My LAN is mine... I bought it, I pay for the juice to run it, and I administer all the boxen on it myself. Where the hell does the state get off coming into my home and taxing some wires that I use to move my data around? And at a whopping 15%???
I'm not using VOIP, I'm not using it to generate electricity, or provide free sewage service to my neighbors... nothing that would chisel the state out of one red cent.
Great way to strangle what's left of the digital economy. This brings back shades of the luxury tax that put so many Florida boat builders out of business.
This is truly govt. greed at its finest... my legislators will be hearing about this one, FOR SURE.
Really? What distro might that be? Most of the reasonably consumer-friendly linuxes I've used (Redhat, Mandrake) at least require some basic info... DNS servers, default gateway, etc. at the minimum. This isn't a flame attempt... I'm really curious what distro automates ALL your networking.
Disclaimer: I have not tried Redhat 9.0, or the very latest Mandrake.
I think you are about half right about the first point... how many really clueless users do you know that run linux? To run linux, a person has to get over the "activation energy" of actually getting it installed. This goes beyond just having a pretty GUI installer rather than some text-based option... it's actually knowing how to answer the questions the installer asks: How many joe-sixpack guys even know what an IP address is? Or know their primary and secondary DNS server addresses? If some well-meaning geek has installed a linux system for their grandma, they probably set up IPtables and killed all the unnecessary services... that's a HUGE security advantage right from the start. It's amazing what a clueful install can do.
But onto your second point. I think it has more to do with the variety of linux users/systems rather than their iconoclastic attitudes (though the latter probably breeds the former, so in a way, you could be right). As a medical professional, I'd compare it to a genetically heterogeneous population. In a MS-centric environment, there's only so many ways to skin a cat... Win2K, WinXP, et al. That lack of variability has administration advantages, but that sword cuts both ways. Common systems are easily administered, but just as easily cracked if they share a common vulnerability.
In nature, genetic variability is your friend... keeps an entire population from being wiped out by a plague. The Cystic Fibrosis gene is a defect, but saved some people from death during the cholera epidemics of the middle ages, and the gene has stayed in the northern european population ever since.
Variation on systems is FAR more prevelant in the linux world. Different kernel versions, different daemon versions, different firewalls, different configs (chroot, etc). Add that to a tech-savvy population, and a successful linux worm becomes a serious challenge.
It's really apples and oranges to compare linux and MS environments.
Just because HAMs like myself tend to be hardware geeks does not necessarily mean we're software geeks too... though we probably pick it up a lot faster than the average joe. Just the tendency to tinker probably leads some HAMS to linux.
I'm an amateur operator, and I run windows AND linux. I'll admit, Windows is primarily for gaming, but there are some HAM-type applications that just are not as robust under linux. Here's a good example:
Winradio is a wonderful piece of scanning equipment, whose software runs best under windows. Yes, I'm aware of Linradio but the software is not as full-featured.
I'm sure other amateurs can come up with other examples. Personally, I'd like to know how many amateur operators run completely SANS windows. I'd lay even money that Bruce Perens doesn't own a windows box, so there's one...
I don't know how it is in EE, but in medicine, NOBODY CARES where you went to medical school.
Unless you are in academics (I was for a time), where you received your medical degree is almost meaningless. Residency location matters a little more, since that's where you actually learn your trade. However, I've met people trained at Ivy-League med schools and residencies who were absolute fools; no exaggeration.
I was state-school all the way, and my USMLE and board scores were top 15% across the board... you get out of your education EXACTLY what you put into it. If you slack at an Ivy-League school, no amount of flashing around that fancy sheepskin is going to cover up the fact that you're a dolt. Also, you can be a brilliant doctor, and be as terrible as you are brilliant if you don't learn to deal with people. Nobody likes an asshole, no matter how good a doctor he's supposed to be, since medicine is far more than the mechanics (this may not be true for some surgeons. Given the choice between a prick/skilled surgeon and a nice/mediocre one, I'll take the first guy, since most of my interaction with him is while I'm unconscious. I want him for his hands, not his personality, and if he were enough of an ass, I'd tell him exactly that!)
We had guys in my medical school class who were bottom 20% in the class, and they ended up becoming GREAT doctors... the ones I would personally go to if I had a problem. One guy who went into psychiatry was dead last in the class, and went on to become an academic superstar, and professor at a large medical school.
Where you get your degree is far less important than who you are, including your personal work ethic, experience, and general motivation.
It cost me about 100K to attend four years of medical school (my parents were kind enough to pick up my undergraduate costs... all in-state tuition, of course), and I got off light... depending on where you go to school, you could pay far more.
My wife is about 120K in the hole, but she also got cheap (relatively) in-state med school tuition...
