The RFID won't help in this situation unless there is a large database of drugs/side effects/interactions built to show the doctor what's what. But once the database is there, the RFID isn't essential and could only be used in limited cercomstances. Your doctor SHOULD have a list of the medications he prescibed you in your file. The main thing I can think of that might make this useful, is for inventory control in the pharmecy. Making sure you get the right drug in the correct amounts. And that is still not what I would consider 'consumer side', more like the back end of a Walmart than my living room.
What about OTC drugs? Or how about drugs prescribed by a different doctor? You're right, your doctor should always know ALL drugs that you're taking, and you should educate yourself as well, since who knows whether your doctor really knows what he's talking about or not. A compuerized database would go along way towards that education. Pharmacies already have such databases, & you generally get a printout of information when you get a prescription. But these tags would make it trivial to let anyone get this information by simply gathering there various drugs together.
I think you've missed the real point about these tags. They don't exist for you and me. They exist for corporations & the government. Articles such as this one suggest whiz-bang features that will probably never see the light of day, solely to build customer acceptance. Even if you discount the potentially invasive uses for these tags, they still are pretty evil. There main reasons for existing is to cut expenses & increase sales. If you run a grocery store, and 90% of your customers check themselves out, you can get rid of 90% of your checkers. Or say you're in the grocery store & you put a gallon of milk in your cart. Suddenly, you're bombarded from all sides with cereal ads. Personally, I don't want to see any more ads then I'm already forced to see.
This is true to an extent. However, the 60 second checkouts that even current generation self checkout systems allow make this sort of thing worthwhile. If I have a gripe, I can easily track down someone on the sales floor.
The problem with whiz-bang ideas like this is, like the CueCat, that they don't solve any problems.
Actually, you're wrong. It doesn't solve a problem FOR YOU. Advertisers, governments, and the like LOVE this stuff, though, because it allows them to very easily keep track of everything you do. Whether you tend to be paranoid or not, this kind of technology should -definitely- make you think.
Sure it does. Ever hear how the electric chair was invented? Tesla's invention of the A/C motor finally made widespread distribution of electricity feasable. The problem was that Edison only had patents on D/C generators. The public had to be convinced that D/C was better. Conveniently, New York State was looking for a new, "more humane" way to execute prisoners. Edison proposed using A/C power to electrecute them, thereby demonstrating how dangerous A/C was. Unfortunately, his plan backfired when the first victim was still alive (albeit smoking) after four full minutes of current. See the book Blood & Volts by Thomas Metzger for more history.
Dumping it down your household drain would be a better solution. Drano & the like are Lye, so I wouldn't expect that this would be any worse. It'll just get removed at the sewage treatment plant. Dumping it on the ground could effect the environment more directly, though I doubt it'd be too much of a problem. I would probably not dump it down a storm drain, however, as they frequenty drain directly to rivers or lakes. Of course, I am only guessing about all of this, so someone please correct me if I am wrong.
Oh, come on! Http involves a bunch of GET requests. I can GET what I want off an apache server. There is no law that says I must download everything on a page (or anything on a page --- I can choose to ignore any page I want on the net and surf elsewhere --- it's a free Internet). Me and junkbuster are quite happy not downloading ads,/. or otherwise, thank you.
My point was only that the analogy the previous poster made was fallacious. I do not disapprove of the use of Junkbuster, nor do I believe that a person using it would (or should) ever lose in court.
You'r eof course welcome to hit the "stop" button. But you're not hiting the stop button, are you. Instead, you're making an active effort to use a service without paying for it (by viewing the ads). Note, it's important to note that I didn't say that I disapprove of what using Junknbuster. My comment was only directed at the legality of it, and the fallacy of comparing it to listening to a poetry reading without buying coffee. Both are similar, but there are important differences between them that make the comparison wrong.
Maybe you should reread my comment, & the comment I responded to. I never said anything MS like, only that comparing listening to a poetry reading without buying coffee & using internet junkbuster to view/. without ads are not comparable.This seems obvious to me, but apparently it's not so obvious to thers. I'm not sure where my "manipulation" came in...
Well, I'm more concerned with whether or not VA Software could sue, not the individuals. The individuals presumably are giving an implicit license to distribute their content.
