I think the two-tier health care thing (cf. UK NHS) can be sold in red states if it were marketed correctly. This is probably a cultural issue as well... what is a convincing argument in one area simply doesn't resonate at all in the others.
However, your point is absolutely correct: compromise only works if the gap is not an insurmountable gulf, otherwise the result of compromise is untenable (e.g. Obamacare). In the case of the Obamacare/the individual mandate, it had to be ramrodded through without any deliberation (or even being read by the legislators), then had to be immediately validated by a 5-4 supreme court ruling that was a farce (who honestly believes that forcing people to buy products is consistent with the Constitution?). The law is so buggy that it required the executive to unconstitutionally unilaterally modify it (the judiciary's silence is deafening here). Meanwhile, half the country hopes for repeal because the entire process was non-consensual. Barring any progress in the "correct" direction, the country finds gridlocking the federal government desirable because at least if the government isn't doing anything then it isn't forcibly "making things worse".
This is the future of our union, barring some commanding supermajority hold on Congress and the Presidency for at least a decade, ala FDR. I believe he really did a lot to damage our country (obviously, views about this differ), but he did manage to shift the Overton Window.
Everyone hates Congress, but keeps voting the same people in. Why? Because they hope their culture will gain an upper hand and force it upon the rest of the country. It's always "those other people" who are the problem, right? *cough*
I think it is logical that there will always be wedge issues in any society, but the Overton Window indicates what they will be. I'm sure that the healthcare/individual mandate wedge issue in the US is very far displaced from the UK's wedge issues. I can't imagine what it would be like if we were still in a single country/kingdom trying to reconcile our divergent cultures into a single coherent UK/American colonies culture.
I'm also disturbed by political "victories" in courts where the ruling is "basically, your state law is too different from the rest of the country". I refer most recently to the federal courts demanding that IL and CA start issuing concealed handgun carry permits to all applicants who are not legally barred from having one. The federal court gave the IL legislature a deadline to pass a law allowing this. Now, obviously I believe this is an expansion of human rights in these states, but WTF?! Having this forced on a state against their will with the rationale of "you're too different, no self-determination for you!" feels very wrong.
Exactly. But I'm just some weirdo who believes in self-determination for people, and apparently this is an extremely unpopular mindset these days, at least in the US. Just look at what happens when anyone proposes secession. (And when I do it, I'm advocating the secession of the west coast tech states, so they can get away from the red states (and also the crappy northeast states like NY where the banksters are). But the liberals always get upset about this, because they think we need to forcibly keep all the states together no matter what, so they can bitch and whine when the voters in those states vote in ways they don't like. So I'm starting to come to the conclusion that many liberals (of the American variety) generally abhor self-determination and favor corruption of the government by the financial industry.)
This is great to hear. I'm in a red state and my friends and I are sick of liberals forcing their policies on us. I'm even willing to let you think it is your states "getting away from" our states, if that matters to you (haha). Essentially, it has come to the point where both sides look at the other and shake their head because the culture is so foreign. I don't think a compromise culture is desirable for either side of the divide.
Look at all the 5-4 split Supreme Court rulings. Do you admit, as I do, hoping the Supreme Court balance will swing in favor of the culture you support so that contentious aspects of your culture can be forced on the rest of the nation "for their own good"? For example, I am hoping for assertions of human rights such as the Constitutional individual right to keep and bear arms in areas where these rights have heretofore been unconstitutionally blocked. Regardless of which issues are key from each individual's perspective, the fact that we as a nation must routinely rely on the Supreme Court to mandate these policies is a sign of serious sociopolitical & cultural dysfunction.
I really believe that secession/dissolution is tenable and wouldn't lead to collapse. Much has been said about the net flow of tax money from blue states to red states, but I believe what would actually happen is that blue state food prices would jump significantly to compensate for their now lowered wealth transfer tax burden. The Farm Bill food subsidies for the past 70+ years represent most of this tax wealth transfer to the red states and these laws have really screwed up the agricultural/food markets. The Farm Bills' subsidies have led to such abominations as HFCS and corn for ethanol. Who knows? Secession might even lead to innovations in our food supply if we start using the land to grow something other than corn that humans can't eat (literally, the preponderance of corn grown is for animal feed/industrial purposes and tastes like chalk).
Back on topic: what could we call this movement? The Nonpartisan Coalition for Amicable Secession? Hm, that doesn't have a pithy acronym. I'm open to suggestions.
Seems like the guy was giving you a soap box for you to talk on.
Did you miss the part where the contracts allowed the producers to intentionally misrepresent anything the participants said or did? I know I'm cynical, but what do *you* imagine would happen to any such message by the time the show was released for public consumption?
"I love working on diverse teams! Teams with men, women, people from other cultures... I doest matter! Teams with a monoculture may function, but working with them kind of sucks." becomes "I love women, but working with them kind of sucks." after editing. Completely legit, per their contract.
In general, aggressive screening has been extremely useful: pretty much everyone gets screened for PKU, sickle cell anemia, cystic fibrosis, MCAD, hypothyroidism, and another ~20 conditions at birth.
