Has Slashdot officially become a paid shill?
on
HP Launches Moonshot
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· Score: 0
Come one, I call shenanigans on this one. Seriously, a site where the majority of the submissions seem to take at least a day or more to propagate to actually being posted has a post about a random new HP product where the only really informative link is to what basically amounts to a press release hosted on their own site?
I understand things are tough all over and you gotta make money to survive, but do they really think their readers are that stupid?
Yes, that's exactly the point of why dementia/Alzheimer's IS something you'd want to cure to save money. People can live for decades with it while getting to the point they need constant care and attention. If people were HEALTHY and FIT, it wouldn't be that big of a deal. It's the people who are debilitatingly sick but long lived that will be so expensive to care for.
How about just prioritizing it by potential cost SAVINGS, then?
Dementia treatment and care, etc costs over $200B a year to the US, and that's largely paid for by Medicare/Medicaid. It's estimated to be a near unimaginable $1.2 TRILLION PER YEAR by 2050 - it will be far and away the single biggest medical expense, and will make Medicare and other government health-related expenses dwarf anything else we are spending on.
I saw an estimate that it costs almost $100K per person per year to pay for 24/7 long term care to a patient with severe dementia/memory loss (most of whom are already on Medicare, so the government is obligated to pay!) That piddling $100M pays for about 1000 patients per year, which is inconsequential compared to the 2-3 million who need that care.
When you really look at the numbers, if there is anything that is going to bankrupt America (the government or many of the individual citizens) it's health care expenses of the elderly. Minimizing those expenses in the future is the only foreseeable solution (short of some version of Logan's Run). This sort of large scale problem requiring direction and foresight that can't be solved by individuals is WHY "to promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts" was included in the taxation Section (8) of the Constitution in the first place...
The problem there is it becomes easier and easier to avoid the taxes the longer you let people hold onto their money. Make a bunch of money tax-free, then move to another country to retire and live off it tax-free. Not to mention the crazy calculations or rules you'd have to add to the tax code, etc to deal with inflation, gifts, essential expenses (do you tax someone on *consumption* for medical *expenses* or basic food and housing required to live?)
I'm sure you can try to come up with all kinds of rules about tracking their money, transfers, withdrawls, etc. But avoiding that is what rich people (and their accounts and lawyers) are already so good at, so I'm sure anyone with any knowledge of the area could poke a dozen holes in any ideas someone on this thread could come up with...
You are basically discarding one flawed and massively complicated tax system for another flawed and massively complicated tax system that requires a giant flawed and massively complicated process to convert between the two. The only ones that win in this case are the middlemen.
Curing them doesn't actually save money because long term care starts at a point before death, and everyone eventually dies. The reason we spend less on heart disease and cancer care is because those patients don't last as long. That's morbid, but true.
But that's not really true, and even when it is it doesn't diminish the point at all. Heart disease and cancer these days are very treatable in many cases. My grandmother has had a coronary stent and breast cancer, and she's now 88 years old and can still get around well enough to do light gardening. Probably significant cost for those incidents, but instead of two major medical expenses over 30 years, an Alzheimer's patient would have that same expense EVERY year.
But the main reason it's not true is because the first part of your statement just doesn't make sense... curing them DOES actually save money BECAUSE long term care starts at a point before death. In fact, WELL before death. Alzheimer's patients often live as long as those without dementia, the different is they are utterly unable to take care of themselves and must have 24/7 care and monitoring - which can cost huge amounts or money and/or become a horribly stressful and expensive full time activity for a family caregiver.
And anyway, you can claim there are thousands of other diseases or projects to spend the money on, but I will challenge you that they are really just as worthy in terms of human OR financial benefit. The real fact is dementia and elder care is currently one of the largest medical expenses in the country, and soon will dwarf any others. The US taxpayers are already spending ridiculous amounts of money towards Medicare benefits, etc to pay for this care (much more than Medicare taxes bring in) and it's only going to get worse until the root causes are dealt with.
That's insanely short sighted. The real answer is we can't afford NOT to do it.
Dementia treatment and long term care currently costs a combined $200B (yes two hundred BILLION) dollars a year in the US, and is going to rise DRASTICALLY in coming years with the aging baby boomers. That's literally more than spent on cancer or heart disease. Finding the root cause and an effective treatment for Alzheimer's alone could possibly be the single biggest healthcare accomplishment of the 21st century.