Want to attend medical school at Univ. of Miami (the Hurricaines)? Try school expenses of 28K per year (that does NOT include living expenses... and that's in-state rates)
Like Duke University Medical School? Got the academic credentials to get in? Try tuition plus living expenses of 51K/yr (and even that's a lowball figure... they only allocate about 400$ dollars a month for rent. You can get a cheaper place than that, but the savings will get eaten up paying for medical expenses after you get mugged/shot by your neighbors).
What's even better is paying back that 100-200K while living on a resident's salary of about 36k per year. My student loan payments as a resident were more than my mortgage on my first house...
Don't get me wrong, I'm thankful that I was able to afford my education, and I actually make money now, but I'm STILL paying off those student loans.
As much as a hardship as it was for me, imagine paying that much cash to get a degree in Art History or a similar discipline, where about all you can do is teach. NOW imagine how long it would take you to pay off that debt on a teacher's salary... Yikes.
times back in school when local bars would have "bladder bust" nights... free beer until somebody either used the bathroom, or left the bar.
The medical students were world champions at it... no hopping around on one leg, no peeing in a cup under the table... I didn't realize until some time later that they were all wearing condom-catheters and leg bags.
I very much enjoyed the movie adaptions. I went into them with serious reservations in mind, based on every other experience I've had with book-turned-movie, and was impressed with their effort.
It's difficult to compare what's on the screen to the canvas of the mind; a fertile imagination brings the story to life, and makes an adaption that's uniquely yours. I read those book multiple times as a young man, often going back to read them again while contemplating a portion I didn't understand. I can still recall some passages word-for-word... such is the power of these works in a young mind with a vivid imagination.
Every adaption somebody else makes, and filters through their own mind, is going to come up short in yours, if only from unmet expectations about how it SHOULD be.
I'd say give it another chance, particularly if you loved the books... appreciate the differences between someone else's rendition of that world, and your own. You'll always have your own rich, individual version; experiencing someone else's might enrich it further...
Thank you for perfectly illustrating the point... this is exactly the reason why most orthopedic surgeons advocate agressive repair and, whenever feasible, early mobilization for broken bones.
Unfortunately, not all fractures can be neatly pinned/screwed/plated/rodded... some of the more-severe fractures even require external fixation (I'm talking about those cumbersome external carbon fiber frames and rods you've probably seen... sometimes necessary, but very limiting in all kinds of ways).
Glad you got healed up... and keep up the PT... it's a short-term pain for a long-term gain. The stretching is key; you don't want to lose range-of-motion.
I've actually considered purchasing a shop crane for my department (the kind they use in auto repair shops to lift engines and such in and out of vehicles), and rigging a sling harness with some heavy nylon parachute webbing. I've seen similar contraptions before... but if they're for "healthcare" purposes, expect to pay big bucks.
You're probably laughing, but I'm not trying to be a smart aleck about some of my patients' weights, just trying to save my (and my staffs') backs. I've taken care of staff members with herniated discs from lifting/rolling extremely heavy patients... I'd personally like to avoid that kind of injury. Being unable to walk and peeing in my pants from the pain does NOT look like a good time to me.
Heavy, heavy patients are at risk for all kinds of health problems, and I see them often... it's truly a hellish way to live, and even though it's self-inflicted, you can't help but feel for them. Can you imagine being so heavy that you cannot get out of bed, that you need help to even use the bathroom? Unable to bathe oneself, only able to sit in one place, totally unable to care for yourself without help... what a terrible existence.
Loss of balance and muscular weakness seem to be the major factors I've seen in elderly hip fractures... that and frank syncope (loss of consciousness). This might help with the latter, but balance might still be up the the individual's own vestibular and proprioceptive systems. If you experienced syncope, I doubt this contraption would hold you up.
You're quite correct regarding the complications. As far as hip fractures go, most orthopedists advocate agressive surgical repair of those injuries, with pinning/surgical fixation of some, and outright joint replacement for those that cannot be pinned (depends on the location and type of fracture). This is largely due to the risk of Thromboembolic disease (Deep Venous Thrombosis and Pulmonary Embolus) from prolonged immobilization and bed rest. Years ago, bed rest was the standard therapy for broken hips... God only knows how many people died as a result of that therapy (was thought at the time to be the best treatment... thank God for medical progress).
The other question with these devices is how much they would lead to deconditioning of elderly patients. Exercise really IS good for you, and keeps your muscles strong through stimulus and use... anything that isn't used enough WILL atrophy. That's one of the reasons for "rehab" centers that have grown up, primarily to act as a bridge between hospitalization and home. Some elderly patients are so deconditioned after a long hospital stay (eg. for pneumonia or urinary tract infection) that they require physical therapy and reconditioning before they are able to go home and function. This device might lead people to become totally dependent upon it.
To say nothing of the fact that it probably wouldn't help the extremely heavy patients. I regularly see 400 to 600 lb patients in my ER (takes half my staff, myself included, just to get them into a bed... often two ambulance crews get called to their homes just to get them to the hospital).
I AM a doctor, and even some of us can't afford the malpractice insurance.