Funny you should choose neonatal screening as an example in support of your argument. Firstly, the things that *are* screened are a carefully curated list of unambiguous genetic defects that 1) have immediate deleterious effect on the development of the child and 2) have an intervention that will alter the trajectory of the disease. This is why, for example, no one screens the population for Tay Sachs. In fact, the ~30 tests that are part of the standard panel now are all that's left after *hundreds* of candidate disorders were considered for screening and rejected by the American College of Medical Genetics.
Secondly, the positive predictive value of these neonatal screenings is incredibly low. That means that for every true positive result (i.e. a disorder detected correctly) there are 50 to 100 false positive results, which are subsequently ruled out by a different, more specific confirmatory test. However, this same problem (low PPV) is endemic in the mammogram/pap smear/PSA tests, and these result in deleterious effects on many people who have false positive results compared to the number of lives saved from true positive results.
Also, it's worth noting that they still perform the neonatal screening because the human cost of missing a diagnosis in an infant for these *treatable* diseases is so profound, but many parents are put under serious stress due to the false positive results.
Overall medicine is increasing the use of screening, not decreasing it.
Going back to the BRCA example: ask any medical geneticist what is the single most important screening tool. Every one of them will tell you it is "family history". If family history indicates a specific risk, they may counsel further testing such as BRCA. This is different than en masse population genetic screening for "cancer risks".
Recall the original poster was citing cancer risk. Have any examples of a trend toward expanded *cancer* screening? I gave two widely known examples of the trend moving in the opposite direction for cancer screening (in fact, these are probably the two most publicly visible/prevalent types of cancer screening), and correlated this to the issue of laypeople misinterpreting GWAS "cancer risk" data such as was provided by 23andme.
Tangentially, I hope that Theranos actually manages to pull off their plans for microfluidics testing. Look at their projected pricing, and the fact that they want this to be available at every corner Walgreens.
Yes, BRCA is a counterexample. It is also an outlier, and testing for BRCA can usually be guided by a simple family history. If there is BRCA in the family, there will be a very high incidence of breast/prostate cancer in the family. If that's the case in your family, consider talking to a medical geneticist and possibly getting BRCA testing. As before, I'm not proposing people be barred from having tests done to learn their status, but I am against goading people (especially if it's not going to be helpful).
In general, the 23andme type GWAS crap isn't helpful for the layperson. The type of results returned (before the FDA cease & desisted them) were freaking people out due to the "increased risk effect". If it gives the person a nudge to live a healthier life (diet, exercise, dropping bad habits) then that's great, and those lifestyle changes are going to have a far greater effect than most any "increased risk" result from a GWAS.
As for my general point regarding aggressive screening & intervention: how many breast cancers have been ironically iatrogenically induced by the radiation dose from routine mammograms vs lives saved by early detection? How many non-BRCA breasts have been surgically removed due to benign conditions that were "suspect" on mammography? Also, don't discount the pain and stress of having a breast biopsy of suspicious findings on mammogram.
Aggressive screening is a double-edged sword, and that's why medicine is backing away from swinging it so enthusiastically.
From what I have seen, people at risk for Huntington aren't exactly irresponsibly breeding. You have to recall that most of them were traumatized as children by having their parent(s) and/or siblings become ill, be institutionalized, and die.
I haven't heard of any who were nihilistically refusing to learn their status while potentially passing this on to their kids via their genes. Usually, it seems they are doing the test to see whether they can have a family/future or if they should be planning which facility they want to be institutionalized in/what kind of funeral they wish to have.
This probably holds double for males, because Huntington disease often displays anticipation (effects are stronger/worse/sooner) if passed down via the father. Trinucleotide repeat disorders are a bitch.
If you know that you may be more likely to get cancer, then you can get tested more often and aggressively, increasing the chances that your cancer will be treatable.
That's sort of a 20th century mindset. The current consensus seems to be in favor of backing away from annual mammograms, not checking PSA, not doing routine dental x-rays, etc. The problem is that with all these screenings we have introduced ironic iatrogenic issues: treating benign conditions because test results were weird (or false positives). In the end, the data shows this isn't improving outcomes. Just imagine if you had your prostate nuked because your PSA was positive, and you lost your ability to achieve an erection for the rest of your life, then five years later it turns out studies say, "oops, that wasn't really necessary!"
Extrapolate this to GWAS type stuff and you get the picture. I mean, I'm not arguing the information should be withheld from people who want it, but I strongly believe people shouldn't be forced to learn or disclose this data.
Generally speaking though, forewarned is forearmed, and if the susceptible are more aggressively screened and treated, then it could well take away a lot of the "cancer is a death sentence" mentality that many people have.
Those cases where forewarned doesn't help are definitely at issue. The classical example is Huntington disease. It's an autosomal dominant death sentence and there is no treatment or way to alter the course of the disease. Some people don't want to know. There is actually a very elaborate three-phase commit for testing/getting results for Huntington disease, and geneticists won't perform the test on a minor.
The day git implements subversion externals functionality so it is easy and risk free to update from and commit to external branches, I'll swich my team. Git modules functionality is close, but you can make a mess if you commit while having a module set up.
Okay, I admit to not fully researching this, but because I have found svn externals useful in the past I thought I would inquire.
Is this something repo (used in the Android Open Source Project, I call it "meta-git") could handle? From my experience with it, repo did many of the same things I would have used a svn external for. I admit the workflow for repo didn't seem very polished, but it did allow AOSP/CyanogenMod to meta-version various git repos for a build.
