While I'm not a fan of punctuation-included-names, since Joomla discussions seem to inevitably bring up the name, I'll say this: "!" aside, Joomla is actually a pretty clever name for a CMS. Joomla being a re-spelling of the Swahili (and probably other Bantu languages) word Jumla, which can mean altogether, as a whole etc.
Ubuntu, while not Swahili per se, is another bantu word. I'm sure there are other OSS projects out there that have used the same tactic. It's a neat way to have meaning in a word that at the same time is completely unfamiliar to almost all people in Asia, Europe and the Americas.
10 years ago, it was a breadbasket that fed itself and had food left over for export. Today it's a basket-case where people are starving to death.
The land is still there, the people are still there, and no plague, blight* or drought destroyed production. It was pure, 100% politics that sent Zimbabwe down the crapper.
(*however, Mugabe may count as a blight, plague or both)
From my experience, I would say yes, there are huge supplies of car parts lying about in developing nations.
Sure, only the small fraction of wealthy people can buy a car, even one heavily used, but what happens to the car when it breaks down beyond all repair? Does the non-existent trash-collection agency come to haul it off to the non-existent recycling facility or proper landfill? Nope, it sits right where it broke down - unless it broke down on the road, then it will be pushed aside just enough for normal traffic to resume. After that, everything that can be removed and hauled off without special equipment will be removed. Fans, engine, alternator, lights, pumps, belts, bits of plastic, body panels, I mean EVERYTHING. All this stuff ends up back at the mechanics, since they are the only people who could get any use out of it. Parts rarely match up exactly, but things get shoe-horned into place and made to work. In a few months or so, if a big flat-bed lorry comes along, what is left of the frame will be hauled off and turned into hand carts.
My single data point: In my small little remote town there are about 4 private cars (1 was a missionary doctor), a couple of government cars, as well as a bus-stop that ran 3 or 4 buses between the nearest towns. The mechanics at the bus stop stand had a large collection of spare parts. I have no idea how many of them were functioning or to what degree they did, but there were piles and piles of all different sorts of parts. I'm sure that with a bit of trial and error, enough working parts could have been pulled out of there to construct something equal to what was in TFA. Even more, there was a shop selling solar panels to charge car batteries for 12v lighting systems. While still quite expensive, a system like this could be set up to be totally independent of unreliable mains.
I know that what passed for the hospital in town did not have an incubator, or regular electricity to run one if they did. I never personally knew anyone there who lost a baby shortly after birth, but I heard of it happening often enough. Something like this could have saved some of those lives.
Now I'm feeling some kind of reverse home-sickness:(
I can see this possibly evolving into something that would be able to detect malaria infections, malaria is pretty big and easy enough to spot with good magnification and a little bit of training. Parasite laden blood cells are often chock-full of little plasmodium, so they would definitely have different optical properties in this kind of system. This could also probably do a reliable job of some basic blood values like hemoglobin levels, where the item in question has strong, distinct light-absorbing properties, but it won't come close to replacing an actual lab: there are too many things that just don't interact enough or interact distinctly enough with light to be measured that way, even if you had a lab-quality variable-frequency light source.
HIV, however, is a virus, and can not currently be detected or diagnosed microscopically (barring electron microscopes), so I'm a bit skeptical on that point. Besides, we have antibody tests that are cheap, effective and (thanks to foreign aid) available even in the poorest, most remote areas. The problem with testing for HIV is not detecting it, it's getting people tested. There is still a HUGE stigma around it, and people are (often with good reason) worried about the privacy of tests. If this guy has figured out how to detect and, more importantly, identify viruses using light microscopy, he'll be up for a Nobel prize, but I highly doubt that is the case. It's more likely that Wired just embellished the story a bit, which I think is unnecessary since even being able to quickly and reliably detect just parasites in the blood like malaria, leishmaniasis or trypanosomes would be a big help for many in the developing world.
I spent 2 years living in remote, rural Tanzania and some of the clinics near me diagnose malaria in every blood smear they see, because they don't have someone well trained enough to examine the blood, or they don't actually have a functioning microscope (they are freaking expensive, very fragile and hard to get out in the boonies) so they err on the side of caution. Even though they are probably correct a good percentage of the time, people were often "diagnosed" with malaria when they had none of the symptoms: Malaria gets the blame for nearly every ailment. This leads to overuse of anti-malarial drugs, which leads to drug-resistance. I also saw anemia being diagnosed very frequently as well, with out any way to properly test for it. It was the second most popular target for any ailment. "Anemic" people are encouraged to eat a substance made from red clay. It probably has plenty iron so it could actually help and probably can't do any harm, but it tasted about like you would expect dirt to taste.
To make my point: if this all this could do was detect malaria and hemoglobin levels, at even 10x the cost of a cell phone, but as portable and as durable as a cell phone (relative to a microscope that won't survive a car ride), it would make a sizable impact for a lot of people.
Speaking of "real" medicine, it's a well-known fact that Psychiatrists(and, to a lesser extent, pharmacists) are basically drug-company shills.
They push the pill du jour, they get kickbacks such as golf trips and other free stuff from the drug companies. Some womens' magazines are so chock full of drug ads that the color scheme of the magazine will often match some of the ads inside.
First off, doctors don't get golf trips, and if they ever did, it's been a long, long time since they have. The rules on what pharm companies can give have gotten more and more restrictive over time. It's pretty much limited to meal-included presentations (basically a take-out lunch at work, which spouses are excluded from, while a rep reads off some study to "inform" the doctor), ink pens and "patient education material" (crap like a clipboard or cotton ball holder with some info printed on it). These rules are about to get even more restrictive, banning basically everything.