Talk to a Neurosurgeon... some of them pay more each year in malpractice than I make (and I'm talking about my gross, not my net).
It's extraordinarly bad for them because the things they are asked to fix are often bad from the start, and people have unrealistic expections. When they hear that their grandmother has a big intracranial bleed, and that the neurosurgeon is working on her, they think she's going to be good-as-new after the operation. The unfortunate truth is that almost everyone with a big head bleed has persistent deficits after it's over, even if the operation is successful. Unrealistic expections + high-dollar, deep-pocket target + resentment + litigious society = astronomical premiums.
I've yet to see a datacenter that didn't have some sort of backup power... I've got backup power in my house, for pity sake.
Anyone in the affected areas care to comment on what happened? Did you guys just exhaust your UPS capacity, or do you just have it for orderly shutdown?
There's boku generators still floating around from all that Y2K kerfluffle... you could probably purchase some cheap failover power just about anywhere...
If he's sincere, I'll bet it was the implied threat against his family that got to him... probably sent his little conscience a-flutter.
I dearly hope no well-meaning geek actually threatened this guy's family; that's really way over the line, folks. The probability is that the avalanche of malice he received made him wonder what someone possessed of such hatred might do... what lengths they would go to...
Good riddance... I hope he's a better man because of it (though I won't hold my breath).
Interesting to see an amateur go up against a fleet of paid pros (BSA, MS, et al). It would be nice to see it work. You know, that whole account appeals to my root-for-the-underdog, iconoclastic, giant-killer streak.
Just to pick a medical nit, however, he did misspell his medication... it's Vicodin, not "Vicaden" (changing a letter or two in a medication name could cause a medication error).
I am a doctor, and I treat these folks... lightning strikes are no joke.
Lightning strikes have about a 30+% mortality, and permanent disability is very common... almost 80% of people have some sort of deficit afterwards.
Some of the deficits are subtle, neuropsychiatric defects... others are much more disabling.
Lightning typically causes a fern-shaped burn pattern, and cardiac/respiratory arrest are very common. If someone is not around to provide CPR for you, your odds of death are quite high.
what exactly does a "smart card" have to do with money technology?
Most of the ones I've seen used are as digital tokens to access computers, enter security doors... Apart from the "credit cards" you can charge up at Kinkos (and I would consider those credit cards, not "smart cards") I've never seen one used that had a big impact on money technology.
is that we spend enormous amounts of money trying to build bombs that kill FEWER people.
Our opponents, on the other hand, spend their money trying to build chem/bio weapons (to kill more people indiscriminately) and suicide vests (to murder as many civilians as possible at the local shopping mall).
It's this kind of thing that, despite that fact that it's designed to take human life, gives me hope for the future. The stark, simple fact is that some people need killing... not understanding, not diplomacy, not hand-holding, not yet-another-chance... killing. When faced with fanatics who don't even recognize your right to exist, and in fact would murder your children in front of you if they could, you simply have to put them down, just like a rabid dog. Historically, few countries have possessed the ability to kill people in industrial-sized lots like the US has... and here we are, spending vast resources, and honing our warfare to spare civilians. In response to evil people using their own women, children, schools, and mosques as human shields, we're doing the world's dirty work (and make no mistake, someone's got to do it), while at the same time sparing the innocent... What could be more noble?
BTW, this post is for the benefit of those who like to claim moral equivalency between the US and Bin Laden, or the Israelis and the Palestinians.
There is no equivalency, at least not until Hamas starts making suicide bomb vests with GPS-guided ball-bearings...
Don't know about you, but I'm not going to hold my breath waiting for that to happen.
I think that not taking them alive was an unfortunate, but reasonable, alternative.
I used to be a cop, and did SWAT for about seven years... an assault on a fortified target like that is difficult in the best of circumstances, let alone in the midst of a hostile city, where you may or may not be able to guard your flanks. If that situation had turned into a prolonged siege, the brothers might have had the opportunity to contact local resistance elements, get some media attention, and shift the balance of that situation in their own favor, costing american lives. We already had multiple americans wounded in several attempts to make entry... how many more would have satisfied the critics?
An assault on a fortified target like that is very, very difficult, particularly when the occupants are armed to the teeth and unwilling to be taken alive. With a single stairway as a choke point, you'd have to attempt to breach elsewhere to gain a tactical advantage... nobody is going to want to advance into that stairway's "fatal funnel."
You would have to try to breach the ceiling (very hollywood, and not very practical in the real world), or breach one of the windows (thick, fortified glass). You could try to make entry from multiple points, or simply gunport those additional entry points... but you are talking about a prolonged, complex SWAT operation, something the military may not necessarily be set up to do, especially in that environment. You could try gas, but that doesn't always work. I've been on ops where we gassed the hell out of people, and they shook it off, even without gas masks. You could try the Russian "fentanyl" gas... might kill them anyway, and they'd be just as dead as if they were shot...