Secondly, if you dont mind going into detail, what about git modules fell short? I would like to avoid pitfalls if possible.
You can't see the side impact about to happen as you stare at the monitor in front of you.
I disagree.
I will note that my backup camera has a very wide field of view and often can see things to the side of the vehicle that I cannot (c.f. backing out of a parking space with large vehicles on either side blocking the view from the driver's seat).
Oh, and my backup camera system gives an audible alert if there is a moving vehicle or pedestrian within its field of view.
Do I still turn my head before beginning to reverse? Yes, but I have yet to see something relevant to the impending reverse that was not also visible in my backup camera.
Notwithstanding my opinion of whether the government should mandate these, I find my backup camera provides a view that cannot be matched simply by some notion of "driving skill".
I can see exactly what is on the ground behind the rear of my vehicle. This allows me to drive in reverse with more confidence.
I wouldn't necessarily consider this mandatory safety equipment though. By their own estimates this will only result in the prevention of 13 to 15 deaths. There are, what, 330 million people in this country?
Are you one of those people who use their cell or landline primarily for talking to people?
Most Millennials don't use voice frequently, but do use data. I have basically no need for a POTS line (or even a wireless service) that does not provide me with an internet connection.
And before you go full-luddite on me, yes, I *do* need net access when I am away from home. I don't use it while driving, but I do at practically all my destinations. I *don't* need to talk to people via phone, either at home or while out around town.
To restate: there are practically no arguments salient to me in favor of a landline. Any arguments against wireless service do not bolster the utility of POTS for me (dialup internet? really?). I would drop having phone service altogether if I could not have wireless. However, that's not going to happen and I will happily continue to use my wireless data plan everywhere I go.
Yes. Drop POTS. Drop it and make it Public Domain. See what happens when you give us a little infra to build on.
The meth-heads already started the POTS == public domain movement years ago. I think that is a glimpse of what a true public domain POTS future would look like.
Precisely. "Harrowing" and "misanthropic" are incorrect assessments; rather, it's that it's just yet another draining social interaction with no net benefit. Why put yourself through that?
Unlike many of the other posters who replied, my impetus for choosing the self-checkout is to avoid the human interaction rather than to improve checkout efficiency. To wit: I would rather wait in line to use a self checkout than to immediately checkout with a human cashier. This also explains why I get so upset when a fucking self checkout doesn't function correctly and requires bailout by a human: these interactions are even more extensive than a standard human checkout interaction, and ironically defeat the entire purpose.
YMMV, especially if you're more extroverted than introverted.
This discussion prompted me to finally investigate what is involved to accomplish the logical conclusion to lighter-than-air flight: vacuum airships (spoiler alert: materials science state of the art means it's currently science fiction).
However, this made me wonder about the possibility of using a reduced pressure airship filled with helium or hydrogen. Not a vacuum, but with the lift gas pressure such that the propensity to leak was in equilibrium with the atmosphere. This would require material support similar to a vacuum airship, but the lift gas pressure would mean that the stress/strain on the lift gas containment would be reduced compared to a true vacuum airship. Perhaps still presently unfeasible, but it would represent an intermediate step.
No doubt others have explored this rather thoroughly before. Anyway, fun thought experiment.
Try carrying a kitchen knife in your pocket sometime and pulling it out in such a way that results in your doing more damage to someone else than to yourself.
...if only someone could invent some sort of "wrapper" for the blade that would allow a fixed blade to be carried safely and drawn out when desired without inflicting injury on the user. Maybe they could call it a "knife condom", or maybe a "knife carrier", or maybe they would invent a completely new word for it like "sheath".
They could even make universal sheaths that support different types of knives, so that the sheath could be used for a knife that wasn't specifically designed for it.
Oh well.
You may be correct that kitchen knives are used mostly in crimes of passion, but don't underestimate the violence inherent in criminals. For example, once the UK finished effectively banning firearms, they were saddened to find that criminals switched to knives instead. What was their reaction? Knife control laws. Obviously, once those laws were in place, it made kitchen knives more popular for use in crime, so their natural reaction was to start calling for a ban on kitchen knives.
Since they are attempting to treat the symptom rather than the cause, I look forward to a future where the UK calls for a succession of such laws: kitchen knife control, steel pipe control, brick control, rock control, and, ultimately, stick control.
He asked several people involved in administering the death penalty if they would consider it, and to a man, they all refused to condone the notion. Because the victim feels a few moments of euphoria before they go.
Hey, fyi, the euphoric effect can apparently be mitigated by using helium or neon instead of nitrogen. Cf. relevant table of narcotic effects.
Neon is probably more politically tenable (or a helium/neon mix). It would be great if this were the primary obstacle to this method becoming politically viable.
They're all pretty fugly. The Buzz Lightyear looking one is the only one that doesn't make the wearer look stupid.
Ugh, I know. When comparing these options to the Z-1 suit at the top, I got this strange feeling like I had when comparing Windows 7 to Windows 8... "Seriously? Why can't we have the one that looks like something designed by a sane group rather than this abortion of an "upgrade"?"
Unfortunately, the astronauts can't simply wear these inside-out to hide the horrible flair spewed all over the outside of the suit.