Do you really think any doctor is choosing medications based on who gave out the nicest pen or clipboard? Do you think doctors get some sort of prize for prescribing more drugs? (they don't)
Secondly, doctors, and IIRC the AMA opposed allowing prescription drug advertisements targeted at the general public. Doctors HATE those, they feed the hypochondriacs and people get upset when they don't get the drug they wanted (the drug the magazine or TV told them they needed).
All things aside, P=0.05 being taken as "effective" was not created by pharmaceutical companies to sell drugs, though they do use it quite often. If a study can show p=0.02 your can bet they will report that instead. For an interesting read, google P=0.05 or read this paper www.webpages.uidaho.edu/~brian/why_significance_is_five_percent.pdf
Problems with shoddy methods and flat-out falsified research are serious. When they come to light, heads should roll. Those problems aside, 95% confidence seems to me a pretty reasonable standard for filtering out noise without tossing the baby out with the bathwater. A few drugs that are meagerly effective or ineffective slip though, but once they reach wide spread use, that problem tends to correct itself once more data is available. If P=0.02 was the universal standard, we would either have more expensive, slower drug development, or new drugs would be abandoned early on when they failed a small-scale test, even if they were ultimately effective.
Plus, one must remember that people are not machines that react the same way. Ask any doctor about how some patients do well on drug A but poorly on drug B, and other patients do well on drug B and poorly on drug A, without any medically relevant reason.
Let's take off the tin-foil hats for a moment and break down exactly what MSG is:
Mono - one, indicating there is one of what comes next:
Sodium - Na+, the EXACT same sodium that you get in table salt (sodium chloride/NaCl OMFG it's a CHEMICAL!!1!ones!).
Glutamate - A glutamic acid that formed a salt with Na+, This is EXACTLY the same as the glutamic acid that you get from eating proteins, except that your body has to break those proteins apart first. Once a protein is degraded into it's individual amino acids, you would NOT be able to tell which glutamic acid came from where. There is no difference. Furthermore, while people could* be sensitive to high levels of MSG, you CAN NOT be allergic to it any more than you can be allergic to salt or other amino acids.
MSG is found naturally in all sorts of things, like soy sauce, Parmesan cheese, seaweed and Marmite IIRC, it is not some freak lab creation.
Excess sodium is bad for you, but by adding MSG to improve flavor, the result more often than not is that less table salt needed to produce the desired flavor. MSG is also a self limiting seasoning: just like salt, there is a point where if you add to much, things taste bad. Since MSG is a more potent flavor enhancer, the net result is that less total sodium is consumed. Read that again and let it blow your mind. MSG can be GOOD for you by decreasing the tendency to add table salt to food that is bland.
(*glutamic acid can be transported across the blood brain barrier and it is a neurotransmitter, so there might be something to it causing headaches in super-high doses)
Plus, for the overwhelming majority of Egyptians, Mecca is in fact Southeast, not East. Mecca is roughly parallel with the southern border of Egypt, across the Red Sea.
Mercury, in the form of thimerosal, has been removed from the US children's vaccine supply since 2001.
My Kingdom for a Mod point. I jumped in here late and I can't believe that it took this long for someone to mention this simple fact. I recently helped with a bunch of flu-vaccine clinics and I dutifully explained to hundreds of people "the adult flu shot still has it in very very small amounts, but the flu-mist and ALL kid's vaccines do not have any mercury in them. I would say that at least 50% of the parents with kids I talked to were not aware of that. SEVEN YEARS after it happened!
I'm not sure who I hate more, Sept 11th TRUTHers, or Vaccine TRUTHers, but the anti-vaccine people have done more harm.
Actually, Soma by itself is only mildly psychotropic at the commonly prescribed dose, but it is a strong potentiator of opioids, so mix your poisons carefully.
Yes, it's a real drug (a skeletal muscle relaxant), and I couldn't stop myself from giggling when I filled my prescription a few years back. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carisoprodol
Not that high energy physicists don't do valuable research and deserve a good wage, but how many researchers of any type do you know that put in 80 hour weeks, miss Christmas because of work 3 years in a row and have to deal with the all the crazy shit doctor's have to deal with? Sure your average dermatologist might not deal with that, but for the average primary care doctor that's about right.
You also might be forgetting that doctors don't graduate and go out on their own, there is a mandatory residency; the educational process doesn't stop at 4 years. Residents don't make much money, it's more like indentured servitude.
If you want to get your health care from someone with an Associates degree, feel free. I think the rest of us like knowing that our doctors have had extensive classroom and practical education.
While I can see the danger in insurance companies using this to deny coverage (or jack up rates), I don't see this being such a huge problem right now. Why? because insurance companies already find out about a blood pressure problem as soon as it gets billed to them. If they are going to raise your rates for that anyhow, why would they bother with expensive toys?
Plus, I don't think they could raise your rates, claiming you had high blood pressure (measured with this machine), without having you independently evaluated by a doctor. Only doctors* are allowed to make medical diagnosis, right? I suppose they could demand you get evaluated if the machine goes "PING" when you walk by. But hey, if you didn't know already, then early detection and treatment is a good thing (wow I feel dirty for defending insurance companies).
Let's face it, companies don't have to use any high-tech gizmo to identify and jack up the rates of the unhealthy: the morbidly obese fatties are pretty easy to spot.
The sad fact is that high blood pressure and obesity ARE putting a massive strain on our health care system. To some extent, those suffering from them ought to be contributing more in payments, IF they are using more in services.
The problem I have with the insurance companies is they want to charge more, but provide fewer services, for the unhealthy. This short-sightedness will end up costing more in the long run. Ounce of prevention, pound of cure, as they say.
Where I really get scared is the issue of genetic testing and "pre-dispositions" being used to raise rates. While I'm sort of sympathetic with raising rates (reasonably so, not extortionately) when a condition starts to actually cost more, raising rates based on speculation that something bad might happen pisses me off.