Though it's always been my opinion that computers are no more religion than toasters, or, well honestly, religions, I think I have realized it even more after buying my first Apple computer since 1985 this year - and really liking it. Been a Linux user since 1993 (doing VLSI design in my dorm room with X11 to a remote client) and a Windows user since they made the first game for it (though the lines were blurred since I was playing DOS games way before that). And in the last 5 years I have developed software for all of those OSes (and more) that combined is enjoyed by several million people. Which in the end is what really matters.
EA is malicious rather than negligent? Short-sighted and out for cash over customer service - obviously. But it's not really more intentionally "malicious" than an oil spill. There is no way EA *wanted* their servers to all shit the bed under the load of their ill-conceived "Always On" Simcity debacle. In their ideal but misguided world they would have online DRM on all of their games, continue to release uninspired mega-sequels without taking chances, and all of their customers would agree with their decisions and love it...
Choosing between gross negligence in damaging the ecosystem of a whole region for decades (and completely botching the cleanup), vs. gross negligence forcing a bunch of video gamers to find something else to do for the weekend really isn't that hard...
Though honestly neither example holds a candle to Monsanto - "let's genetically modify corn and soybeans, sell them to farmers, and then sue their neighbors when they accidentally have our patents in their seed crops!" Now, THAT is intentional and malicious for you. It doesn't take a biologist or genetic engineer (of which Monsanto has hundreds) to understand how crop pollination works...
I agree with the first part - it's totally on the parents.
Not so much the second - unless the kid is legally emancipated (unlikely unless they are 17 anyway, which makes ESDB moot) they are minors being housed, fed, clothed, etc. by their parents (not to mention likely to blow a metric shit-ton of money on college expenses if they are so inclined) so no matter how much they want to go spend money on M-rated games or R-rated movies (or booze, drugs, and hookers, for that matter) the parents still have a right to set the boundaries...
Not necessarily. Read what you linked to (the whole thing, not just the first paragraph). There's no reason to think this issue has been conclusively decided (I'm not saying I am for it, far from it, I just like to know where the opposition stands). And a Federal law would also raise different issues (on both sides) from a state law...
both concurring and dissenting opinions from the Court suggested that the issue may need to be re-examined in future case law, considering the disparate community standards treatment of violence compared to pornography, and the changing nature of video games with continually improving technology.
argued that the decision "would not squelch legislative efforts to deal with what is perceived by some to be a significant and developing social problem."
a majority of American voters (57%) agreed that the states should have the “right to regulate the sale of video games [that are violent] in order to protect minors; the same way states regulate tobacco, alcohol and pornography (a majority vote by 3/4 of states is how idiotic Amendments can get passed, the 18th for example:)
Yeah, I just read that - interesting. Also that Walmart (the supposedly "moral" company in that group in that they sometimes self-censor what they sell) has the worst record...
Well, they can at least prevent them from being sold to minors. Of course, the ESRB already has exactly the same non-government-enforced ratings concept as the MPAA does for movies - both systems clearly tells parents what age range is appropriate for a given title. This is hands down the parents' responsibility to decide what media their children should be exposed to.
If they try to regulate one they should be required to regulate both... and I hope they try. That way the anti-regulation side will have the combined force of the game and (much more powerful) movie industry - which is where Feinstein gets a lot of her campaign contributions. Just watch her back down when Hollywood bigwigs get sick of it and tell her to STFU.
The big thing is just get rid of Windows in your home. You have nothing that needs interoperability with your work that can't be handled by Linux. Once you dump Windows, all the bad browsing habits no longer matter.
Sorry, but that's just not true. There are plenty of things that people can be working on that can't be handled by Linux. Just as there are things that people might work on that can't be handled by Windows. Come on people, a computer is a tool, not a religion.
Mostly that's because they cannot find developers to update them.
Eh, how do you know what apps I have installed?:)
The current app-rot has little to do with available developers. It's because they were cheap (maybe even free) apps that made no money, have run their semi-useless course, and therefore there is no motivation to continue supporting them. Again just like many unnecessary web sites in 2002...
Apologies in advance, but I couldn't resist, and it makes the similarities to the last tech bubble glaringly obvious;)
I'm not sure it is. Maybe I'm biased because I am employed as a web developer, but both front end and back end developers are both incredibly in demand right now. Every brand wants or has a web site, and every webapp needs a Flash counterpart to be taken seriously. Weren't the dotcom bubble predictions back in 1999? I don't think they hold any water any more. Browsers are the future and aren't going anywhere.
Instead of an "e-", add an "i-". Otherwise, seen it before. In the end, the "app" market in general, like web sites, aren't going anywhere, but with almost 1M iOS apps and growing, it's going to hit a point of diminishing returns. I have a half dozen apps that are no longer supported and don't even work on the latest iOS devices; it's starting to remind me a bit of the growing graveyard of failed dotcom websites in 2002...