VA could & should sue in such a case. I have granted/. a license in return for creating this community. Because of their efforts, they get a free license to my words. The mirroring site is illegally using my words without my permission. If they want to mirror something I say, they are welcome to contact me & get my permission. VA suing saves me from having to pursue such legal action individually.
Either way it doesn't change the matter that slashdot is trying to profit off other people's content, without even paying the people who create that content. Do they have a legal right to do that? Probably. But don't try to make VA Software out to be the good guys.
If you don't want slashdot to make a profit off your words, DON'T POST. Geez. People are constantly bitching about this sort of thing, and it makes absolutely ZERO sense. No one is holding a gun to your head. You know in advance that slashdot is a for profit company. If you don't want to support them, you are welcome to download Slash & start your own site. Who knows, maybe yours will be so successful that you can put them out of business? How many other companies actually give you the tools necessary to put them out of business? Maybe people should stop bitching & start thanking slashdot for all they provide!
This atitude is so hilarious. Slashdot makes money from every pageview whether you subscribe or not. The threat "you won't get my subscription" is rather hollow when you really think about it. Want a real threat? Say you'll stop reading. Of course many of us would prefer if all the whiners left, so that's probably not much of a threat either.
Your analogy is completely false. Sitting outside a coffeshop, drinking your own coffee, costs the coffeeshop nothing except a lost potential sale. Using Internet Junkbuster, you are directly using the resources/. provides, and not paying for them. This is legally known as "theft of services" and is a prosecutable offense. I'm not sure what Taco & the rest think about this issue, but legally, you are in the wrong.
A/. mirror would be illegal. That is assuming, of course, that you did not go through the trouble of contacting every person who has ever posted & get their permission to reproduce their comment.
Of course the whole copyright complaint is ludicrous. It's just another way for weenies to complain about how evil Slashdot is. While I would not be willing to post if I did not retain my copyright, I have no problem granting slashdot a non-exclusive right to use my post in any way they see fit.
This is a nice idea, and was addressed on the Gentoo list a few months back. The problem is that many packages don't compile properly using ICC. You could probably have a flag in the ebuild (package) stating whether it supports ICC or not, but I suspect that this would lead to more problems then the 10% speed boost would justify.
I'd just install what you have. aller will automagically download the newest versions of the packages, so there is no real advantage to download the latest ISO.
You probably could install Gentoo on this system, but you wouldn't want to. The compile process on such a slow machine would likely take weeks. Sorceror requires 1GB of virtual memory for the install, so that's probaly out also. Stick with Red Hat or the like & you'll probably be much happier.
On the otherhand, it is possible to compile on a fast machine & install to the solwer machine. There are some documents detailing this process, and people on the mailing list have done it, so it is possible, but I'm not sure how easy it is. Might be worth looking into if you want to setup several slow machines.
(Note, though, that I tend to agree with the previous poster. With the price of hardware nowadays, it's not going to be worth the hassle for most people)
Since User-mode linux can be used with any distribution, you're right, it's not a very good reason to switch. Of course since UML has basically nothing to do with Gentoo other then a tutorial on the site, I can't imagine why someone would even think about switching to Gentoo for it. Had you done even 5 minutes worth of research before posting you would have known this, so maybe next time you should actually read the site before posting?
Re:Broadband costs 100x more than a nice computer
on
Gentoo 1.0 Released
·
· Score: 2
I'm assuming that this post wasn't a troll, though from your rant, I suspect that it actually was meant that way. Nonetheless, I'll reply...
I don't think the previous poster was making a joke at all, though it was clearly intended to be sarcastic. I believe that he was pointing out the stupidity of the argument that Gentoo was a bad idea since it required a broadband connection.
If you don't have broadband, don't use Gentoo. You will probably not be happy with the overall experience. Is that a flaw in it's design? Not really, since the real advantages of it's design are directly due to it's network connection.
Re:So is this a distro for broadband users ?
on
Gentoo 1.0 Released
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
I really really DON'T think that it's wise to the base distro so small. The ISO is just 103 MB and offers only the very basic system. If you want most of the apps provided by the distros like RedHat / Mandrake / Debian, you will have to download them. This is pretty much like a net-install. Sure, it's great for those with broadband, but what about those who don't have broadband?