I wish I had had time to post at work today, so this wasn't so late, but thanks for replying to me.
(*And to a lesser degree, Nurse Practitioners and PAs)
If they can get this to remotely measure blood pressure and pulse to an accuracy that is acceptable (90%? Pure guessing on my part, the article only mentions a "strong correlation"), using it for lie detection would still be based off of the shaky assumption that increases in blood pressure and pulse indicate lies or deception.
Even a polygraph, which measures blood pressure and pulse directly and accurately, as well as additional things such as respiration, skin conductivity and even muscle movements (fidgeting, ticks etc), is not all that reliable. To borrow from Wikipedia:
The [National Academy of Sciences] found that the majority of polygraph research was of low quality. After culling through the numerous studies of the accuracy of polygraph detection the NAS identified 57 that had "sufficient scientific rigor". These studies concluded that a polygraph test regarding a specific incident can discern the truth at "a level greater than chance, yet short of perfection". And "A 1997 survey of 421 psychologists estimated the test's average accuracy at about 61%, a little better than chance."
In reality, even if polygraphs could be PROVEN 95% accurate, it wouldn't ever hold up in court: 1 in 20 is reasonable doubt. This thing would be using the same theory, but with less input. FAIL
The real benefit from this will be in medical monitoring. If blood pressure and can be measured remotely, accurately and in a short amount of time, that would be a big improvement over the current sphygmomanometer (a regular BP cuff that gets pumped up), especially in situations where it is hard to measure BP because of background noise or vibration. Ambulances sometimes have to stop to take a blood pressure (not on critical patients, but still).
Yes, things that get modded down when they shouldn't have often get corrective moderation later, but only if people notice them. It is all to common for something to get inappropriately modded down -1 and then languish at 1 or 0 without getting noticed, especially so the longer the thread has been up.
Yes, I over-reacted a bit in my response. Here's why: I have mod points now and had been browsing threads at 1 and 0. I was frustrated in seeing so much purely anti-humor moderation and I didn't want to spend ALL my points just balancing out the Mr. Grumpys.
My comment on the parent (at score:2) brought attention to the bad mod that might have been missed. Other people were nice enough to correct it (THANK YOU). Would it have been modded back up if I didn't respond? Who knows. I was tired of using my points for corrections only, and I wanted to blow off some steam.
Hopefully people take the message to heart that Slashdot has never been, nor should it ever be, a "serious" place where jokes are to be looked down upon
Semitic-looking Fremen speaking perfect Arabic with English subtitles. Remember, the Sayyadinas reconstructed the "Language of the Book" by imbibing the Water of Life and consulting with Ancestral Memory.
Now you're spot-on about them being semitic, but I would argue against Arabic. Yes, there are a lot of Arabic words borrowed and adapted, but the actual language examples in the book are NOT Arabic based, but rather a dialect of Roma (according to Wikipedia, YMMV). Secondly, even though the Fremen religion is called Zensunni, it is not distinctly Muslim in any way. Based on what we do read of the Fremen religion I would argue that they are more Mizrahi JEW (with Zen sprinkles) than Muslim. Let me make my case:
Herbert played fast and loose with his religion, mixing things around a lot. This ISN'T sloppiness though, since he fully intended to have his religions be amalgams: The appendix in Dune says the Orange Catholic Bible "contains elements of most ancient religions, including... Zensunni Catholicism" (blatantly ripped from the WP page, don't have my copy of the book handy). That's pretty mixed together if you ask me.
Now, what we actually know about the Fremen religious tradition is mostly centered around the Messianic nature of Paul, which fits in very closely with the Orthodox Jewish notion of the Messiah (anointed leader who takes power and rules etc). The Muslim notion of the Mahdi is vaguely like a messiah, however it is not of the highest cannon (it's only in the Hadith, not in the Qu'ran) and what the Mahdi will do is not always explicitly said. Consequently, it's not a formal doctrine of all Islam and there are vastly different interpretations between sects: The Sufis and some Shias take it pretty seriously, but even those beliefs don't correlate with Paul Atreides very well; the Sunni (>80% of Muslims) are ambivalent about it. This all comes back around to the fact that the Fremen are "Zensunni", not Zensufi or Zenshia, which are given as distinct religious groups.
Another important fact we know about the Fremen is that they spent generations in slavery, and they wandered the galaxy before settling on Arrakis... That's a clue-by-4 of Jewish-ness if there ever was one. No Muslim tradition includes that.
Yes, I know that the Fremen are not the only Zensunni and that Judaism is specifically referenced in the books as a distinct religion, but when you look closely, Herbert made the Fremen Jewish in all but name. It might be too late for this post to get noticed, but I had a fun time blowing my Nerd-load while writing it.
Once again, some humorless douche gets mod points and has to strike down a joke as "off-topic"...
A joke referencing the parent or GP is hardly off-topic*, but good jorb there Mr. Grumpy-moderator, burning someones karma for honestly trying to be funny. We can't let people go about doing that on our "serious and mature" forum, can we?
COME ON people! This is a Slashdot posting about caffeine we're commenting on, not a forum on some scholarly article in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science. This sort of anti-humor modding seems to be happening way too often lately; it's like there is some crusade to make Slashdot "serious"
If you don't like the Slash-humor, ignore it, or move to an actual "serious" forum. Otherwise, try to mod-UP the comments you actually like. If you must mod people down to validate your self-worth, there are plenty of actual trolls lurking about. Heck, just pick one of twitter's sock-puppets and you can have a full-time job modding down (or up, if you like him).
/Off soap-box //Blow another point modding me down if you want ///Blow me
*I can see modding it redundant if the joke had been made many, many times over, but this was the second time.