There is a big difference between the "caller id" you see on your phone (which just modulates some data on the analog signal *before* the call is actually connected) and what the phone company *actually* knows about the call (which is a lot).
If you are just calling from a POTS it's difficult to spoof, since your carrier sends the caller id before you are even connected (you'd have to spoof your number to your local carrier). If you are calling through a PBX or VOIP, that exchange (or the service running it, etc) can insert whatever caller id information it wants. There are valid uses for caller id spoofing, though - like VOIP itself (making it look like it comes from a "normal" number), or offices that have an exchange but want to show the direct name/number to the receiver...
Yeah, that's what I meant by the first sentence, but it may not have been worded that clearly... anyway, it was nothing against your comment except to point out ignoring it entirely doesn't mean it can't affect you greatly (and probably not in a good way).
To you, maybe. But to the leaders of various political, religious, and terrorist groups it's a very useful concept. The history of Judeo-Christian organized religion has always been centered on control, and it has worked remarkably well for that purpose.
Yeah, it seems the only chance they'd have of making money on it is fraud. And since any reasonable person would know that, wouldn't that mean the manufacturers of auto-dialers are therefore intentionally participating in conspiracy to commit a crime? That argument was used successfully already...
But the search problem is not in fact a problem unless you believe TV crime dramas ("just keep the caller on another 45 seconds so we can triangulate!") If the FTC *really* wanted to solve the problem, they would just require the phone carriers to deal with it. They can already easily detect a recorded message as well as log the source of the call. Sure, there are technically ways of making that harder to do, but for the most part it's not worth the effort or expense just to try to sell you a new roof.
The FTC offering awards to anyone who can fix this problem seems a bit like the police offering awards to anyone who can catch red light runners. They KNOW how to solve the problem, they just don't really care to do it right...
Why even go that far with the analogy, though? The government will prosecute a stereo installer, but will still never touch the #1 product manufacturer used in the commission of crimes. Guess the NRA is a bit more influential than the CEA.
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Come one, I call shenanigans on this one. Seriously, a site where the majority of the submissions seem to take at least a day or more to propagate to actually being posted has a post about a random new HP product where the only really informative link is to what basically amounts to a press release hosted on their own site?
I understand things are tough all over and you gotta make money to survive, but do they really think their readers are that stupid?
Yes, that's exactly the point of why dementia/Alzheimer's IS something you'd want to cure to save money. People can live for decades with it while getting to the point they need constant care and attention. If people were HEALTHY and FIT, it wouldn't be that big of a deal. It's the people who are debilitatingly sick but long lived that will be so expensive to care for.
Every $1 we spend now is $10 we need to repay later.
Actually, it's more like "every $1 we spend now is $10 we DON'T need to spend later" where proactive health care expenses are concerned.
How about just prioritizing it by potential cost SAVINGS, then?
Dementia treatment and care, etc costs over $200B a year to the US, and that's largely paid for by Medicare/Medicaid. It's estimated to be a near unimaginable $1.2 TRILLION PER YEAR by 2050 - it will be far and away the single biggest medical expense, and will make Medicare and other government health-related expenses dwarf anything else we are spending on.
I saw an estimate that it costs almost $100K per person per year to pay for 24/7 long term care to a patient with severe dementia/memory loss (most of whom are already on Medicare, so the government is obligated to pay!) That piddling $100M pays for about 1000 patients per year, which is inconsequential compared to the 2-3 million who need that care.
When you really look at the numbers, if there is anything that is going to bankrupt America (the government or many of the individual citizens) it's health care expenses of the elderly. Minimizing those expenses in the future is the only foreseeable solution (short of some version of Logan's Run). This sort of large scale problem requiring direction and foresight that can't be solved by individuals is WHY "to promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts" was included in the taxation Section (8) of the Constitution in the first place...
The problem there is it becomes easier and easier to avoid the taxes the longer you let people hold onto their money. Make a bunch of money tax-free, then move to another country to retire and live off it tax-free. Not to mention the crazy calculations or rules you'd have to add to the tax code, etc to deal with inflation, gifts, essential expenses (do you tax someone on *consumption* for medical *expenses* or basic food and housing required to live?)
I'm sure you can try to come up with all kinds of rules about tracking their money, transfers, withdrawls, etc. But avoiding that is what rich people (and their accounts and lawyers) are already so good at, so I'm sure anyone with any knowledge of the area could poke a dozen holes in any ideas someone on this thread could come up with...