This operation was 101st, as I recall, and they are reasonably high speed. Don't get me wrong... the Delta/SEAL operators are the best, and their CQB skills are top-notch; I've trained with some of them, and I was impressed... but their mission and mindset are a bit different from a civilian SWAT team. They are soldiers in a war, not police officers, and their response in a hostile environment may not be optimal in a perfect world, but is certainly objectively reasonable considering the circumstances.
It would have cost lives, and valuable time to attempt to inject civilian SWAT tactics into that environment... I can certainly understand why they chose to do it the way they did.
They at least made an effort to take them alive... if I were that local commander, I wouldn't have squandered the lives of my men on two scumbags like Uday and Qusay either.
A trial and some iraqi justice would have been nice, but even so, they got what they deserved.
I agree with you to a point... just wanted to make a distinction about surgeons, similar to a point raised above by another poster. I am a doctor myself, BTW.
Surgeons are doctors, that's true, and they are often stereotyped as being brusque, impatient, and sometimes frankly rude. Like most stereotypes, there's a grain of truth to it in some cases. I prefer to think of it another way: I want a surgeon who is adept as his craft, not necessarily one who is nice. If I can't have both, I'll take one who is the best operator, since I could care less about his demeanor if the majority of our interaction is while I'm anesthetised. Just fix my freaking bowel obstruction and spare me your misanthropic attitude... I want him for his hands, not his personality. Similarly, in tech support, I'll take someone who knows his craft first, and someone who's ingratiating and nauseatingly nice second (assuming I can't have both).
By the same token, I believe most people just want their computer fixed, though techs will often have to eductate people in that process. All that's required on the customer's end is a teachable spirit, and some patience on the part of the tech. Let's face it, both the customer and the tech have the same goal; that is, to end their encounter as quickly as possible. Attitude will often intrude, just like it does in my own practice (nobody having crushing chest pain is in the mood to endure a long lecture about their cigarette smoking). In the same way, nobody who's pulling their hair out with a computer problem is in the mood to be treated like a moron. Nobody likes a smart-ass, no matter the situation. I might think a person is stupid for continuing to smoke after their third heart attack... but I would never say so out loud... it would seriously harm the theraputic relationship, and anything that interferes in my helping someone is to be generally avoided. Not to put too fine a point on it, but helping them is my one and only reason for being there. It's true the stakes in tech support are not as high, but the principle is the same.
That said, I WILL call bullshit on a frankly abusive or violent patient. Unfortunately for you techs, you don't have the option of administering drugs to your customers.
Disclaimer: I am a HAM operator myself, so I'm just stating my bias up front... mod as you wish.
In disaster situations, HAM radio has really come through... I was in Florida when Andrew came rolling through Miami and Homestead; HAMs were a big help in getting comms reestablished. HAMs assisted with comms when the WTC's fell on 911. HAMs assist in tracking of dangerous storms via the SKYWARN system.
During a bad blizzard in the midwest a few years back, myself and a bunch of other HAMs coordinated a service with our 4WD vehicles and mobile radios... we ferried healthcare workers to the hospital to help deal with the influx of patients.
HAM radio is valuable... would be a shame to see it go, particularly if the interference problem can be fixed with a bit of re-engineering.
An unjust war? The Taliban government provided shelter, money, land, and all the material support that they could muster to one Osama Bin Laden. I just don't buy the claim that there is no such thing as a just war... This one was just all the way to the hilt.
The Taliban subscribe to an indefensible thousand-year-old philosophy that is incompatible with the mores held by the rest of the world. They would like nothing better than to force all of us to live by their brutal, theocratic ethos... had they the power, they would wield it to slaughter all of us "infidels." Don't believe it? Listen to some of their rhetoric... if you're not concerned, you have not been paying attention. These jokers have been hitting us for years, getting better at it all the time... we should have started cleaning house years ago.
If nuclear proliferation continues... if chem/bio weapons continue to spread... AND if we don't deal with these bozos RIGHT NOW, we are setting ourselves up for a nasty future, full of fundamentalist death-dealing. Do you think these guys wouldn't detonate anything they could get their hands on in Times Square?
You can claim that Christianity, Judaism, etc are no better, and about 500 years ago you'd have been right. Christians, Jews, Buddhists, Shintoists, Zoroastrians, etc, etc all seem to be able to coexist in many places... militants like the Taliban, Osama, etc MUST be dealt with, and the sooner the better.
I have no problem hunting them all down and putting a bullet in every one of their heads. The brutal reality is that we'd better do unto them first... or in another decade or so, they'll be doing unto us.
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My LAN is mine... I bought it, I pay for the juice to run it, and I administer all the boxen on it myself. Where the hell does the state get off coming into my home and taxing some wires that I use to move my data around? And at a whopping 15%???
I'm not using VOIP, I'm not using it to generate electricity, or provide free sewage service to my neighbors... nothing that would chisel the state out of one red cent.