Re:I need enlightenment...
on
ISO Approves OOXML
·
· Score: 4, Informative
Sorry, but every article I read about OOXML is about the voting and standardization irregularities, and nothing I've found reviews OOXML from the users standpoint...
That's pretty much because: a) the voting irregularities are IMMENSE and b) there is no review on OOXML from the user's standpoint, because there is NO implementation (ZIP, ZERO, NONE) of the ISO candidate version of OOXML to review. Not even from Microsoft, who are using a different version now, and (IIRC) have stated that they WILL NOT be using the ISO version in the future, if it is approved. AND it is likely that there will never be a complete 3rd party implementation of the ISO OOXML standard because it is so long, complex and dependent on patents and references to legacy closed source software. MS happens to own that source and those patents and aren't about to give them away. So basically it's a dead end mockery of the ISO process.
If that's not enough to answer your questions AND piss you off, do some more reading on the topic.
Try reading up on how and for what the Fast-track process has been used in the past: Mature, complete and currently implemented industry standards that are just being formalized; Not slap-dick, fly-by-night, throw-in-kitchen-sink 6000 page cluster-f*ks like OOXML.
How does that work? As far as I can tell, BMI only collects licenses from businesses that use music as an integral part of their operation and attraction/promotion. Quoth the Website: (www.bmi.com)
"Businesses which typically license music include broadcast radio and TV stations, cable radio and TV stations, places such as nightclubs, hotels, discos, and other establishments that use music in an effort to enhance their business. (my emphasis)
I understand this to mean places like bars and clubs, roller-skateing rinks, bowling alleys etc, where the music is part of or the whole reason people go. I wasn't implying that these places don't or shouldn't pay for a license. I know they do and I agree with the logic in this case.
However, people don't sit in the dentists waiting room to listen to "SMOOTH JAZZ 101.1FM". Music is not part of the business plan like it would be for a bar or bowling alley. None of these sort of shops (Dr's offices, mechanics, Mom'n'Pop store etc) that I've come across pay for a license to play a radio station for >2 ears, even when the radio is explicitly for the waiting room, and especially not for "just in case the employee's radio is loud enough a customer can hear it" - like in TFA.
And the point still stands that EARS + ADS = PAID FOR ALREADY. If the artists need more money, it should come from the radio stations, and advertisers (indirectly).
Interesting. May have been a different survey company, but it sort of makes sense that they would try to get some people to do accurate, detailed logs. I was cold-called once, and the other was a one page form of listening habits.
The problem (in addition to not being able to identify short spurts, like you said), is it's still very, very hard to be sure of the data you get from such a survey: People will listen all day and then go back and fill it in by recollection, despite being told not to. They will self-censor because they might feel guilty or embarrassed about listening to a particular station or show, despite assurances of anonymity.
Until a Nielsen-like box is common, I don't think the data is going to get any better (accuracy wise), regardless of survey method.
OK, since none of my British friends are available to ask: Do people in the UK pay for radio licenses like they do for TV, to feed the Beeb? Or is radio (truly) free?
"...makes them hard to add to your listener figures, which need to be high and fairly accurate..."
As for quantifying the listeners, the data from individuals isn't all that precise as it is*: it's self-reported recollection by random survey, like asking "What station do you listen to most, and for how many hours a week?" not some detailed listening-journal kept by the person. I've been asked to fill out these surveys or respond by phone a few times myself.
That said, it would be trivial to include "If multiple people listen to your radio, on average, how many for how long?". For example, a waiting room: Radio is on for business hours and an average of X people are in listening range during the day. I think these sort of places are getting specifically crafted and targeted surveys already, as I imagine the stations try VERY hard to include them in listener numbers estimates.
*I think there are some systems that are like the Nielsen TV boxes but for radio, but I'm not aware of any specifically.
If I play a radio in my work than its the station that sells advertisements that pays for the songs. As long as I don't advertise the fact like some kind of main street concert hall than I'm not sure why it matters.
Exactly. How is Europe so completely backwards on this issue? Every pair of ears that listens to the songs is a pair of ears that listens to the ads as well, and those ads pay the bills. I would think the radio stations and music labels would be GLAD to have people listening to them in workplaces and waiting rooms.
If these laws were enforced in the USA, there would be riots, then it would be silence or royalty-free classical music only.
What bureaucratic knot did they invent to justify why should it cost money if you listen in a place of business when it's designed to be a free-to-receive service?
Yes, you can generally use the same cell phone coast to coast in the USA, without paying any extra charges whatsoever, as long as you are close enough to a tower. While we did manage to screw up GSM frequencies AND have an idiotic system of bundling phones with yearly contracts (thus higher rates to subsidize new phones every 2 years, whether you need one or not), we did get roaming right.
However, it was not always this way. Back in the dark-ages of cellphones, you were assigned a "home" area, and were billed at higher rates when you left it, even if still within the same state. Usually this was due to many small-scale tower networks owned by separate companies that the main cell company had to contract with for increased coverage.
With all the small nations in Europe, I can't imagine a system like that existing country to country. Is that how it is, move from France to Spain and BAM! roaming charges? It must be hell.
When I was living in Tanzania, I could take my pre-paid Celtel account all across East Africa with the same rates, and buy minutes in whatever local currency. Voda did the same thing there. Could Vodofone not do the same for all their service in Europe?
I commented on what I believe is a poor moderation by some grumple-puss who didn't get the parent's Wii joke on a thread about the Wii.
I would think that explaining an on-topic joke that got missed counts as on-topic, but I didn't count on that same humorless dbag having left-over mod points for vengeance.
If you don't like Slashdot humor, what are you even doing here? I can burn Karma faster than you can get mod points, I reckon, and meta-moderation will probably vindicate me.