You are basically discarding one flawed and massively complicated tax system for another flawed and massively complicated tax system that requires a giant flawed and massively complicated process to convert between the two. The only ones that win in this case are the middlemen.
It talks mainly about aerial targets, but also ships.
Not ships, boats. They are talking more about vaporizing small craft than anything significant.
Curing them doesn't actually save money because long term care starts at a point before death, and everyone eventually dies. The reason we spend less on heart disease and cancer care is because those patients don't last as long. That's morbid, but true.
But that's not really true, and even when it is it doesn't diminish the point at all. Heart disease and cancer these days are very treatable in many cases. My grandmother has had a coronary stent and breast cancer, and she's now 88 years old and can still get around well enough to do light gardening. Probably significant cost for those incidents, but instead of two major medical expenses over 30 years, an Alzheimer's patient would have that same expense EVERY year.
But the main reason it's not true is because the first part of your statement just doesn't make sense... curing them DOES actually save money BECAUSE long term care starts at a point before death. In fact, WELL before death. Alzheimer's patients often live as long as those without dementia, the different is they are utterly unable to take care of themselves and must have 24/7 care and monitoring - which can cost huge amounts or money and/or become a horribly stressful and expensive full time activity for a family caregiver.
And anyway, you can claim there are thousands of other diseases or projects to spend the money on, but I will challenge you that they are really just as worthy in terms of human OR financial benefit. The real fact is dementia and elder care is currently one of the largest medical expenses in the country, and soon will dwarf any others. The US taxpayers are already spending ridiculous amounts of money towards Medicare benefits, etc to pay for this care (much more than Medicare taxes bring in) and it's only going to get worse until the root causes are dealt with.
That's insanely short sighted. The real answer is we can't afford NOT to do it.
Dementia treatment and long term care currently costs a combined $200B (yes two hundred BILLION) dollars a year in the US, and is going to rise DRASTICALLY in coming years with the aging baby boomers. That's literally more than spent on cancer or heart disease. Finding the root cause and an effective treatment for Alzheimer's alone could possibly be the single biggest healthcare accomplishment of the 21st century.
The original idea for this robotic surgical equipment was remote operation, so it's pretty certain that's going to happen eventually.
Yeah... yeah... sigh.
Though it's always been my opinion that computers are no more religion than toasters, or, well honestly, religions, I think I have realized it even more after buying my first Apple computer since 1985 this year - and really liking it. Been a Linux user since 1993 (doing VLSI design in my dorm room with X11 to a remote client) and a Windows user since they made the first game for it (though the lines were blurred since I was playing DOS games way before that). And in the last 5 years I have developed software for all of those OSes (and more) that combined is enjoyed by several million people. Which in the end is what really matters.
EA is malicious rather than negligent? Short-sighted and out for cash over customer service - obviously. But it's not really more intentionally "malicious" than an oil spill. There is no way EA *wanted* their servers to all shit the bed under the load of their ill-conceived "Always On" Simcity debacle. In their ideal but misguided world they would have online DRM on all of their games, continue to release uninspired mega-sequels without taking chances, and all of their customers would agree with their decisions and love it...
Choosing between gross negligence in damaging the ecosystem of a whole region for decades (and completely botching the cleanup), vs. gross negligence forcing a bunch of video gamers to find something else to do for the weekend really isn't that hard...
Though honestly neither example holds a candle to Monsanto - "let's genetically modify corn and soybeans, sell them to farmers, and then sue their neighbors when they accidentally have our patents in their seed crops!" Now, THAT is intentional and malicious for you. It doesn't take a biologist or genetic engineer (of which Monsanto has hundreds) to understand how crop pollination works...
I agree with the first part - it's totally on the parents.
Not so much the second - unless the kid is legally emancipated (unlikely unless they are 17 anyway, which makes ESDB moot) they are minors being housed, fed, clothed, etc. by their parents (not to mention likely to blow a metric shit-ton of money on college expenses if they are so inclined) so no matter how much they want to go spend money on M-rated games or R-rated movies (or booze, drugs, and hookers, for that matter) the parents still have a right to set the boundaries...
Not necessarily. Read what you linked to (the whole thing, not just the first paragraph). There's no reason to think this issue has been conclusively decided (I'm not saying I am for it, far from it, I just like to know where the opposition stands). And a Federal law would also raise different issues (on both sides) from a state law...
both concurring and dissenting opinions from the Court suggested that the issue may need to be re-examined in future case law, considering the disparate community standards treatment of violence compared to pornography, and the changing nature of video games with continually improving technology.
argued that the decision "would not squelch legislative efforts to deal with what is perceived by some to be a significant and developing social problem."
a majority of American voters (57%) agreed that the states should have the “right to regulate the sale of video games [that are violent] in order to protect minors; the same way states regulate tobacco, alcohol and pornography (a majority vote by 3/4 of states is how idiotic Amendments can get passed, the 18th for example :)
Yeah, I just read that - interesting. Also that Walmart (the supposedly "moral" company in that group in that they sometimes self-censor what they sell) has the worst record...