Great way to strangle what's left of the digital economy. This brings back shades of the luxury tax that put so many Florida boat builders out of business.
This is truly govt. greed at its finest... my legislators will be hearing about this one, FOR SURE.
Really? What distro might that be? Most of the reasonably consumer-friendly linuxes I've used (Redhat, Mandrake) at least require some basic info... DNS servers, default gateway, etc. at the minimum. This isn't a flame attempt... I'm really curious what distro automates ALL your networking.
Disclaimer: I have not tried Redhat 9.0, or the very latest Mandrake.
That's an excellent first post.
I think you are about half right about the first point... how many really clueless users do you know that run linux? To run linux, a person has to get over the "activation energy" of actually getting it installed. This goes beyond just having a pretty GUI installer rather than some text-based option... it's actually knowing how to answer the questions the installer asks: How many joe-sixpack guys even know what an IP address is? Or know their primary and secondary DNS server addresses? If some well-meaning geek has installed a linux system for their grandma, they probably set up IPtables and killed all the unnecessary services... that's a HUGE security advantage right from the start. It's amazing what a clueful install can do.
But onto your second point. I think it has more to do with the variety of linux users/systems rather than their iconoclastic attitudes (though the latter probably breeds the former, so in a way, you could be right). As a medical professional, I'd compare it to a genetically heterogeneous population. In a MS-centric environment, there's only so many ways to skin a cat... Win2K, WinXP, et al. That lack of variability has administration advantages, but that sword cuts both ways. Common systems are easily administered, but just as easily cracked if they share a common vulnerability.
In nature, genetic variability is your friend... keeps an entire population from being wiped out by a plague. The Cystic Fibrosis gene is a defect, but saved some people from death during the cholera epidemics of the middle ages, and the gene has stayed in the northern european population ever since.
Variation on systems is FAR more prevelant in the linux world. Different kernel versions, different daemon versions, different firewalls, different configs (chroot, etc). Add that to a tech-savvy population, and a successful linux worm becomes a serious challenge.
It's really apples and oranges to compare linux and MS environments.
Just because HAMs like myself tend to be hardware geeks does not necessarily mean we're software geeks too... though we probably pick it up a lot faster than the average joe. Just the tendency to tinker probably leads some HAMS to linux.
I'm an amateur operator, and I run windows AND linux. I'll admit, Windows is primarily for gaming, but there are some HAM-type applications that just are not as robust under linux. Here's a good example:
Winradio is a wonderful piece of scanning equipment, whose software runs best under windows. Yes, I'm aware of Linradio but the software is not as full-featured.
I'm sure other amateurs can come up with other examples. Personally, I'd like to know how many amateur operators run completely SANS windows. I'd lay even money that Bruce Perens doesn't own a windows box, so there's one...
I resent your implication that we're all slack-jawed, inbred, wife-beating neanderthals.
Indeed, the very idea is preposterous
But while I'm thinking about it, you've got a pretty mouth... why don't YOU get me another beer, before I make you squeeeeal!
I don't know how it is in EE, but in medicine, NOBODY CARES where you went to medical school.
Unless you are in academics (I was for a time), where you received your medical degree is almost meaningless. Residency location matters a little more, since that's where you actually learn your trade. However, I've met people trained at Ivy-League med schools and residencies who were absolute fools; no exaggeration.
I was state-school all the way, and my USMLE and board scores were top 15% across the board... you get out of your education EXACTLY what you put into it. If you slack at an Ivy-League school, no amount of flashing around that fancy sheepskin is going to cover up the fact that you're a dolt. Also, you can be a brilliant doctor, and be as terrible as you are brilliant if you don't learn to deal with people. Nobody likes an asshole, no matter how good a doctor he's supposed to be, since medicine is far more than the mechanics (this may not be true for some surgeons. Given the choice between a prick/skilled surgeon and a nice/mediocre one, I'll take the first guy, since most of my interaction with him is while I'm unconscious. I want him for his hands, not his personality, and if he were enough of an ass, I'd tell him exactly that!)
We had guys in my medical school class who were bottom 20% in the class, and they ended up becoming GREAT doctors... the ones I would personally go to if I had a problem. One guy who went into psychiatry was dead last in the class, and went on to become an academic superstar, and professor at a large medical school.
Where you get your degree is far less important than who you are, including your personal work ethic, experience, and general motivation.
It cost me about 100K to attend four years of medical school (my parents were kind enough to pick up my undergraduate costs... all in-state tuition, of course), and I got off light... depending on where you go to school, you could pay far more.
My wife is about 120K in the hole, but she also got cheap (relatively) in-state med school tuition...
Want to attend medical school at Univ. of Miami (the Hurricaines)? Try school expenses of 28K per year (that does NOT include living expenses... and that's in-state rates)
Like Duke University Medical School? Got the academic credentials to get in? Try tuition plus living expenses of 51K/yr (and even that's a lowball figure... they only allocate about 400$ dollars a month for rent. You can get a cheaper place than that, but the savings will get eaten up paying for medical expenses after you get mugged/shot by your neighbors).