Putting this distribution on CD would basically defeat the entire reason it exists. This distribution is intended for people who have fast connection, and want to have the fastest, most current system possible. Putting it on CD ROM would still allow you to optimize for your system, but you couldn't take advantage of the easy updates. Personally, a 5-10% speed boost doesn't justify the switch. The ease of upgrading & administration, however, makes it worthwhile.
Re:I still like sorcerer better...
on
Gentoo 1.0 Released
·
· Score: 3, Informative
Before installing Gentoo, I tried Sorcerer. They are very similar, and Sorcerer sdoes have some nice touches (for example, I like that you can make symlinks that will automatically install a package the first time it's called).
The problem I had with Sorcerer, however, is that it lacked any real documentation. It had a great installer, but if -anything- went wrong, you were on your own (for example, there is basically no info on setting up your network connection, even though a network connection is absolutely vital to the install process).
Gentoo, on the other hand has a less automated install, but it is VERY well docemented. If you follow the instructions, you will get the install done, even if you don't have much Unix knowledge. I still wouldn't recommend Gentoo to a beginner (The install may be simple, but once it's installed, you're back on your own), but even a moderately experienced and moderately adventerous user will have no problems.
To install Gentoo, you first download a base system that you bot from. This system includes the compiler & necessary utilities to install the system, all in binary form. Then, as part of the install process, all of the binaries are then re-compiled from the latest sources. Once you reboot, all of the binaries are gone & you're running from the newly compiled versions.
This simplifies things a bit, but the install process is actually quite easy. I've been running Gento for ~2 months now, and I don't think I've ever been as pleased with a Linux distribution. It requires a bit more knowledge then, for example, Mandrake, but it's not difficult, and it's very well documented. I highly recommend you try it out.
Seriously...why should a web browser do error checking in html or javascript? It's like a compiler...it goes tits up when it finds invalid code...the browser is just the container for running js and html...
Fair enough, but a non-buggy browser won't crash on errors in the js code. Buggy js should result in a error message, not a crash.
Slashdot Mirror
The RFID won't help in this situation unless there is a large database of drugs/side effects/interactions built to show the doctor what's what. But once the database is there, the RFID isn't essential and could only be used in limited cercomstances. Your doctor SHOULD have a list of the medications he prescibed you in your file. The main thing I can think of that might make this useful, is for inventory control in the pharmecy. Making sure you get the right drug in the correct amounts. And that is still not what I would consider 'consumer side', more like the back end of a Walmart than my living room.
What about OTC drugs? Or how about drugs prescribed by a different doctor? You're right, your doctor should always know ALL drugs that you're taking, and you should educate yourself as well, since who knows whether your doctor really knows what he's talking about or not. A compuerized database would go along way towards that education. Pharmacies already have such databases, & you generally get a printout of information when you get a prescription. But these tags would make it trivial to let anyone get this information by simply gathering there various drugs together.
I think you've missed the real point about these tags. They don't exist for you and me. They exist for corporations & the government. Articles such as this one suggest whiz-bang features that will probably never see the light of day, solely to build customer acceptance. Even if you discount the potentially invasive uses for these tags, they still are pretty evil. There main reasons for existing is to cut expenses & increase sales. If you run a grocery store, and 90% of your customers check themselves out, you can get rid of 90% of your checkers. Or say you're in the grocery store & you put a gallon of milk in your cart. Suddenly, you're bombarded from all sides with cereal ads. Personally, I don't want to see any more ads then I'm already forced to see.
This is true to an extent. However, the 60 second checkouts that even current generation self checkout systems allow make this sort of thing worthwhile. If I have a gripe, I can easily track down someone on the sales floor.
The problem with whiz-bang ideas like this is, like the CueCat, that they don't solve any problems.
Actually, you're wrong. It doesn't solve a problem FOR YOU. Advertisers, governments, and the like LOVE this stuff, though, because it allows them to very easily keep track of everything you do. Whether you tend to be paranoid or not, this kind of technology should -definitely- make you think.
Um, that doesn't happen.
