from any other network, came back in two weeks with the latest Adaware updates, and still one of the programs still seemed to work its way back into existance. Anyone else noticed this type of behavior?
I certainly use Adaware when I have to, but I'd never install anything with a hint of spyware thinking Adaware will get it every time.
puck
Sort of OT, but I can't let it go.
We do not only use 10% of our brain. Ask any Neurologist. It is a myth. We pretty much use our entire brain. Each portion has its own unique function/purpose.
spiffy add-on. i still can't get the alternative real player to work with yahoo broadcats and mozilla (only with IE) but o/w works great. thanks
I'll give it a look. I've not heard of it. Thanks for the tip. Might be a problem though for those IE only sites. Yes, a rarity now for me, but I do occasionaly have to fire it up for a site or two.
I wrote this above and I"ll post it again, using an alternate browser does not always protect you from IE holes. I cannot comment on these new holes because I'm not sure how they work, but some previous IE holes left the computer vulnerable whether or not you actually used IE at all! An unfortunate consequence of the browser integration with the OS.
So the fact that I'm using Mozilla on Win 98 right now, doe not mean I'm guarenteed immunity from these new holes.
I've been on a similar crusade for awhile now and quite a few friends have changed to Firebird.
Unfortunately for windows users, that does not necessarily protect you from IE holes. I'm not sure about these new exploits, but previous IE holes left the computer vulnerable whether or not you actually used IE at all! So the fact that I'm using Mozilla on Win 98 right now, doe not mean I'm immune from these new holes.
Rather than moderate this, as I have some points to burn, I'd like to respond to this...unfortunately I can't make an intelligent response, because (surprise, surprise) you gave absolutely no sources. You show me where I can find the article that supports these 'proven' claims of yours, or the journal that showed this, and I'd love to read and crtique it for myself. Otherwise, I'll stick with the peer reviewed and well substantiated research that shows otherwise.
In medicine we do a lot of debatable things. Vacines, however, IMO have been the most effective, simple and safe things we have ever done to decrease the mortality and morbitiy to the human race.
Agreed, it definately could be used for good, no doubt. I doubt anyone could argue against that. Obviously there is a trade off, especially in this case, however. The thought of creating a virus that has a 100% mortality is scary regardless of its usefulness. My guess is I would be in favor of the guys reseach if I was up on all the issues involved, but that doesn't mean it is not concerning.
This might really scare you then, but I know at least in the medical world we do things all the time that we are not fundimentally sure why it works (or doesn't work). An example, antidepressents. They do one hell of a job most the time of improving a persons mood and decreasing anxiety. We know they raise the levels of certain neurotransmitter and that in doing so, peoples moods improve. Why does increasing the neurotransmitters concentration improve mood? To date, I'm not aware of anyone that really knows. This is one of many examples that I'm sure would include the basic scients just as much if not more.
I'm pretty sure Pfizer would do just fine with its other drugs....viagra to name one among many others such as cadiovascular drugs that include lipitor. Not that I have any interest in seeing them do well, but treating viral infections is a small part of their business. If I remember they put out some pretty expensive antibiotics for bacteria too...i believe zosyn is among them.
Mostly agree, which would explain why the IL-4 has not been incorportated by viri so far as mentioned by the article. However, just because it hasn't happened yet (that we know of - perhaps it has and killed small isolated populations), does not mean we could not help the process along. I'm not an expert on viri or anything, but I do not see a large pressure by nature to cause viri to because extremely deadly, in fact, it seems to me that would more likely be detrimental to its spread. HIV is an exception because of its long incubation period, but otherwise if a virus has a huge mortality rate, I would think it would limit its spread because it would change peoples behavior to avoid it. Again, just my thoughts.
I graduated from St. Louis University Med school last spring and I had a friend in the grad program there who had mentioned to me several times they messed with some really deadly viruses that they had created. I always figured she was exaggerating....guess not.
The interesting thing about this, according to the article, is the IL-4 gene gives the virus its potency, but at the same time keeps it from being contagious. Apparently, they are not sure why. Sounds like the real scary part will be once they figure that out and someone figures out a work around.
I have a similar CD I use for family and friends to "optimize" their computers (that all run windows). I use those programs you have listed, but I'd add one I've really grown to appreciate on windows that is largely unheralded. That is Fast Defrag Standard . It is freeware and basically defrags the RAM occasionally. You can play with the settings to get the effect you'd like. My experience is that is has greatly extended the time necessary for reboot on these machines.
Not a big deal to most users yet, but they are catching on. I'm a big fan of them personally - more reliable than floppies and easy to carry around ie. your keychain. Drives me nuts when I'm using a public lab or work computers and I'm not supposed to use one because I'm not allowed to install a new device. Yes there are ways around that ;), but most normal users wouldn't know that.
Anyway, if you're gonna restrict people from installing a new device on your windows machine, go ahead and install the USB flash drive ahead a time for everyone...i'm betting it'll pay off eventually.
puck
Interesting. Thanks for the post. Obviously, I don't know much about what is going on the mac world.
;)
Now if I can only convince my friend to swipe me a copy to try out
puck
At the risk of sounding like a troll or rumor monger (and burning my karma), I have a friend that is a Mac developer and attends many of their confrences and such. I consider him reliable as he really seems to really know his stuff (unlike most of my tech friends) and he is really anal about being accurate. Anyway, he claims he has seen OSX running on x86. (much to my disbelief) He says its beta and buggy as hell last he saw it. He had no idea what the future plans for it were.