What's even better is paying back that 100-200K while living on a resident's salary of about 36k per year. My student loan payments as a resident were more than my mortgage on my first house...
Don't get me wrong, I'm thankful that I was able to afford my education, and I actually make money now, but I'm STILL paying off those student loans.
As much as a hardship as it was for me, imagine paying that much cash to get a degree in Art History or a similar discipline, where about all you can do is teach. NOW imagine how long it would take you to pay off that debt on a teacher's salary... Yikes.
times back in school when local bars would have "bladder bust" nights... free beer until somebody either used the bathroom, or left the bar.
The medical students were world champions at it... no hopping around on one leg, no peeing in a cup under the table... I didn't realize until some time later that they were all wearing condom-catheters and leg bags.
Tricksey medical ssstudentssss....
I very much enjoyed the movie adaptions. I went into them with serious reservations in mind, based on every other experience I've had with book-turned-movie, and was impressed with their effort.
It's difficult to compare what's on the screen to the canvas of the mind; a fertile imagination brings the story to life, and makes an adaption that's uniquely yours. I read those book multiple times as a young man, often going back to read them again while contemplating a portion I didn't understand. I can still recall some passages word-for-word... such is the power of these works in a young mind with a vivid imagination.
Every adaption somebody else makes, and filters through their own mind, is going to come up short in yours, if only from unmet expectations about how it SHOULD be.
I'd say give it another chance, particularly if you loved the books... appreciate the differences between someone else's rendition of that world, and your own. You'll always have your own rich, individual version; experiencing someone else's might enrich it further...
Just a thought.
Thank you for perfectly illustrating the point... this is exactly the reason why most orthopedic surgeons advocate agressive repair and, whenever feasible, early mobilization for broken bones.
Unfortunately, not all fractures can be neatly pinned/screwed/plated/rodded... some of the more-severe fractures even require external fixation (I'm talking about those cumbersome external carbon fiber frames and rods you've probably seen... sometimes necessary, but very limiting in all kinds of ways).
Glad you got healed up... and keep up the PT... it's a short-term pain for a long-term gain. The stretching is key; you don't want to lose range-of-motion.
I've actually considered purchasing a shop crane for my department (the kind they use in auto repair shops to lift engines and such in and out of vehicles), and rigging a sling harness with some heavy nylon parachute webbing. I've seen similar contraptions before... but if they're for "healthcare" purposes, expect to pay big bucks.
You're probably laughing, but I'm not trying to be a smart aleck about some of my patients' weights, just trying to save my (and my staffs') backs. I've taken care of staff members with herniated discs from lifting/rolling extremely heavy patients... I'd personally like to avoid that kind of injury. Being unable to walk and peeing in my pants from the pain does NOT look like a good time to me.
Heavy, heavy patients are at risk for all kinds of health problems, and I see them often... it's truly a hellish way to live, and even though it's self-inflicted, you can't help but feel for them. Can you imagine being so heavy that you cannot get out of bed, that you need help to even use the bathroom? Unable to bathe oneself, only able to sit in one place, totally unable to care for yourself without help... what a terrible existence.
Loss of balance and muscular weakness seem to be the major factors I've seen in elderly hip fractures... that and frank syncope (loss of consciousness). This might help with the latter, but balance might still be up the the individual's own vestibular and proprioceptive systems. If you experienced syncope, I doubt this contraption would hold you up.
You're quite correct regarding the complications. As far as hip fractures go, most orthopedists advocate agressive surgical repair of those injuries, with pinning/surgical fixation of some, and outright joint replacement for those that cannot be pinned (depends on the location and type of fracture). This is largely due to the risk of Thromboembolic disease (Deep Venous Thrombosis and Pulmonary Embolus) from prolonged immobilization and bed rest. Years ago, bed rest was the standard therapy for broken hips... God only knows how many people died as a result of that therapy (was thought at the time to be the best treatment... thank God for medical progress).
The other question with these devices is how much they would lead to deconditioning of elderly patients. Exercise really IS good for you, and keeps your muscles strong through stimulus and use... anything that isn't used enough WILL atrophy. That's one of the reasons for "rehab" centers that have grown up, primarily to act as a bridge between hospitalization and home. Some elderly patients are so deconditioned after a long hospital stay (eg. for pneumonia or urinary tract infection) that they require physical therapy and reconditioning before they are able to go home and function. This device might lead people to become totally dependent upon it.
To say nothing of the fact that it probably wouldn't help the extremely heavy patients. I regularly see 400 to 600 lb patients in my ER (takes half my staff, myself included, just to get them into a bed... often two ambulance crews get called to their homes just to get them to the hospital).
I AM a doctor, and even some of us can't afford the malpractice insurance.
Talk to a Neurosurgeon... some of them pay more each year in malpractice than I make (and I'm talking about my gross, not my net).