Seems like if their receipt says "Hamburger with extra strawberries", they'd have a hard time saying that they didn't order that - and really the cost of fast food is so low that throwing away a bad order every once in a while isn't a huge expense.
Trolls gonna troll. However, the other obvious issue is the technophobic/technology impaired set. I can easily envision my grandma (my grandfathers are dead, you insensitive clod) accidentally ordering a hamburger with extra strawberries, and she might take 5 minutes to figure out how to do it while the line is backing up behind her. Really takes the "fast" out of fast food.
I don't think any store exec ever thought that customers would be faster at self checkout than human clerks (especially when the scanners purposely slow you down to verify that you've put each item into the bagging area), but when they can put in 4 or 6 self-checkout lines per human operator, even if the checkout process itself is slower, you can still get out of the store faster.
Wrong metric. This is a zero sum game when it comes to space. In every grocery store (and Costco) I have seen each self-checkout lane was installed as a replacement for a human cashier lane. There really wasn't any space available to do it another way. You can perceive how this becomes a major issue when the self-checkout lanes are slow, thereby causing traffic overloads on the now-reduced number of human cashier lanes during peak times, inducing longer average wait to check out, causing pissed off customers that now feel like going to a competitor next time they need something, etc. This ends up costing the company money, and it's not like they were going broke paying part-time cashiers minimum wage with no benefits.
You're bitching to the choir, though. I was sad and complained when the self-checkout lanes were removed. I like not having to interact with humans when buying things.
Gonna be a long while till robots will be able to do all the shitty things nomadic, entry-level employees do.
It will be a while before robots can do all of those jobs, but many of them will soon be automated. If you go into a McDonald's, half the employees are taking orders, and the other half are fulfilling them. The people taking the orders could easily be replaced: Just turn the touchscreens around so that customers can enter their own orders, and then swipe a card to pay. Grocery stores have already done this, and so have banks. Fast food is next.
I don't understand why they haven't done so already -- I assume it's because they don't think their customers are ready for touch-screen ordering. Starbucks could do it too -- with their pushbutton espresso machines, they don't really need a human barista for most drinks.
I can tell you why... I witnessed it firsthand. My mall food court had this system in the early 1990's. People would place orders via the touchscreen and then the food would be prepared. I saw the place get trolled (someone ordered 10 large fries at once and walked away). Obviously, this was before credit card swipes were allowed for payment so it was a cash business, and payment was collected when the food was presented. Yeah, that system didn't last long. Now the likely issue would be trolls ordering bizarre combinations and then claiming there was a mistake/demanding a refund.
As for self-checkout, most places I saw experiment with those in the past two years (grocery stores and Costco) has ripped them out and gone back to using human cashiers. The reasons? Fraud/theft and speed (trained cashiers are faster, who would have thought?). Walmart and big box home improvement stores are the outliers still offering self-checkout in my area.
God, yes. I bought a PS specifically to play FFVII. In fact, that's why I ended up with a PS rather than an N64. I played many of the other FF releases on a variety of platforms, with many fond memories.
As soon as I heard Square Enix was jumping on the goddamn MMO bandwagon with the series, FF became dead to me.
I want something I can play at home, offline, as the fucking singular, main character around which the entire epic plot revolves. I even enjoy the oddly culturally inaccessible Japanese angst that is imbued in these storylines. I also *like* that each damn JRPG revisits the same basic tropes, albeit from different angles.
ABOVE ALL, I DON'T WANT A FUCKING ONLINE, SOCIAL GAME WITH A GODDAMN SUBSCRIPTION MODEL! WoW already has nailed that market perfectly, for those who are interested in that kind of experience. For all practical purposes they own the market and the market seems both satisfied and fully tapped (ie. there's unlikely to be a vast untapped market for MMO subscribers so competition is effectively a zero-sum game among the various companies).
Square Enix, do you want to be an also-ran with a mediocre MMO that everyone compares to WoW, or do you want to once again be the unrivaled master of the JRPG archetype?
All of my Engineering profs had extensive industry experience. My understanding at the time was that Engineering schools had a long tradition of not employing professors without at least 5 years in industry. Granting that was decades ago. I have a hard time believing things have changed that quickly.
All but ONE of my engineering profs were "broken eggs" that had PhD's but no industry experience. My "favorite" engineering instructor was a former tech (with only a master's degree) who literally hated engineers. He would go on and on during class about how the engineers he had worked with were cruel to him.
Then he gave us impossible homework so that he could gloat in class about how we were all stupid (in order to get his rocks off).
Granted, this was a decade ago, so the change must have been in progress before that time. We had ABET certification, of course.
All I'm hearing is that these bloggers are incompetent at protecting their sources.
I mean, WTF? Who the hell would imagine it's safe to use a company's services when collecting insider information? I mean the data is on the company's servers, FFS. I bet real spies don't need to be told not to set up a dead drop inside, say, the Capitol rotunda or the FBI headquarters, either.
Protip for any planning to publish dirt on Yahoo: don't use Yahoo mail to collect the information. Not that anyone still uses Yahoo mail anymore...
Slashdot Mirror
I think the two-tier health care thing (cf. UK NHS) can be sold in red states if it were marketed correctly. This is probably a cultural issue as well... what is a convincing argument in one area simply doesn't resonate at all in the others.
