Once we suck all the heat out of the Earth's core, the mantle will solidify: fusing all the tectonic plates and ending earthquakes and volcanoes once and for all.
Win/win.
Assuming that were possible (don't worry, it's not), you end up losing the dynamo effect of a liquid mantle, the Earth's magnetic field vanishes, and the solar wind blows the atmosphere off into space. Yeah, really win.
Maybe it's time for thinking about mandatory destruction of satellites at the end of their useful life, instead of trying to make money out of launching things only...
And since you are the one proposing this, I recommend the satellites de-orbit and land on your house.
Seems like AOL's business plan lately is throw what ever they can against the wall and see what sticks.
Well AOL had their business model yanked out from under them with the arrival of the internet. After that they became a "media company" by swallowing other "media companies", but the rudder fell off of that ship a long time ago.
I guess we can just be lucky that they didn't decide to buy politicians and try to force through legislation that outlawed broadband and forced everyone to use their software on their network... MAFIAA-style. Perhaps in a parallel universe.
because the odds are good that you'll get better anyway?
Yep. Or look at it another way - if you don't go to the doctor you have a 15% chance of dying. People buy lottery tickets on smaller odds.
Of course the above is not strictly true. Not going to the doctor will not cause you to have a fatal disease. However IF you have a dangerous disease we can usually prevent you from dying from it. If we can't do that, we can at least provide comfort and relief from symptoms. We can do that for non-fatal diseases too. So all in all it's not a bad idea to consult. All you have to lose is the consultation fee and you potentially have a lot to gain, even if you just have a case of the sniffles.
Also there is a skew when you look at the distribution. The chances of suddenly developing a fatal disease are small during the middle of life. If you make it to your teens you are likely to make it to your 40's (barring trauma). Death usually happens at life's extremes - the very beginning or the very end. I don't consider 40 to be the end (I'm 42!) but that's when the incidence of heart disease and cancer really jumps. While you can get these diseases at any age, they are not common in say 20 year olds.
then that should keep the non life threatening people out of doctor offices and hospitals, thereby freeing up space for the people who are near death or mortally wounded, and therefore really need the help.
True. But if it keeps one seriously ill person home because they think they have something less serious and that person dies, then I cannot be for it. While you could argue that the freed up resources will let more seriously ill people be treated and increase their odds of survival, ethically I can't put myself the position of taking such a decision - swapping one life for another.
Any physician who thinks this way should be required to post his name and specialty, so that prospective patients know to stay far, far away.
You are entitled to jump to any conclusions you wish. I personally enjoy speaking with my patients and fostering a good relationship with them. I have been told face to face and I have "heard" from what people say about me, that I am a good doctor. I never have trouble filling my office. I have never been sued although being human, I have made my share of mistakes. I get stopped in the hallways of hospitals and I do chat with people. I know that some people have named children named after me. HOWEVER the chit chat, the jokes and the HUMAN side has everything to do with inspiring trust and confidence in the patient and nothing to do with reaching a diagnosis. While a clinical history is important, that little pain that your uncle once had years ago is probably not related to what's going on today. But when you walk out of my office you are not going to believe me or follow my recommendations if you think I am a jerk, so usually I end up listening to the full story, including all the things your uncle tried which didn't work.
Still I find it strange that around a story where people are proposing that doctors be replaced by a cell phone app, you would find objections to my comment.
Well I am a physician but I also have a strong programming background.
I used to think that medicine was like a giant algorithm. On one side you had the symptoms. On the other side you had a list of diseases. And in a third column, the treatments for those diseases. I thought that all a doctor had to do was go down the checklist, matching symptoms until they got the right disease, then applying the treatment.
Frankly, this is how medical shows on TV also like to portray it. So non doctors cannot be blamed for thinking that way!
But medicine is much more than that. When I went to med school I found out that the LAST thing we learned was lists. Well that's not true. We had to memorize all sorts of things. But the way we are trained is that we become experts in the human body. First we learn what a normal human body is supposed to look like (anatomy) and how it's supposed to work (physiology). Then we learn about infectious diseases (microbiology) and how they cause the body to break down. Then we learn about other disease processes (pathology) that have their roots in chemical reactions gone awry (biochemistry). THEN we learn how to interview patients (semiology/diagnostics) properly. Then we get put in front of patients for3+ years, seeing people every single day, being quizzed both formally and informally every single day many times a day, to try to get us to think of all the possibilities the guy in front of you could have. After a while you get to learn what's common and what's not.