Slashdot Mirror
While I'm not a fan of punctuation-included-names, since Joomla discussions seem to inevitably bring up the name, I'll say this: "!" aside, Joomla is actually a pretty clever name for a CMS. Joomla being a re-spelling of the Swahili (and probably other Bantu languages) word Jumla, which can mean altogether, as a whole etc.
Ubuntu, while not Swahili per se, is another bantu word. I'm sure there are other OSS projects out there that have used the same tactic. It's a neat way to have meaning in a word that at the same time is completely unfamiliar to almost all people in Asia, Europe and the Americas.
They're starving due to politics.
Case in point: Zimbabwe
10 years ago, it was a breadbasket that fed itself and had food left over for export.
Today it's a basket-case where people are starving to death.
The land is still there, the people are still there, and no plague, blight* or drought destroyed production. It was pure, 100% politics that sent Zimbabwe down the crapper.
(*however, Mugabe may count as a blight, plague or both)
From my experience, I would say yes, there are huge supplies of car parts lying about in developing nations.
Sure, only the small fraction of wealthy people can buy a car, even one heavily used, but what happens to the car when it breaks down beyond all repair? Does the non-existent trash-collection agency come to haul it off to the non-existent recycling facility or proper landfill? Nope, it sits right where it broke down - unless it broke down on the road, then it will be pushed aside just enough for normal traffic to resume. After that, everything that can be removed and hauled off without special equipment will be removed. Fans, engine, alternator, lights, pumps, belts, bits of plastic, body panels, I mean EVERYTHING. All this stuff ends up back at the mechanics, since they are the only people who could get any use out of it. Parts rarely match up exactly, but things get shoe-horned into place and made to work. In a few months or so, if a big flat-bed lorry comes along, what is left of the frame will be hauled off and turned into hand carts.
My single data point: In my small little remote town there are about 4 private cars (1 was a missionary doctor), a couple of government cars, as well as a bus-stop that ran 3 or 4 buses between the nearest towns. The mechanics at the bus stop stand had a large collection of spare parts. I have no idea how many of them were functioning or to what degree they did, but there were piles and piles of all different sorts of parts. I'm sure that with a bit of trial and error, enough working parts could have been pulled out of there to construct something equal to what was in TFA. Even more, there was a shop selling solar panels to charge car batteries for 12v lighting systems. While still quite expensive, a system like this could be set up to be totally independent of unreliable mains.
I know that what passed for the hospital in town did not have an incubator, or regular electricity to run one if they did. I never personally knew anyone there who lost a baby shortly after birth, but I heard of it happening often enough. Something like this could have saved some of those lives.
Now I'm feeling some kind of reverse home-sickness :(
I can see this possibly evolving into something that would be able to detect malaria infections, malaria is pretty big and easy enough to spot with good magnification and a little bit of training. Parasite laden blood cells are often chock-full of little plasmodium, so they would definitely have different optical properties in this kind of system. This could also probably do a reliable job of some basic blood values like hemoglobin levels, where the item in question has strong, distinct light-absorbing properties, but it won't come close to replacing an actual lab: there are too many things that just don't interact enough or interact distinctly enough with light to be measured that way, even if you had a lab-quality variable-frequency light source.
HIV, however, is a virus, and can not currently be detected or diagnosed microscopically (barring electron microscopes), so I'm a bit skeptical on that point. Besides, we have antibody tests that are cheap, effective and (thanks to foreign aid) available even in the poorest, most remote areas. The problem with testing for HIV is not detecting it, it's getting people tested. There is still a HUGE stigma around it, and people are (often with good reason) worried about the privacy of tests. If this guy has figured out how to detect and, more importantly, identify viruses using light microscopy, he'll be up for a Nobel prize, but I highly doubt that is the case. It's more likely that Wired just embellished the story a bit, which I think is unnecessary since even being able to quickly and reliably detect just parasites in the blood like malaria, leishmaniasis or trypanosomes would be a big help for many in the developing world.
I spent 2 years living in remote, rural Tanzania and some of the clinics near me diagnose malaria in every blood smear they see, because they don't have someone well trained enough to examine the blood, or they don't actually have a functioning microscope (they are freaking expensive, very fragile and hard to get out in the boonies) so they err on the side of caution. Even though they are probably correct a good percentage of the time, people were often "diagnosed" with malaria when they had none of the symptoms: Malaria gets the blame for nearly every ailment. This leads to overuse of anti-malarial drugs, which leads to drug-resistance. I also saw anemia being diagnosed very frequently as well, with out any way to properly test for it. It was the second most popular target for any ailment. "Anemic" people are encouraged to eat a substance made from red clay. It probably has plenty iron so it could actually help and probably can't do any harm, but it tasted about like you would expect dirt to taste.
To make my point: if this all this could do was detect malaria and hemoglobin levels, at even 10x the cost of a cell phone, but as portable and as durable as a cell phone (relative to a microscope that won't survive a car ride), it would make a sizable impact for a lot of people.
Speaking of "real" medicine, it's a well-known fact that Psychiatrists(and, to a lesser extent, pharmacists) are basically drug-company shills.
They push the pill du jour, they get kickbacks such as golf trips and other free stuff from the drug companies. Some womens' magazines are so chock full of drug ads that the color scheme of the magazine will often match some of the ads inside.
First off, doctors don't get golf trips, and if they ever did, it's been a long, long time since they have. The rules on what pharm companies can give have gotten more and more restrictive over time. It's pretty much limited to meal-included presentations (basically a take-out lunch at work, which spouses are excluded from, while a rep reads off some study to "inform" the doctor), ink pens and "patient education material" (crap like a clipboard or cotton ball holder with some info printed on it). These rules are about to get even more restrictive, banning basically everything.