However, your point is absolutely correct: compromise only works if the gap is not an insurmountable gulf, otherwise the result of compromise is untenable (e.g. Obamacare). In the case of the Obamacare/the individual mandate, it had to be ramrodded through without any deliberation (or even being read by the legislators), then had to be immediately validated by a 5-4 supreme court ruling that was a farce (who honestly believes that forcing people to buy products is consistent with the Constitution?). The law is so buggy that it required the executive to unconstitutionally unilaterally modify it (the judiciary's silence is deafening here). Meanwhile, half the country hopes for repeal because the entire process was non-consensual. Barring any progress in the "correct" direction, the country finds gridlocking the federal government desirable because at least if the government isn't doing anything then it isn't forcibly "making things worse".
This is the future of our union, barring some commanding supermajority hold on Congress and the Presidency for at least a decade, ala FDR. I believe he really did a lot to damage our country (obviously, views about this differ), but he did manage to shift the Overton Window.
Everyone hates Congress, but keeps voting the same people in. Why? Because they hope their culture will gain an upper hand and force it upon the rest of the country. It's always "those other people" who are the problem, right? *cough*
I think it is logical that there will always be wedge issues in any society, but the Overton Window indicates what they will be. I'm sure that the healthcare/individual mandate wedge issue in the US is very far displaced from the UK's wedge issues. I can't imagine what it would be like if we were still in a single country/kingdom trying to reconcile our divergent cultures into a single coherent UK/American colonies culture.
I'm also disturbed by political "victories" in courts where the ruling is "basically, your state law is too different from the rest of the country". I refer most recently to the federal courts demanding that IL and CA start issuing concealed handgun carry permits to all applicants who are not legally barred from having one. The federal court gave the IL legislature a deadline to pass a law allowing this. Now, obviously I believe this is an expansion of human rights in these states, but WTF?! Having this forced on a state against their will with the rationale of "you're too different, no self-determination for you!" feels very wrong.
Exactly. But I'm just some weirdo who believes in self-determination for people, and apparently this is an extremely unpopular mindset these days, at least in the US. Just look at what happens when anyone proposes secession. (And when I do it, I'm advocating the secession of the west coast tech states, so they can get away from the red states (and also the crappy northeast states like NY where the banksters are). But the liberals always get upset about this, because they think we need to forcibly keep all the states together no matter what, so they can bitch and whine when the voters in those states vote in ways they don't like. So I'm starting to come to the conclusion that many liberals (of the American variety) generally abhor self-determination and favor corruption of the government by the financial industry.)
This is great to hear. I'm in a red state and my friends and I are sick of liberals forcing their policies on us. I'm even willing to let you think it is your states "getting away from" our states, if that matters to you (haha). Essentially, it has come to the point where both sides look at the other and shake their head because the culture is so foreign. I don't think a compromise culture is desirable for either side of the divide.
Look at all the 5-4 split Supreme Court rulings. Do you admit, as I do, hoping the Supreme Court balance will swing in favor of the culture you support so that contentious aspects of your culture can be forced on the rest of the nation "for their own good"? For example, I am hoping for assertions of human rights such as the Constitutional individual right to keep and bear arms in areas where these rights have heretofore been unconstitutionally blocked. Regardless of which issues are key from each individual's perspective, the fact that we as a nation must routinely rely on the Supreme Court to mandate these policies is a sign of serious sociopolitical & cultural dysfunction.
I really believe that secession/dissolution is tenable and wouldn't lead to collapse. Much has been said about the net flow of tax money from blue states to red states, but I believe what would actually happen is that blue state food prices would jump significantly to compensate for their now lowered wealth transfer tax burden. The Farm Bill food subsidies for the past 70+ years represent most of this tax wealth transfer to the red states and these laws have really screwed up the agricultural/food markets. The Farm Bills' subsidies have led to such abominations as HFCS and corn for ethanol. Who knows? Secession might even lead to innovations in our food supply if we start using the land to grow something other than corn that humans can't eat (literally, the preponderance of corn grown is for animal feed/industrial purposes and tastes like chalk).
Back on topic: what could we call this movement? The Nonpartisan Coalition for Amicable Secession? Hm, that doesn't have a pithy acronym. I'm open to suggestions.
Seems like the guy was giving you a soap box for you to talk on.
Did you miss the part where the contracts allowed the producers to intentionally misrepresent anything the participants said or did? I know I'm cynical, but what do *you* imagine would happen to any such message by the time the show was released for public consumption?
"I love working on diverse teams! Teams with men, women, people from other cultures... I doest matter! Teams with a monoculture may function, but working with them kind of sucks." becomes "I love women, but working with them kind of sucks." after editing. Completely legit, per their contract.
In general, aggressive screening has been extremely useful: pretty much everyone gets screened for PKU, sickle cell anemia, cystic fibrosis, MCAD, hypothyroidism, and another ~20 conditions at birth.
Funny you should choose neonatal screening as an example in support of your argument. Firstly, the things that *are* screened are a carefully curated list of unambiguous genetic defects that 1) have immediate deleterious effect on the development of the child and 2) have an intervention that will alter the trajectory of the disease. This is why, for example, no one screens the population for Tay Sachs. In fact, the ~30 tests that are part of the standard panel now are all that's left after *hundreds* of candidate disorders were considered for screening and rejected by the American College of Medical Genetics.