So although the patient in front of you who doesn't have a pulse COULD have Takayasu's disease, it's far more likely that she doesn't have a pulse because she's dead.
The other advantage that a doctor has over an algorithm is that the doctor WILL be objective. However a patient who is self-diagnosing with a computer will always be subjective. This is of the utmost importance. Doctors do not need to speak to patients. We are perfectly capable of treating unconscious people. This means that when you go to the doctor and ramble on and on about this and that, and you notice he doesn't seem to be paying attention, it's because he's not. What you are saying is no longer relevant. He already has an idea about what is wrong, and is looking for objective evidence. But the subjective patient is likely to diagnose a whole range of illnesses that match his symptoms. The key is to make the CORRECT diagnosis the first time.
Isn't it worthwhile to at least try to help part of those remaining 15%?
Please explain how your smart-phone will dispense medication and/or apply treatment (assuming it is correct)? Simply knowing what you have will not cure you.
If you can get to "civilization" where there is a pharmacy, there is also a doctor somewhere close.
BTW, do you have any solid source at hand for thise 85% stat? Might be useful to me.
Medical school. No seriously, it's in most medical texts that have to do with diagnostics/semiology and/or family medicine texts (Rakel would be a good place to start, I think I remember a break-down in the first few chapters, etc) that break down what patients consult for by disease type. I'm not a walking library and I can't hand you a reference with page numbers, etc, but I'm not making it up. Once you remove the non life-threatening allergies, the common viral infections (respiratory and digestive) that don't become complicated, and all those messy and painful but non life-threatening menstrual problems that women constantly complain about, all the sedentary overweight people with digestive and musculoskeletal complaints, and all the migraines, there's really not a lot left. But that little bit that's left MUST be treated by a physician or the patient will probably die from it.
This is a terrible idea. However I guarantee that the AI algorithm will have a "success" rate of around 85%, since that is the rate at which illnesses spontaneously cure themselves. This rate is why homeopathy, snake oil salesmen, faith healers and all other forms of shamans and charlatans manage to convince people of their effectiveness. Too bad that 15% of the patients will suffer permanent disability or die using these methods. That's the part of the statistic we doctors manage to concentrate on and improve, the 15% that really need help...
You don't have to wait in line to breathe, either. You could wait in line for a whore, but then you will probably bring home more than you bargained for. What was your point again? Ah yes you were trying to make some allusion as to waiting in line was a "good thing", etc.
A system like this wouldn't be so bad IF governments could be trusted with keeping their hands off the data UNTIL a crime was committed. Then, when they had physical evidence of a crime, a bit of data mining and searching could dig up other relevant facts. However the Australian government (famous for Task Force Argos, who took someone to court for posting a video freely available on YouTube citing child abuse) and other governments around the world have demonstrated that they cannot be trusted to refrain from abusing such data.
Mention the words "terrorism" or "child pornography", and suddenly governments want to go so far as to break existing laws to prevent these crimes. However there is only one problem - if the person has not committed the crime yet, they are not a criminal. So we get cases built on "conspiracy to commit" and "intent to commit", cases which erode our freedom each single time. Because any psychologist will tell you that some very nasty thoughts can pass through the heads of very average people AND THERE IS NOTHING WRONG WITH THIS. The insides of our heads must remain inviolate and not subject to the state, or we become slaves. The law must draw the line at "yes but did the person go out and ACT on those fantasies?", not "did the person think about it". Otherwise everyone guilty of watching, writing or producing a murder mystery show is guilty of murder.
The target demographic is people who don't use air conditioning and/or drive down the highway with their windows down?
Cute idea. Wonder if anyone will actually manage to "smell" it. I guess the optional brick throwing machine that broke car windows as they pass was just too tricky.
I guess you never heard that kid's story about the tortoise and the hare, right? Yeah yeah, no value, etc.
No value in starting a colony in the New World either, right? I mean the first colony in what was to become America was in Jamestown Virginia in 1607. The New World was discovered in 1492, 115 years earlier. Certainly there was "no rush" to set up colonies, because I guess the expense (a couple thousand pounds - a small personal fortune in those days) in no way justified such a venture... Moral: you don't know what you could be are losing out on until it's over.
Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL) for merely replicating what 'NASA accomplished in 1964,' who added that the company's success 'must not be confused with progress for our nation's human spaceflight program.'"