Sure it does. Ever hear how the electric chair was invented? Tesla's invention of the A/C motor finally made widespread distribution of electricity feasable. The problem was that Edison only had patents on D/C generators. The public had to be convinced that D/C was better. Conveniently, New York State was looking for a new, "more humane" way to execute prisoners. Edison proposed using A/C power to electrecute them, thereby demonstrating how dangerous A/C was. Unfortunately, his plan backfired when the first victim was still alive (albeit smoking) after four full minutes of current. See the book Blood & Volts by Thomas Metzger for more history.
Dumping it down your household drain would be a better solution. Drano & the like are Lye, so I wouldn't expect that this would be any worse. It'll just get removed at the sewage treatment plant. Dumping it on the ground could effect the environment more directly, though I doubt it'd be too much of a problem. I would probably not dump it down a storm drain, however, as they frequenty drain directly to rivers or lakes. Of course, I am only guessing about all of this, so someone please correct me if I am wrong.
You've obviously been watching too much Red Dwarf, Haven't you?
Oh, come on! Http involves a bunch of GET requests. I can GET what I want off an apache server. There is no law that says I must download everything on a page (or anything on a page --- I can choose to ignore any page I want on the net and surf elsewhere --- it's a free Internet). Me and junkbuster are quite happy not downloading ads, /. or otherwise, thank you.
My point was only that the analogy the previous poster made was fallacious. I do not disapprove of the use of Junkbuster, nor do I believe that a person using it would (or should) ever lose in court.
You'r eof course welcome to hit the "stop" button. But you're not hiting the stop button, are you. Instead, you're making an active effort to use a service without paying for it (by viewing the ads). Note, it's important to note that I didn't say that I disapprove of what using Junknbuster. My comment was only directed at the legality of it, and the fallacy of comparing it to listening to a poetry reading without buying coffee. Both are similar, but there are important differences between them that make the comparison wrong.
Maybe you should reread my comment, & the comment I responded to. I never said anything MS like, only that comparing listening to a poetry reading without buying coffee & using internet junkbuster to view /. without ads are not comparable.This seems obvious to me, but apparently it's not so obvious to thers. I'm not sure where my "manipulation" came in...
Well, I'm more concerned with whether or not VA Software could sue, not the individuals. The individuals presumably are giving an implicit license to distribute their content.
/. a license in return for creating this community. Because of their efforts, they get a free license to my words. The mirroring site is illegally using my words without my permission. If they want to mirror something I say, they are welcome to contact me & get my permission. VA suing saves me from having to pursue such legal action individually.
VA could & should sue in such a case. I have granted
Either way it doesn't change the matter that slashdot is trying to profit off other people's content, without even paying the people who create that content. Do they have a legal right to do that? Probably. But don't try to make VA Software out to be the good guys.
If you don't want slashdot to make a profit off your words, DON'T POST. Geez. People are constantly bitching about this sort of thing, and it makes absolutely ZERO sense. No one is holding a gun to your head. You know in advance that slashdot is a for profit company. If you don't want to support them, you are welcome to download Slash & start your own site. Who knows, maybe yours will be so successful that you can put them out of business? How many other companies actually give you the tools necessary to put them out of business? Maybe people should stop bitching & start thanking slashdot for all they provide!
This atitude is so hilarious. Slashdot makes money from every pageview whether you subscribe or not. The threat "you won't get my subscription" is rather hollow when you really think about it. Want a real threat? Say you'll stop reading. Of course many of us would prefer if all the whiners left, so that's probably not much of a threat either.
Geez. I just don't get it. If people don't want to read a hobby site, WHY DO THEY KEEP COMING HERE?. As Taco said, "Don't like it? Don't read it!"
Your analogy is completely false. Sitting outside a coffeshop, drinking your own coffee, costs the coffeeshop nothing except a lost potential sale. Using Internet Junkbuster, you are directly using the resources /. provides, and not paying for them. This is legally known as "theft of services" and is a prosecutable offense. I'm not sure what Taco & the rest think about this issue, but legally, you are in the wrong.
A /. mirror would be illegal. That is assuming, of course, that you did not go through the trouble of contacting every person who has ever posted & get their permission to reproduce their comment.
Of course the whole copyright complaint is ludicrous. It's just another way for weenies to complain about how evil Slashdot is. While I would not be willing to post if I did not retain my copyright, I have no problem granting slashdot a non-exclusive right to use my post in any way they see fit.