Secondly, the positive predictive value of these neonatal screenings is incredibly low. That means that for every true positive result (i.e. a disorder detected correctly) there are 50 to 100 false positive results, which are subsequently ruled out by a different, more specific confirmatory test. However, this same problem (low PPV) is endemic in the mammogram/pap smear/PSA tests, and these result in deleterious effects on many people who have false positive results compared to the number of lives saved from true positive results.
Also, it's worth noting that they still perform the neonatal screening because the human cost of missing a diagnosis in an infant for these *treatable* diseases is so profound, but many parents are put under serious stress due to the false positive results.
Overall medicine is increasing the use of screening, not decreasing it.
Going back to the BRCA example: ask any medical geneticist what is the single most important screening tool. Every one of them will tell you it is "family history". If family history indicates a specific risk, they may counsel further testing such as BRCA. This is different than en masse population genetic screening for "cancer risks".
Recall the original poster was citing cancer risk. Have any examples of a trend toward expanded *cancer* screening? I gave two widely known examples of the trend moving in the opposite direction for cancer screening (in fact, these are probably the two most publicly visible/prevalent types of cancer screening), and correlated this to the issue of laypeople misinterpreting GWAS "cancer risk" data such as was provided by 23andme.
Tangentially, I hope that Theranos actually manages to pull off their plans for microfluidics testing. Look at their projected pricing, and the fact that they want this to be available at every corner Walgreens.
Yes, BRCA is a counterexample. It is also an outlier, and testing for BRCA can usually be guided by a simple family history. If there is BRCA in the family, there will be a very high incidence of breast/prostate cancer in the family. If that's the case in your family, consider talking to a medical geneticist and possibly getting BRCA testing. As before, I'm not proposing people be barred from having tests done to learn their status, but I am against goading people (especially if it's not going to be helpful).
In general, the 23andme type GWAS crap isn't helpful for the layperson. The type of results returned (before the FDA cease & desisted them) were freaking people out due to the "increased risk effect". If it gives the person a nudge to live a healthier life (diet, exercise, dropping bad habits) then that's great, and those lifestyle changes are going to have a far greater effect than most any "increased risk" result from a GWAS.
As for my general point regarding aggressive screening & intervention: how many breast cancers have been ironically iatrogenically induced by the radiation dose from routine mammograms vs lives saved by early detection? How many non-BRCA breasts have been surgically removed due to benign conditions that were "suspect" on mammography? Also, don't discount the pain and stress of having a breast biopsy of suspicious findings on mammogram.
Aggressive screening is a double-edged sword, and that's why medicine is backing away from swinging it so enthusiastically.
From what I have seen, people at risk for Huntington aren't exactly irresponsibly breeding. You have to recall that most of them were traumatized as children by having their parent(s) and/or siblings become ill, be institutionalized, and die.
I haven't heard of any who were nihilistically refusing to learn their status while potentially passing this on to their kids via their genes. Usually, it seems they are doing the test to see whether they can have a family/future or if they should be planning which facility they want to be institutionalized in/what kind of funeral they wish to have.
This probably holds double for males, because Huntington disease often displays anticipation (effects are stronger/worse/sooner) if passed down via the father. Trinucleotide repeat disorders are a bitch.
If you know that you may be more likely to get cancer, then you can get tested more often and aggressively, increasing the chances that your cancer will be treatable.
That's sort of a 20th century mindset. The current consensus seems to be in favor of backing away from annual mammograms, not checking PSA, not doing routine dental x-rays, etc. The problem is that with all these screenings we have introduced ironic iatrogenic issues: treating benign conditions because test results were weird (or false positives). In the end, the data shows this isn't improving outcomes. Just imagine if you had your prostate nuked because your PSA was positive, and you lost your ability to achieve an erection for the rest of your life, then five years later it turns out studies say, "oops, that wasn't really necessary!"
Extrapolate this to GWAS type stuff and you get the picture. I mean, I'm not arguing the information should be withheld from people who want it, but I strongly believe people shouldn't be forced to learn or disclose this data.
Generally speaking though, forewarned is forearmed, and if the susceptible are more aggressively screened and treated, then it could well take away a lot of the "cancer is a death sentence" mentality that many people have.
Those cases where forewarned doesn't help are definitely at issue. The classical example is Huntington disease. It's an autosomal dominant death sentence and there is no treatment or way to alter the course of the disease. Some people don't want to know. There is actually a very elaborate three-phase commit for testing/getting results for Huntington disease, and geneticists won't perform the test on a minor.
The day git implements subversion externals functionality so it is easy and risk free to update from and commit to external branches, I'll swich my team. Git modules functionality is close, but you can make a mess if you commit while having a module set up.
Okay, I admit to not fully researching this, but because I have found svn externals useful in the past I thought I would inquire.
Is this something repo (used in the Android Open Source Project, I call it "meta-git") could handle? From my experience with it, repo did many of the same things I would have used a svn external for. I admit the workflow for repo didn't seem very polished, but it did allow AOSP/CyanogenMod to meta-version various git repos for a build.
Secondly, if you dont mind going into detail, what about git modules fell short? I would like to avoid pitfalls if possible.