The bit he left out was the fact that America as a "nation" has lost the space race altogether. Unless of course you count buying seats on Soyuz spacecraft as part of the "American manned space program"... Yes America put a man on the moon - but what have they done SINCE then, Shelby - while YOU were in office? In fact, while Elon Musk was busy building a billion dollar company (PayPal) that many people use every day, all you did was suck up taxpayer dollars feeding off of society and pretending to be important. Then Mr. Musk goes on to found another visionary company while you just whine and bitch and believe that you actually contribute to society. Truth is that Shelby can be replaced instantly by someone just as mediocre.
SpaceX has demonstrated it can now lift useful, heavy payloads into orbit. This is the beginning of a business model - one that never worked for NASA. Instead of whining about how America did this a long time ago he should realize that this is not costing the taxpayer anything at all AND is the beginning of regular self funding, sustainable space flight. A boon to ALL of humanity.
Yes, I know that. Hence the joke 01 (zero one), which is the big endian encoding of 2. However humor does not transmit well over the internet, apparently.
Slashdot Mirror
Once we suck all the heat out of the Earth's core, the mantle will solidify: fusing all the tectonic plates and ending earthquakes and volcanoes once and for all.
Win/win.
Assuming that were possible (don't worry, it's not), you end up losing the dynamo effect of a liquid mantle, the Earth's magnetic field vanishes, and the solar wind blows the atmosphere off into space. Yeah, really win.
Nerd card revoked.
Maybe it's time for thinking about mandatory destruction of satellites at the end of their useful life, instead of trying to make money out of launching things only...
And since you are the one proposing this, I recommend the satellites de-orbit and land on your house.
You forgot the vuvuzelas.... no monkey would go to a ball chasing event without one.
I have no problem with this, but wait until they see what I charge for the paper and the ink...
Seems like AOL's business plan lately is throw what ever they can against the wall and see what sticks.
Well AOL had their business model yanked out from under them with the arrival of the internet. After that they became a "media company" by swallowing other "media companies", but the rudder fell off of that ship a long time ago.
I guess we can just be lucky that they didn't decide to buy politicians and try to force through legislation that outlawed broadband and forced everyone to use their software on their network... MAFIAA-style. Perhaps in a parallel universe.
because the odds are good that you'll get better anyway?
Yep. Or look at it another way - if you don't go to the doctor you have a 15% chance of dying. People buy lottery tickets on smaller odds.
Of course the above is not strictly true. Not going to the doctor will not cause you to have a fatal disease. However IF you have a dangerous disease we can usually prevent you from dying from it. If we can't do that, we can at least provide comfort and relief from symptoms. We can do that for non-fatal diseases too. So all in all it's not a bad idea to consult. All you have to lose is the consultation fee and you potentially have a lot to gain, even if you just have a case of the sniffles.
Also there is a skew when you look at the distribution. The chances of suddenly developing a fatal disease are small during the middle of life. If you make it to your teens you are likely to make it to your 40's (barring trauma). Death usually happens at life's extremes - the very beginning or the very end. I don't consider 40 to be the end (I'm 42!) but that's when the incidence of heart disease and cancer really jumps. While you can get these diseases at any age, they are not common in say 20 year olds.
then that should keep the non life threatening people out of doctor offices and hospitals, thereby freeing up space for the people who are near death or mortally wounded, and therefore really need the help.
True. But if it keeps one seriously ill person home because they think they have something less serious and that person dies, then I cannot be for it. While you could argue that the freed up resources will let more seriously ill people be treated and increase their odds of survival, ethically I can't put myself the position of taking such a decision - swapping one life for another.
Any physician who thinks this way should be required to post his name and specialty, so that prospective patients know to stay far, far away.
You are entitled to jump to any conclusions you wish. I personally enjoy speaking with my patients and fostering a good relationship with them. I have been told face to face and I have "heard" from what people say about me, that I am a good doctor. I never have trouble filling my office. I have never been sued although being human, I have made my share of mistakes. I get stopped in the hallways of hospitals and I do chat with people. I know that some people have named children named after me. HOWEVER the chit chat, the jokes and the HUMAN side has everything to do with inspiring trust and confidence in the patient and nothing to do with reaching a diagnosis. While a clinical history is important, that little pain that your uncle once had years ago is probably not related to what's going on today. But when you walk out of my office you are not going to believe me or follow my recommendations if you think I am a jerk, so usually I end up listening to the full story, including all the things your uncle tried which didn't work.