Do you really think any doctor is choosing medications based on who gave out the nicest pen or clipboard? Do you think doctors get some sort of prize for prescribing more drugs? (they don't)
Secondly, doctors, and IIRC the AMA opposed allowing prescription drug advertisements targeted at the general public. Doctors HATE those, they feed the hypochondriacs and people get upset when they don't get the drug they wanted (the drug the magazine or TV told them they needed).
All things aside, P=0.05 being taken as "effective" was not created by pharmaceutical companies to sell drugs, though they do use it quite often. If a study can show p=0.02 your can bet they will report that instead. For an interesting read, google P=0.05 or read this paper www.webpages.uidaho.edu/~brian/why_significance_is_five_percent.pdf
Problems with shoddy methods and flat-out falsified research are serious. When they come to light, heads should roll. Those problems aside, 95% confidence seems to me a pretty reasonable standard for filtering out noise without tossing the baby out with the bathwater. A few drugs that are meagerly effective or ineffective slip though, but once they reach wide spread use, that problem tends to correct itself once more data is available. If P=0.02 was the universal standard, we would either have more expensive, slower drug development, or new drugs would be abandoned early on when they failed a small-scale test, even if they were ultimately effective.
Plus, one must remember that people are not machines that react the same way. Ask any doctor about how some patients do well on drug A but poorly on drug B, and other patients do well on drug B and poorly on drug A, without any medically relevant reason.
Let's take off the tin-foil hats for a moment and break down exactly what MSG is:
Mono - one, indicating there is one of what comes next:
Sodium - Na+, the EXACT same sodium that you get in table salt (sodium chloride/NaCl OMFG it's a CHEMICAL!!1!ones!).
Glutamate - A glutamic acid that formed a salt with Na+, This is EXACTLY the same as the glutamic acid that you get from eating proteins, except that your body has to break those proteins apart first. Once a protein is degraded into it's individual amino acids, you would NOT be able to tell which glutamic acid came from where. There is no difference. Furthermore, while people could* be sensitive to high levels of MSG, you CAN NOT be allergic to it any more than you can be allergic to salt or other amino acids.
MSG is found naturally in all sorts of things, like soy sauce, Parmesan cheese, seaweed and Marmite IIRC, it is not some freak lab creation.
Excess sodium is bad for you, but by adding MSG to improve flavor, the result more often than not is that less table salt needed to produce the desired flavor. MSG is also a self limiting seasoning: just like salt, there is a point where if you add to much, things taste bad. Since MSG is a more potent flavor enhancer, the net result is that less total sodium is consumed. Read that again and let it blow your mind. MSG can be GOOD for you by decreasing the tendency to add table salt to food that is bland.
(*glutamic acid can be transported across the blood brain barrier and it is a neurotransmitter, so there might be something to it causing headaches in super-high doses)
Plus, for the overwhelming majority of Egyptians, Mecca is in fact Southeast, not East. Mecca is roughly parallel with the southern border of Egypt, across the Red Sea.
Still, I'm not sure how that could be too soon.
Mercury, in the form of thimerosal, has been removed from the US children's vaccine supply since 2001.
My Kingdom for a Mod point. I jumped in here late and I can't believe that it took this long for someone to mention this simple fact. I recently helped with a bunch of flu-vaccine clinics and I dutifully explained to hundreds of people "the adult flu shot still has it in very very small amounts, but the flu-mist and ALL kid's vaccines do not have any mercury in them. I would say that at least 50% of the parents with kids I talked to were not aware of that. SEVEN YEARS after it happened!
I'm not sure who I hate more, Sept 11th TRUTHers, or Vaccine TRUTHers, but the anti-vaccine people have done more harm.
For the curious:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thimerosal
Actually, Soma by itself is only mildly psychotropic at the commonly prescribed dose, but it is a strong potentiator of opioids, so mix your poisons carefully.
Yes, it's a real drug (a skeletal muscle relaxant), and I couldn't stop myself from giggling when I filled my prescription a few years back.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carisoprodol
2999? That's almost 3000!
Not that high energy physicists don't do valuable research and deserve a good wage, but how many researchers of any type do you know that put in 80 hour weeks, miss Christmas because of work 3 years in a row and have to deal with the all the crazy shit doctor's have to deal with? Sure your average dermatologist might not deal with that, but for the average primary care doctor that's about right.
You also might be forgetting that doctors don't graduate and go out on their own, there is a mandatory residency; the educational process doesn't stop at 4 years. Residents don't make much money, it's more like indentured servitude.
If you want to get your health care from someone with an Associates degree, feel free. I think the rest of us like knowing that our doctors have had extensive classroom and practical education.
While I can see the danger in insurance companies using this to deny coverage (or jack up rates), I don't see this being such a huge problem right now. Why? because insurance companies already find out about a blood pressure problem as soon as it gets billed to them. If they are going to raise your rates for that anyhow, why would they bother with expensive toys?
Plus, I don't think they could raise your rates, claiming you had high blood pressure (measured with this machine), without having you independently evaluated by a doctor. Only doctors* are allowed to make medical diagnosis, right? I suppose they could demand you get evaluated if the machine goes "PING" when you walk by. But hey, if you didn't know already, then early detection and treatment is a good thing (wow I feel dirty for defending insurance companies).
Let's face it, companies don't have to use any high-tech gizmo to identify and jack up the rates of the unhealthy: the morbidly obese fatties are pretty easy to spot.
The sad fact is that high blood pressure and obesity ARE putting a massive strain on our health care system. To some extent, those suffering from them ought to be contributing more in payments, IF they are using more in services.
The problem I have with the insurance companies is they want to charge more, but provide fewer services, for the unhealthy. This short-sightedness will end up costing more in the long run. Ounce of prevention, pound of cure, as they say.