You can't see the side impact about to happen as you stare at the monitor in front of you.
I disagree.
I will note that my backup camera has a very wide field of view and often can see things to the side of the vehicle that I cannot (c.f. backing out of a parking space with large vehicles on either side blocking the view from the driver's seat).
Oh, and my backup camera system gives an audible alert if there is a moving vehicle or pedestrian within its field of view.
Do I still turn my head before beginning to reverse? Yes, but I have yet to see something relevant to the impending reverse that was not also visible in my backup camera.
Notwithstanding my opinion of whether the government should mandate these, I find my backup camera provides a view that cannot be matched simply by some notion of "driving skill".
I can see exactly what is on the ground behind the rear of my vehicle. This allows me to drive in reverse with more confidence.
I wouldn't necessarily consider this mandatory safety equipment though. By their own estimates this will only result in the prevention of 13 to 15 deaths. There are, what, 330 million people in this country?
Are you one of those people who use their cell or landline primarily for talking to people?
Most Millennials don't use voice frequently, but do use data. I have basically no need for a POTS line (or even a wireless service) that does not provide me with an internet connection.
And before you go full-luddite on me, yes, I *do* need net access when I am away from home. I don't use it while driving, but I do at practically all my destinations. I *don't* need to talk to people via phone, either at home or while out around town.
To restate: there are practically no arguments salient to me in favor of a landline. Any arguments against wireless service do not bolster the utility of POTS for me (dialup internet? really?). I would drop having phone service altogether if I could not have wireless. However, that's not going to happen and I will happily continue to use my wireless data plan everywhere I go.
Yes. Drop POTS. Drop it and make it Public Domain. See what happens when you give us a little infra to build on.
The meth-heads already started the POTS == public domain movement years ago. I think that is a glimpse of what a true public domain POTS future would look like.
Very true. The radio spectrum is getting so crowded these days. Keep the wires!!!
Okay, but I'm going to need a bigger SUV to carry the spools of wire necessary to keep me connected while I'm out around town...
Precisely. "Harrowing" and "misanthropic" are incorrect assessments; rather, it's that it's just yet another draining social interaction with no net benefit. Why put yourself through that?
Unlike many of the other posters who replied, my impetus for choosing the self-checkout is to avoid the human interaction rather than to improve checkout efficiency. To wit: I would rather wait in line to use a self checkout than to immediately checkout with a human cashier. This also explains why I get so upset when a fucking self checkout doesn't function correctly and requires bailout by a human: these interactions are even more extensive than a standard human checkout interaction, and ironically defeat the entire purpose.
YMMV, especially if you're more extroverted than introverted.
This discussion prompted me to finally investigate what is involved to accomplish the logical conclusion to lighter-than-air flight: vacuum airships (spoiler alert: materials science state of the art means it's currently science fiction).
However, this made me wonder about the possibility of using a reduced pressure airship filled with helium or hydrogen. Not a vacuum, but with the lift gas pressure such that the propensity to leak was in equilibrium with the atmosphere. This would require material support similar to a vacuum airship, but the lift gas pressure would mean that the stress/strain on the lift gas containment would be reduced compared to a true vacuum airship. Perhaps still presently unfeasible, but it would represent an intermediate step.
No doubt others have explored this rather thoroughly before. Anyway, fun thought experiment.
Try carrying a kitchen knife in your pocket sometime and pulling it out in such a way that results in your doing more damage to someone else than to yourself.
...if only someone could invent some sort of "wrapper" for the blade that would allow a fixed blade to be carried safely and drawn out when desired without inflicting injury on the user. Maybe they could call it a "knife condom", or maybe a "knife carrier", or maybe they would invent a completely new word for it like "sheath".
They could even make universal sheaths that support different types of knives, so that the sheath could be used for a knife that wasn't specifically designed for it.
Oh well.
You may be correct that kitchen knives are used mostly in crimes of passion, but don't underestimate the violence inherent in criminals. For example, once the UK finished effectively banning firearms, they were saddened to find that criminals switched to knives instead. What was their reaction? Knife control laws. Obviously, once those laws were in place, it made kitchen knives more popular for use in crime, so their natural reaction was to start calling for a ban on kitchen knives.
Since they are attempting to treat the symptom rather than the cause, I look forward to a future where the UK calls for a succession of such laws: kitchen knife control, steel pipe control, brick control, rock control, and, ultimately, stick control.
Just because I have a tattoo of a swastika on my forehead doesn't mean I'm a Nazi....
Correct. Teens Accused of Cutting Swastika into Classmate’s Head
He asked several people involved in administering the death penalty if they would consider it, and to a man, they all refused to condone the notion. Because the victim feels a few moments of euphoria before they go.
Hey, fyi, the euphoric effect can apparently be mitigated by using helium or neon instead of nitrogen. Cf. relevant table of narcotic effects.
Neon is probably more politically tenable (or a helium/neon mix). It would be great if this were the primary obstacle to this method becoming politically viable.
They're all pretty fugly. The Buzz Lightyear looking one is the only one that doesn't make the wearer look stupid.
Ugh, I know. When comparing these options to the Z-1 suit at the top, I got this strange feeling like I had when comparing Windows 7 to Windows 8... "Seriously? Why can't we have the one that looks like something designed by a sane group rather than this abortion of an "upgrade"?"