It's extraordinarly bad for them because the things they are asked to fix are often bad from the start, and people have unrealistic expections. When they hear that their grandmother has a big intracranial bleed, and that the neurosurgeon is working on her, they think she's going to be good-as-new after the operation. The unfortunate truth is that almost everyone with a big head bleed has persistent deficits after it's over, even if the operation is successful. Unrealistic expections + high-dollar, deep-pocket target + resentment + litigious society = astronomical premiums.
More lawsuits are not the answer.
I've yet to see a datacenter that didn't have some sort of backup power... I've got backup power in my house, for pity sake.
Anyone in the affected areas care to comment on what happened? Did you guys just exhaust your UPS capacity, or do you just have it for orderly shutdown?
There's boku generators still floating around from all that Y2K kerfluffle... you could probably purchase some cheap failover power just about anywhere...
If he's sincere, I'll bet it was the implied threat against his family that got to him... probably sent his little conscience a-flutter.
I dearly hope no well-meaning geek actually threatened this guy's family; that's really way over the line, folks. The probability is that the avalanche of malice he received made him wonder what someone possessed of such hatred might do... what lengths they would go to...
Good riddance... I hope he's a better man because of it (though I won't hold my breath).
a citizen lobbyist.
Interesting to see an amateur go up against a fleet of paid pros (BSA, MS, et al). It would be nice to see it work. You know, that whole account appeals to my root-for-the-underdog, iconoclastic, giant-killer streak.
Just to pick a medical nit, however, he did misspell his medication... it's Vicodin, not "Vicaden" (changing a letter or two in a medication name could cause a medication error).
I'll never listen to that James Earl Jones quote "You do not know the power of the Dark Side!" the same way again.
Slashdot... despoiler of memories.
I am a doctor, and I treat these folks... lightning strikes are no joke.
Lightning strikes have about a 30+% mortality, and permanent disability is very common... almost 80% of people have some sort of deficit afterwards.
Some of the deficits are subtle, neuropsychiatric defects... others are much more disabling.
Lightning typically causes a fern-shaped burn pattern, and cardiac/respiratory arrest are very common. If someone is not around to provide CPR for you, your odds of death are quite high.
Development of superpowers is uncommon.
what exactly does a "smart card" have to do with money technology?
Most of the ones I've seen used are as digital tokens to access computers, enter security doors... Apart from the "credit cards" you can charge up at Kinkos (and I would consider those credit cards, not "smart cards") I've never seen one used that had a big impact on money technology.
Anyone?
is that we spend enormous amounts of money trying to build bombs that kill FEWER people.
Our opponents, on the other hand, spend their money trying to build chem/bio weapons (to kill more people indiscriminately) and suicide vests (to murder as many civilians as possible at the local shopping mall).
It's this kind of thing that, despite that fact that it's designed to take human life, gives me hope for the future. The stark, simple fact is that some people need killing... not understanding, not diplomacy, not hand-holding, not yet-another-chance... killing. When faced with fanatics who don't even recognize your right to exist, and in fact would murder your children in front of you if they could, you simply have to put them down, just like a rabid dog. Historically, few countries have possessed the ability to kill people in industrial-sized lots like the US has... and here we are, spending vast resources, and honing our warfare to spare civilians. In response to evil people using their own women, children, schools, and mosques as human shields, we're doing the world's dirty work (and make no mistake, someone's got to do it), while at the same time sparing the innocent... What could be more noble?
BTW, this post is for the benefit of those who like to claim moral equivalency between the US and Bin Laden, or the Israelis and the Palestinians.
There is no equivalency, at least not until Hamas starts making suicide bomb vests with GPS-guided ball-bearings...
Don't know about you, but I'm not going to hold my breath waiting for that to happen.
I think that not taking them alive was an unfortunate, but reasonable, alternative.
I used to be a cop, and did SWAT for about seven years... an assault on a fortified target like that is difficult in the best of circumstances, let alone in the midst of a hostile city, where you may or may not be able to guard your flanks. If that situation had turned into a prolonged siege, the brothers might have had the opportunity to contact local resistance elements, get some media attention, and shift the balance of that situation in their own favor, costing american lives. We already had multiple americans wounded in several attempts to make entry... how many more would have satisfied the critics?
An assault on a fortified target like that is very, very difficult, particularly when the occupants are armed to the teeth and unwilling to be taken alive. With a single stairway as a choke point, you'd have to attempt to breach elsewhere to gain a tactical advantage... nobody is going to want to advance into that stairway's "fatal funnel."
You would have to try to breach the ceiling (very hollywood, and not very practical in the real world), or breach one of the windows (thick, fortified glass). You could try to make entry from multiple points, or simply gunport those additional entry points... but you are talking about a prolonged, complex SWAT operation, something the military may not necessarily be set up to do, especially in that environment. You could try gas, but that doesn't always work. I've been on ops where we gassed the hell out of people, and they shook it off, even without gas masks. You could try the Russian "fentanyl" gas... might kill them anyway, and they'd be just as dead as if they were shot...