This is a nice idea, and was addressed on the Gentoo list a few months back. The problem is that many packages don't compile properly using ICC. You could probably have a flag in the ebuild (package) stating whether it supports ICC or not, but I suspect that this would lead to more problems then the 10% speed boost would justify.
Nah, just get a '70s vw bug. Everyone knows that they float!
...have. aller...
Oops. That should say "...have. The installer..."
I'd just install what you have. aller will automagically download the newest versions of the packages, so there is no real advantage to download the latest ISO.
You probably could install Gentoo on this system, but you wouldn't want to. The compile process on such a slow machine would likely take weeks. Sorceror requires 1GB of virtual memory for the install, so that's probaly out also. Stick with Red Hat or the like & you'll probably be much happier.
On the otherhand, it is possible to compile on a fast machine & install to the solwer machine. There are some documents detailing this process, and people on the mailing list have done it, so it is possible, but I'm not sure how easy it is. Might be worth looking into if you want to setup several slow machines.
(Note, though, that I tend to agree with the previous poster. With the price of hardware nowadays, it's not going to be worth the hassle for most people)
Since User-mode linux can be used with any distribution, you're right, it's not a very good reason to switch. Of course since UML has basically nothing to do with Gentoo other then a tutorial on the site, I can't imagine why someone would even think about switching to Gentoo for it. Had you done even 5 minutes worth of research before posting you would have known this, so maybe next time you should actually read the site before posting?
I'm assuming that this post wasn't a troll, though from your rant, I suspect that it actually was meant that way. Nonetheless, I'll reply...
I don't think the previous poster was making a joke at all, though it was clearly intended to be sarcastic. I believe that he was pointing out the stupidity of the argument that Gentoo was a bad idea since it required a broadband connection.
If you don't have broadband, don't use Gentoo. You will probably not be happy with the overall experience. Is that a flaw in it's design? Not really, since the real advantages of it's design are directly due to it's network connection.
I really really DON'T think that it's wise to the base distro so small. The ISO is just 103 MB and offers only the very basic system. If you want most of the apps provided by the distros like RedHat / Mandrake / Debian, you will have to download them. This is pretty much like a net-install. Sure, it's great for those with broadband, but what about those who don't have broadband?
Putting this distribution on CD would basically defeat the entire reason it exists. This distribution is intended for people who have fast connection, and want to have the fastest, most current system possible. Putting it on CD ROM would still allow you to optimize for your system, but you couldn't take advantage of the easy updates. Personally, a 5-10% speed boost doesn't justify the switch. The ease of upgrading & administration, however, makes it worthwhile.
Before installing Gentoo, I tried Sorcerer. They are very similar, and Sorcerer sdoes have some nice touches (for example, I like that you can make symlinks that will automatically install a package the first time it's called).
The problem I had with Sorcerer, however, is that it lacked any real documentation. It had a great installer, but if -anything- went wrong, you were on your own (for example, there is basically no info on setting up your network connection, even though a network connection is absolutely vital to the install process).
Gentoo, on the other hand has a less automated install, but it is VERY well docemented. If you follow the instructions, you will get the install done, even if you don't have much Unix knowledge. I still wouldn't recommend Gentoo to a beginner (The install may be simple, but once it's installed, you're back on your own), but even a moderately experienced and moderately adventerous user will have no problems.
To install Gentoo, you first download a base system that you bot from. This system includes the compiler & necessary utilities to install the system, all in binary form. Then, as part of the install process, all of the binaries are then re-compiled from the latest sources. Once you reboot, all of the binaries are gone & you're running from the newly compiled versions.
This simplifies things a bit, but the install process is actually quite easy. I've been running Gento for ~2 months now, and I don't think I've ever been as pleased with a Linux distribution. It requires a bit more knowledge then, for example, Mandrake, but it's not difficult, and it's very well documented. I highly recommend you try it out.
Seriously...why should a web browser do error checking in html or javascript? It's like a compiler...it goes tits up when it finds invalid code...the browser is just the container for running js and html...
Fair enough, but a non-buggy browser won't crash on errors in the js code. Buggy js should result in a error message, not a crash.