So that's what I've been told. I'm only passing it on because I consider him reliable. Take it for what it is worth.
Personally, I'm not sure what benefit apple could derive from releasing a very of OSX for the x86 arcithecture as they have a lot to lose. First, they'd potentially lose much of its hardware sales. Second, they'd loose the stabilility associated with having tight control on the hardware on which it runs.
Of course, this article doesn't it would run on the x86, just that Intel might make their chips, and the authors credibility is questionable. But my friend did say he saw it on the x86. Perhaps it will give them future leverage? I'm not sure
puck
You bring up a good point, but it does not account for the full picture. First, publicly funded research is generally that, public. Anyone can build on it.
Second, much of the research pharmacutical companies do is proving drugs are safe and they do indeed work. This process is extremely time consuming and costly. I resently posted on this very topic here.
pasted below is what I said in the link, perhaps it will shed some light onto why drug companies have to do much of there own research, even if they start out on publicly funded research.
puck
Let me start by saying I am not an expert on the matter, but I believe I have more experience with this than most people here. I am almost a doctor and did some research at Monsanto doing basic research to develop new drugs.
I can say fairly confidently your theory, at least in the pharmacutical business, is mostly wrong. Relatively speaking, developing the process to manufactor drugs is cheap. Once a compound had been identified, its not very hard to make it. The hard part in the drug business is *finding* new compounds, proving they are relatively *safe*, and finally proving they are actually *efficatious*. This is a very long and hard trail.
Generally, one first starts by identifying compounds that have a desired property (they inhibit a certain enzyme or activate a cerain receptor for example). Candidate compounds are then tested for toxic effects to cells in petri dishes. From this several candidates move onto ex-vivo experiments or straight to animal studies. So far you've spent tons and there is no guarentee you'll get anything. Now you need to find a good animal model for the process you are interested in. You can easily spend a few millions on the animal studies while testing a compound or two. This process can be as short as a year if you get damn lucky.
Moving on, you find one of the compounds seems to do what you want and without any bad effects. You're lucky but not done. It only gets more expensive. Now a large human study must be done to prove safey (ie. no bad effects in humans). So that study goes on for a year or two and again we can breath a sigh of relief, its not hurting anyone. Still not done yet, though. Another study must be carried out on humans to determine efficacy. We are talking a large multicenter study blinded and randomized comparing our new drug with placebo or another drug. These studies cost many millions of dollars and typically take years to carry out. If the company is lucky, the drug works and they cash in and milk the drug for what it is worth. By far this is the exception, now the rule as many, many compounds to do pass all these 'tests'. Basically, it is a long and risky process with absolutely no guarentee of success.
So, anyway, my point is that the cost is mostly not in making the drug. An extemely larger amount of money and effort goes into reseach to prove safty and efficacy of the drug after screening and animal studies that are expensive as well.
It would be grossly unfair to expect a single company to bare these costs only to have other companies copy the drug after it has been proven safe and effective.
Do I side completely with drug companies? hardly. But they do have some valid points.
puck
Let me start by saying I am not an expert on the matter, but I believe I have more experience with this than most people here. I am almost a doctor and did some research at Monsanto doing basic research to develop new drugs.
I can say fairly confidently your theory, at least in the pharmacutical business, is mostly wrong. Relatively speaking, developing the process to manufactor drugs is cheap. Once a compound had been identified, its not very hard to make it.
The hard part in the drug business is *finding* new compounds, proving they are relatively *safe*, and finally proving they are actually *efficatious*. This is a very long and hard trail.
Generally, one first starts by identifying compounds that have a desired property (they inhibit a certain enzyme or activate a cerain receptor for example). Candidate compounds are then tested for toxic effects to cells in petri dishes. From this several candidates move onto ex-vivo experiments or straight to animal studies. So far you've spent tons and there is no guarentee you'll get anything. Now you need to find a good animal model for the process you are interested in. You can easily spend a few millions on the animal studies while testing a compound or two. This process can be as short as a year if you get damn lucky.
Moving on, you find one of the compounds seems to do what you want and without any bad effects. You're lucky but not done. It only gets more expensive. Now a large human study must be done to prove safey (ie. no bad effects in humans). So that study goes on for a year or two and again we can breath a sigh of relief, its not hurting anyone. Still not done yet, though. Another study must be carried out on humans to determine efficacy. We are talking a large multicenter study blinded and randomized comparing our new drug with placebo or another drug. These studies cost many millions of dollars and typically take years to carry out. If the company is lucky, the drug works and they cash in and milk the drug for what it is worth. By far this is the exception, now the rule as many, many compounds to do pass all these 'tests'. Basically, it is a long and risky process with absolutely no guarentee of success.
So, anyway, my point is that the cost is mostly not in making the drug. An extemely larger amount of money and effort goes into reseach to prove safty and efficacy of the drug after screening and animal studies that are expensive as well.
It would be grossly unfair to expect a single company to bare these costs only to have other companies copy the drug after it has been proven safe and effective.
Do I side completely with drug companies? hardly. But they do have some valid points.
puck