This operation was 101st, as I recall, and they are reasonably high speed. Don't get me wrong... the Delta/SEAL operators are the best, and their CQB skills are top-notch; I've trained with some of them, and I was impressed... but their mission and mindset are a bit different from a civilian SWAT team. They are soldiers in a war, not police officers, and their response in a hostile environment may not be optimal in a perfect world, but is certainly objectively reasonable considering the circumstances.
It would have cost lives, and valuable time to attempt to inject civilian SWAT tactics into that environment... I can certainly understand why they chose to do it the way they did.
They at least made an effort to take them alive... if I were that local commander, I wouldn't have squandered the lives of my men on two scumbags like Uday and Qusay either.
A trial and some iraqi justice would have been nice, but even so, they got what they deserved.
I agree with you to a point... just wanted to make a distinction about surgeons, similar to a point raised above by another poster. I am a doctor myself, BTW.
Surgeons are doctors, that's true, and they are often stereotyped as being brusque, impatient, and sometimes frankly rude. Like most stereotypes, there's a grain of truth to it in some cases. I prefer to think of it another way: I want a surgeon who is adept as his craft, not necessarily one who is nice. If I can't have both, I'll take one who is the best operator, since I could care less about his demeanor if the majority of our interaction is while I'm anesthetised. Just fix my freaking bowel obstruction and spare me your misanthropic attitude... I want him for his hands, not his personality. Similarly, in tech support, I'll take someone who knows his craft first, and someone who's ingratiating and nauseatingly nice second (assuming I can't have both).
By the same token, I believe most people just want their computer fixed, though techs will often have to eductate people in that process. All that's required on the customer's end is a teachable spirit, and some patience on the part of the tech. Let's face it, both the customer and the tech have the same goal; that is, to end their encounter as quickly as possible. Attitude will often intrude, just like it does in my own practice (nobody having crushing chest pain is in the mood to endure a long lecture about their cigarette smoking). In the same way, nobody who's pulling their hair out with a computer problem is in the mood to be treated like a moron. Nobody likes a smart-ass, no matter the situation. I might think a person is stupid for continuing to smoke after their third heart attack... but I would never say so out loud... it would seriously harm the theraputic relationship, and anything that interferes in my helping someone is to be generally avoided. Not to put too fine a point on it, but helping them is my one and only reason for being there. It's true the stakes in tech support are not as high, but the principle is the same.
That said, I WILL call bullshit on a frankly abusive or violent patient. Unfortunately for you techs, you don't have the option of administering drugs to your customers.
You might find yourself thankful for HAMs.
Disclaimer: I am a HAM operator myself, so I'm just stating my bias up front... mod as you wish.
In disaster situations, HAM radio has really come through... I was in Florida when Andrew came rolling through Miami and Homestead; HAMs were a big help in getting comms reestablished. HAMs assisted with comms when the WTC's fell on 911. HAMs assist in tracking of dangerous storms via the SKYWARN system.
During a bad blizzard in the midwest a few years back, myself and a bunch of other HAMs coordinated a service with our 4WD vehicles and mobile radios... we ferried healthcare workers to the hospital to help deal with the influx of patients.
HAM radio is valuable... would be a shame to see it go, particularly if the interference problem can be fixed with a bit of re-engineering.
If he's truly the BOFH, he'll find a way to pin the bandwidth spike on his PHB's pr0n downloading.
Go man go.
An unjust war? The Taliban government provided shelter, money, land, and all the material support that they could muster to one Osama Bin Laden. I just don't buy the claim that there is no such thing as a just war... This one was just all the way to the hilt.
The Taliban subscribe to an indefensible thousand-year-old philosophy that is incompatible with the mores held by the rest of the world. They would like nothing better than to force all of us to live by their brutal, theocratic ethos... had they the power, they would wield it to slaughter all of us "infidels." Don't believe it? Listen to some of their rhetoric... if you're not concerned, you have not been paying attention. These jokers have been hitting us for years, getting better at it all the time... we should have started cleaning house years ago.
If nuclear proliferation continues... if chem/bio weapons continue to spread... AND if we don't deal with these bozos RIGHT NOW, we are setting ourselves up for a nasty future, full of fundamentalist death-dealing. Do you think these guys wouldn't detonate anything they could get their hands on in Times Square?
You can claim that Christianity, Judaism, etc are no better, and about 500 years ago you'd have been right. Christians, Jews, Buddhists, Shintoists, Zoroastrians, etc, etc all seem to be able to coexist in many places... militants like the Taliban, Osama, etc MUST be dealt with, and the sooner the better.
I have no problem hunting them all down and putting a bullet in every one of their heads. The brutal reality is that we'd better do unto them first... or in another decade or so, they'll be doing unto us.
And when that happens, we will have no excuse.