Unfortunately, the astronauts can't simply wear these inside-out to hide the horrible flair spewed all over the outside of the suit.
Seems like if their receipt says "Hamburger with extra strawberries", they'd have a hard time saying that they didn't order that - and really the cost of fast food is so low that throwing away a bad order every once in a while isn't a huge expense.
Trolls gonna troll. However, the other obvious issue is the technophobic/technology impaired set. I can easily envision my grandma (my grandfathers are dead, you insensitive clod) accidentally ordering a hamburger with extra strawberries, and she might take 5 minutes to figure out how to do it while the line is backing up behind her. Really takes the "fast" out of fast food.
I don't think any store exec ever thought that customers would be faster at self checkout than human clerks (especially when the scanners purposely slow you down to verify that you've put each item into the bagging area), but when they can put in 4 or 6 self-checkout lines per human operator, even if the checkout process itself is slower, you can still get out of the store faster.
Wrong metric. This is a zero sum game when it comes to space. In every grocery store (and Costco) I have seen each self-checkout lane was installed as a replacement for a human cashier lane. There really wasn't any space available to do it another way. You can perceive how this becomes a major issue when the self-checkout lanes are slow, thereby causing traffic overloads on the now-reduced number of human cashier lanes during peak times, inducing longer average wait to check out, causing pissed off customers that now feel like going to a competitor next time they need something, etc. This ends up costing the company money, and it's not like they were going broke paying part-time cashiers minimum wage with no benefits.
You're bitching to the choir, though. I was sad and complained when the self-checkout lanes were removed. I like not having to interact with humans when buying things.
Gonna be a long while till robots will be able to do all the shitty things nomadic, entry-level employees do.
It will be a while before robots can do all of those jobs, but many of them will soon be automated. If you go into a McDonald's, half the employees are taking orders, and the other half are fulfilling them. The people taking the orders could easily be replaced: Just turn the touchscreens around so that customers can enter their own orders, and then swipe a card to pay. Grocery stores have already done this, and so have banks. Fast food is next.
I don't understand why they haven't done so already -- I assume it's because they don't think their customers are ready for touch-screen ordering. Starbucks could do it too -- with their pushbutton espresso machines, they don't really need a human barista for most drinks.
I can tell you why... I witnessed it firsthand. My mall food court had this system in the early 1990's. People would place orders via the touchscreen and then the food would be prepared. I saw the place get trolled (someone ordered 10 large fries at once and walked away). Obviously, this was before credit card swipes were allowed for payment so it was a cash business, and payment was collected when the food was presented. Yeah, that system didn't last long. Now the likely issue would be trolls ordering bizarre combinations and then claiming there was a mistake/demanding a refund.
As for self-checkout, most places I saw experiment with those in the past two years (grocery stores and Costco) has ripped them out and gone back to using human cashiers. The reasons? Fraud/theft and speed (trained cashiers are faster, who would have thought?). Walmart and big box home improvement stores are the outliers still offering self-checkout in my area.
God, yes. I bought a PS specifically to play FFVII. In fact, that's why I ended up with a PS rather than an N64. I played many of the other FF releases on a variety of platforms, with many fond memories.
As soon as I heard Square Enix was jumping on the goddamn MMO bandwagon with the series, FF became dead to me.
I want something I can play at home, offline, as the fucking singular, main character around which the entire epic plot revolves. I even enjoy the oddly culturally inaccessible Japanese angst that is imbued in these storylines. I also *like* that each damn JRPG revisits the same basic tropes, albeit from different angles.
ABOVE ALL, I DON'T WANT A FUCKING ONLINE, SOCIAL GAME WITH A GODDAMN SUBSCRIPTION MODEL! WoW already has nailed that market perfectly, for those who are interested in that kind of experience. For all practical purposes they own the market and the market seems both satisfied and fully tapped (ie. there's unlikely to be a vast untapped market for MMO subscribers so competition is effectively a zero-sum game among the various companies).
Square Enix, do you want to be an also-ran with a mediocre MMO that everyone compares to WoW, or do you want to once again be the unrivaled master of the JRPG archetype?
All of my Engineering profs had extensive industry experience. My understanding at the time was that Engineering schools had a long tradition of not employing professors without at least 5 years in industry. Granting that was decades ago. I have a hard time believing things have changed that quickly.
All but ONE of my engineering profs were "broken eggs" that had PhD's but no industry experience. My "favorite" engineering instructor was a former tech (with only a master's degree) who literally hated engineers. He would go on and on during class about how the engineers he had worked with were cruel to him.
Then he gave us impossible homework so that he could gloat in class about how we were all stupid (in order to get his rocks off).
Granted, this was a decade ago, so the change must have been in progress before that time. We had ABET certification, of course.
All I'm hearing is that these bloggers are incompetent at protecting their sources.
I mean, WTF? Who the hell would imagine it's safe to use a company's services when collecting insider information? I mean the data is on the company's servers, FFS. I bet real spies don't need to be told not to set up a dead drop inside, say, the Capitol rotunda or the FBI headquarters, either.
Protip for any planning to publish dirt on Yahoo: don't use Yahoo mail to collect the information. Not that anyone still uses Yahoo mail anymore...