Where I really get scared is the issue of genetic testing and "pre-dispositions" being used to raise rates. While I'm sort of sympathetic with raising rates (reasonably so, not extortionately) when a condition starts to actually cost more, raising rates based on speculation that something bad might happen pisses me off.
I wish I had had time to post at work today, so this wasn't so late, but thanks for replying to me.
(*And to a lesser degree, Nurse Practitioners and PAs)
If they can get this to remotely measure blood pressure and pulse to an accuracy that is acceptable (90%? Pure guessing on my part, the article only mentions a "strong correlation"), using it for lie detection would still be based off of the shaky assumption that increases in blood pressure and pulse indicate lies or deception.
Even a polygraph, which measures blood pressure and pulse directly and accurately, as well as additional things such as respiration, skin conductivity and even muscle movements (fidgeting, ticks etc), is not all that reliable. To borrow from Wikipedia:
The [National Academy of Sciences] found that the majority of polygraph research was of low quality. After culling through the numerous studies of the accuracy of polygraph detection the NAS identified 57 that had "sufficient scientific rigor". These studies concluded that a polygraph test regarding a specific incident can discern the truth at "a level greater than chance, yet short of perfection".
And "A 1997 survey of 421 psychologists estimated the test's average accuracy at about 61%, a little better than chance."
In reality, even if polygraphs could be PROVEN 95% accurate, it wouldn't ever hold up in court: 1 in 20 is reasonable doubt.
This thing would be using the same theory, but with less input. FAIL
The real benefit from this will be in medical monitoring. If blood pressure and can be measured remotely, accurately and in a short amount of time, that would be a big improvement over the current sphygmomanometer (a regular BP cuff that gets pumped up), especially in situations where it is hard to measure BP because of background noise or vibration. Ambulances sometimes have to stop to take a blood pressure (not on critical patients, but still).
Yes, things that get modded down when they shouldn't have often get corrective moderation later, but only if people notice them. It is all to common for something to get inappropriately modded down -1 and then languish at 1 or 0 without getting noticed, especially so the longer the thread has been up.
Yes, I over-reacted a bit in my response. Here's why: I have mod points now and had been browsing threads at 1 and 0. I was frustrated in seeing so much purely anti-humor moderation and I didn't want to spend ALL my points just balancing out the Mr. Grumpys.
My comment on the parent (at score:2) brought attention to the bad mod that might have been missed. Other people were nice enough to correct it (THANK YOU). Would it have been modded back up if I didn't respond? Who knows. I was tired of using my points for corrections only, and I wanted to blow off some steam.
Hopefully people take the message to heart that Slashdot has never been, nor should it ever be, a "serious" place where jokes are to be looked down upon
Semitic-looking Fremen speaking perfect Arabic with English subtitles. Remember, the Sayyadinas reconstructed the "Language of the Book" by imbibing the Water of Life and consulting with Ancestral Memory.
... Zensunni Catholicism" (blatantly ripped from the WP page, don't have my copy of the book handy). That's pretty mixed together if you ask me.
Now you're spot-on about them being semitic, but I would argue against Arabic. Yes, there are a lot of Arabic words borrowed and adapted, but the actual language examples in the book are NOT Arabic based, but rather a dialect of Roma (according to Wikipedia, YMMV). Secondly, even though the Fremen religion is called Zensunni, it is not distinctly Muslim in any way. Based on what we do read of the Fremen religion I would argue that they are more Mizrahi JEW (with Zen sprinkles) than Muslim. Let me make my case:
Herbert played fast and loose with his religion, mixing things around a lot. This ISN'T sloppiness though, since he fully intended to have his religions be amalgams: The appendix in Dune says the Orange Catholic Bible "contains elements of most ancient religions, including
Now, what we actually know about the Fremen religious tradition is mostly centered around the Messianic nature of Paul, which fits in very closely with the Orthodox Jewish notion of the Messiah (anointed leader who takes power and rules etc). The Muslim notion of the Mahdi is vaguely like a messiah, however it is not of the highest cannon (it's only in the Hadith, not in the Qu'ran) and what the Mahdi will do is not always explicitly said. Consequently, it's not a formal doctrine of all Islam and there are vastly different interpretations between sects: The Sufis and some Shias take it pretty seriously, but even those beliefs don't correlate with Paul Atreides very well; the Sunni (>80% of Muslims) are ambivalent about it. This all comes back around to the fact that the Fremen are "Zensunni", not Zensufi or Zenshia, which are given as distinct religious groups.
Another important fact we know about the Fremen is that they spent generations in slavery, and they wandered the galaxy before settling on Arrakis... That's a clue-by-4 of Jewish-ness if there ever was one. No Muslim tradition includes that.
Yes, I know that the Fremen are not the only Zensunni and that Judaism is specifically referenced in the books as a distinct religion, but when you look closely, Herbert made the Fremen Jewish in all but name. It might be too late for this post to get noticed, but I had a fun time blowing my Nerd-load while writing it.
Once again, some humorless douche gets mod points and has to strike down a joke as "off-topic"...
/Off soap-box
//Blow another point modding me down if you want
///Blow me
A joke referencing the parent or GP is hardly off-topic*, but good jorb there Mr. Grumpy-moderator, burning someones karma for honestly trying to be funny. We can't let people go about doing that on our "serious and mature" forum, can we?
COME ON people! This is a Slashdot posting about caffeine we're commenting on, not a forum on some scholarly article in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science. This sort of anti-humor modding seems to be happening way too often lately; it's like there is some crusade to make Slashdot "serious"
If you don't like the Slash-humor, ignore it, or move to an actual "serious" forum. Otherwise, try to mod-UP the comments you actually like. If you must mod people down to validate your self-worth, there are plenty of actual trolls lurking about. Heck, just pick one of twitter's sock-puppets and you can have a full-time job modding down (or up, if you like him).