Well, they can at least prevent them from being sold to minors. Of course, the ESRB already has exactly the same non-government-enforced ratings concept as the MPAA does for movies - both systems clearly tells parents what age range is appropriate for a given title. This is hands down the parents' responsibility to decide what media their children should be exposed to.
If they try to regulate one they should be required to regulate both... and I hope they try. That way the anti-regulation side will have the combined force of the game and (much more powerful) movie industry - which is where Feinstein gets a lot of her campaign contributions. Just watch her back down when Hollywood bigwigs get sick of it and tell her to STFU.
The big thing is just get rid of Windows in your home. You have nothing that needs interoperability with your work that
can't be handled by Linux. Once you dump Windows, all the bad browsing habits no longer matter.
Sorry, but that's just not true. There are plenty of things that people can be working on that can't be handled by Linux. Just as there are things that people might work on that can't be handled by Windows. Come on people, a computer is a tool, not a religion.
Mostly that's because they cannot find developers to update them.
Eh, how do you know what apps I have installed? :)
The current app-rot has little to do with available developers. It's because they were cheap (maybe even free) apps that made no money, have run their semi-useless course, and therefore there is no motivation to continue supporting them. Again just like many unnecessary web sites in 2002...
Apologies in advance, but I couldn't resist, and it makes the similarities to the last tech bubble glaringly obvious ;)
I'm not sure it is. Maybe I'm biased because I am employed as a web developer, but both front end and back end developers are both incredibly in demand right now. Every brand wants or has a web site, and every webapp needs a Flash counterpart to be taken seriously. Weren't the dotcom bubble predictions back in 1999? I don't think they hold any water any more. Browsers are the future and aren't going anywhere.
Instead of an "e-", add an "i-". Otherwise, seen it before. In the end, the "app" market in general, like web sites, aren't going anywhere, but with almost 1M iOS apps and growing, it's going to hit a point of diminishing returns. I have a half dozen apps that are no longer supported and don't even work on the latest iOS devices; it's starting to remind me a bit of the growing graveyard of failed dotcom websites in 2002...
There is a big difference between the "caller id" you see on your phone (which just modulates some data on the analog signal *before* the call is actually connected) and what the phone company *actually* knows about the call (which is a lot).
If you are just calling from a POTS it's difficult to spoof, since your carrier sends the caller id before you are even connected (you'd have to spoof your number to your local carrier). If you are calling through a PBX or VOIP, that exchange (or the service running it, etc) can insert whatever caller id information it wants. There are valid uses for caller id spoofing, though - like VOIP itself (making it look like it comes from a "normal" number), or offices that have an exchange but want to show the direct name/number to the receiver...
Yeah, that's what I meant by the first sentence, but it may not have been worded that clearly... anyway, it was nothing against your comment except to point out ignoring it entirely doesn't mean it can't affect you greatly (and probably not in a good way).
God, existence or not, is not a useful concept.
To you, maybe. But to the leaders of various political, religious, and terrorist groups it's a very useful concept. The history of Judeo-Christian organized religion has always been centered on control, and it has worked remarkably well for that purpose.
Yeah, it seems the only chance they'd have of making money on it is fraud. And since any reasonable person would know that, wouldn't that mean the manufacturers of auto-dialers are therefore intentionally participating in conspiracy to commit a crime? That argument was used successfully already...
But the search problem is not in fact a problem unless you believe TV crime dramas ("just keep the caller on another 45 seconds so we can triangulate!") If the FTC *really* wanted to solve the problem, they would just require the phone carriers to deal with it. They can already easily detect a recorded message as well as log the source of the call. Sure, there are technically ways of making that harder to do, but for the most part it's not worth the effort or expense just to try to sell you a new roof.
The FTC offering awards to anyone who can fix this problem seems a bit like the police offering awards to anyone who can catch red light runners. They KNOW how to solve the problem, they just don't really care to do it right...
Why even go that far with the analogy, though? The government will prosecute a stereo installer, but will still never touch the #1 product manufacturer used in the commission of crimes. Guess the NRA is a bit more influential than the CEA.
Why should I have to work hard and "be good" -- and then get lucky -- just for minimum wage?
If you aren't good, why should you get paid at all?