*I can see modding it redundant if the joke had been made many, many times over, but this was the second time.
Sorry, but every article I read about OOXML is about the voting and standardization irregularities, and nothing I've found reviews OOXML from the users standpoint...
That's pretty much because:
a) the voting irregularities are IMMENSE
and
b) there is no review on OOXML from the user's standpoint, because there is NO implementation (ZIP, ZERO, NONE) of the ISO candidate version of OOXML to review. Not even from Microsoft, who are using a different version now, and (IIRC) have stated that they WILL NOT be using the ISO version in the future, if it is approved. AND it is likely that there will never be a complete 3rd party implementation of the ISO OOXML standard because it is so long, complex and dependent on patents and references to legacy closed source software. MS happens to own that source and those patents and aren't about to give them away. So basically it's a dead end mockery of the ISO process.
If that's not enough to answer your questions AND piss you off, do some more reading on the topic.
Try reading up on how and for what the Fast-track process has been used in the past: Mature, complete and currently implemented industry standards that are just being formalized; Not slap-dick, fly-by-night, throw-in-kitchen-sink 6000 page cluster-f*ks like OOXML.
How does that work? As far as I can tell, BMI only collects licenses from businesses that use music as an integral part of their operation and attraction/promotion. Quoth the Website: (www.bmi.com)
"Businesses which typically license music include broadcast radio and TV stations, cable radio and TV stations, places such as nightclubs, hotels, discos, and other establishments that use music in an effort to enhance their business. (my emphasis)
I understand this to mean places like bars and clubs, roller-skateing rinks, bowling alleys etc, where the music is part of or the whole reason people go. I wasn't implying that these places don't or shouldn't pay for a license. I know they do and I agree with the logic in this case.
However, people don't sit in the dentists waiting room to listen to "SMOOTH JAZZ 101.1FM". Music is not part of the business plan like it would be for a bar or bowling alley. None of these sort of shops (Dr's offices, mechanics, Mom'n'Pop store etc) that I've come across pay for a license to play a radio station for >2 ears, even when the radio is explicitly for the waiting room, and especially not for "just in case the employee's radio is loud enough a customer can hear it" - like in TFA.
And the point still stands that EARS + ADS = PAID FOR ALREADY. If the artists need more money, it should come from the radio stations, and advertisers (indirectly).
Interesting. May have been a different survey company, but it sort of makes sense that they would try to get some people to do accurate, detailed logs. I was cold-called once, and the other was a one page form of listening habits.
The problem (in addition to not being able to identify short spurts, like you said), is it's still very, very hard to be sure of the data you get from such a survey: People will listen all day and then go back and fill it in by recollection, despite being told not to. They will self-censor because they might feel guilty or embarrassed about listening to a particular station or show, despite assurances of anonymity.
Until a Nielsen-like box is common, I don't think the data is going to get any better (accuracy wise), regardless of survey method.
OK, since none of my British friends are available to ask: Do people in the UK pay for radio licenses like they do for TV, to feed the Beeb? Or is radio (truly) free?
"...makes them hard to add to your listener figures, which need to be high and fairly accurate..."
As for quantifying the listeners, the data from individuals isn't all that precise as it is*: it's self-reported recollection by random survey, like asking "What station do you listen to most, and for how many hours a week?" not some detailed listening-journal kept by the person. I've been asked to fill out these surveys or respond by phone a few times myself.
That said, it would be trivial to include "If multiple people listen to your radio, on average, how many for how long?". For example, a waiting room: Radio is on for business hours and an average of X people are in listening range during the day. I think these sort of places are getting specifically crafted and targeted surveys already, as I imagine the stations try VERY hard to include them in listener numbers estimates.
*I think there are some systems that are like the Nielsen TV boxes but for radio, but I'm not aware of any specifically.
Exactly. How is Europe so completely backwards on this issue? Every pair of ears that listens to the songs is a pair of ears that listens to the ads as well, and those ads pay the bills. I would think the radio stations and music labels would be GLAD to have people listening to them in workplaces and waiting rooms.
If these laws were enforced in the USA, there would be riots, then it would be silence or royalty-free classical music only.
What bureaucratic knot did they invent to justify why should it cost money if you listen in a place of business when it's designed to be a free-to-receive service?
Yes, you can generally use the same cell phone coast to coast in the USA, without paying any extra charges whatsoever, as long as you are close enough to a tower. While we did manage to screw up GSM frequencies AND have an idiotic system of bundling phones with yearly contracts (thus higher rates to subsidize new phones every 2 years, whether you need one or not), we did get roaming right.
However, it was not always this way. Back in the dark-ages of cellphones, you were assigned a "home" area, and were billed at higher rates when you left it, even if still within the same state. Usually this was due to many small-scale tower networks owned by separate companies that the main cell company had to contract with for increased coverage.
With all the small nations in Europe, I can't imagine a system like that existing country to country. Is that how it is, move from France to Spain and BAM! roaming charges? It must be hell.
When I was living in Tanzania, I could take my pre-paid Celtel account all across East Africa with the same rates, and buy minutes in whatever local currency. Voda did the same thing there. Could Vodofone not do the same for all their service in Europe?
I commented on what I believe is a poor moderation by some grumple-puss who didn't get the parent's Wii joke on a thread about the Wii.
I would think that explaining an on-topic joke that got missed counts as on-topic, but I didn't count on that same humorless dbag having left-over mod points for vengeance.
If you don't like Slashdot humor, what are you even doing here? I can burn Karma faster than you can get mod points, I reckon, and meta-moderation will probably vindicate me.
For the humor-impaired: Mooninites. josh42042, props for the Mr. Show ref.