Still I find it strange that around a story where people are proposing that doctors be replaced by a cell phone app, you would find objections to my comment.
But I understand how you don't have a need for such kinds of sources;
I honestly tried googling it for a few minutes, came up blank. I do know I've seen it in at least 2 texts, however, and heard it in several lectures.
Well I am a physician but I also have a strong programming background.
I used to think that medicine was like a giant algorithm. On one side you had the symptoms. On the other side you had a list of diseases. And in a third column, the treatments for those diseases. I thought that all a doctor had to do was go down the checklist, matching symptoms until they got the right disease, then applying the treatment.
Frankly, this is how medical shows on TV also like to portray it. So non doctors cannot be blamed for thinking that way!
But medicine is much more than that. When I went to med school I found out that the LAST thing we learned was lists. Well that's not true. We had to memorize all sorts of things. But the way we are trained is that we become experts in the human body. First we learn what a normal human body is supposed to look like (anatomy) and how it's supposed to work (physiology). Then we learn about infectious diseases (microbiology) and how they cause the body to break down. Then we learn about other disease processes (pathology) that have their roots in chemical reactions gone awry (biochemistry). THEN we learn how to interview patients (semiology/diagnostics) properly. Then we get put in front of patients for3+ years, seeing people every single day, being quizzed both formally and informally every single day many times a day, to try to get us to think of all the possibilities the guy in front of you could have. After a while you get to learn what's common and what's not.
So although the patient in front of you who doesn't have a pulse COULD have Takayasu's disease, it's far more likely that she doesn't have a pulse because she's dead.
The other advantage that a doctor has over an algorithm is that the doctor WILL be objective. However a patient who is self-diagnosing with a computer will always be subjective. This is of the utmost importance. Doctors do not need to speak to patients. We are perfectly capable of treating unconscious people. This means that when you go to the doctor and ramble on and on about this and that, and you notice he doesn't seem to be paying attention, it's because he's not. What you are saying is no longer relevant. He already has an idea about what is wrong, and is looking for objective evidence. But the subjective patient is likely to diagnose a whole range of illnesses that match his symptoms. The key is to make the CORRECT diagnosis the first time.
Isn't it worthwhile to at least try to help part of those remaining 15%?
Please explain how your smart-phone will dispense medication and/or apply treatment (assuming it is correct)? Simply knowing what you have will not cure you.
If you can get to "civilization" where there is a pharmacy, there is also a doctor somewhere close.
BTW, do you have any solid source at hand for thise 85% stat? Might be useful to me.
Medical school. No seriously, it's in most medical texts that have to do with diagnostics/semiology and/or family medicine texts (Rakel would be a good place to start, I think I remember a break-down in the first few chapters, etc) that break down what patients consult for by disease type. I'm not a walking library and I can't hand you a reference with page numbers, etc, but I'm not making it up. Once you remove the non life-threatening allergies, the common viral infections (respiratory and digestive) that don't become complicated, and all those messy and painful but non life-threatening menstrual problems that women constantly complain about, all the sedentary overweight people with digestive and musculoskeletal complaints, and all the migraines, there's really not a lot left. But that little bit that's left MUST be treated by a physician or the patient will probably die from it.
This is a terrible idea. However I guarantee that the AI algorithm will have a "success" rate of around 85%, since that is the rate at which illnesses spontaneously cure themselves. This rate is why homeopathy, snake oil salesmen, faith healers and all other forms of shamans and charlatans manage to convince people of their effectiveness. Too bad that 15% of the patients will suffer permanent disability or die using these methods. That's the part of the statistic we doctors manage to concentrate on and improve, the 15% that really need help...
What's the point of this article?
From TFA: "Dan Kaminsky today went public with the launch of a new venture"
That was the point of the article. He wants you to buy his "product". Me, I'm sticking to good old fashioned Eau de Snake.
You don't have to wait in line to breathe, either. You could wait in line for a whore, but then you will probably bring home more than you bargained for. What was your point again? Ah yes you were trying to make some allusion as to waiting in line was a "good thing", etc.
Why people are forking out so much cash for this rubbish? Fools. Money. Soon parted.
A system like this wouldn't be so bad IF governments could be trusted with keeping their hands off the data UNTIL a crime was committed. Then, when they had physical evidence of a crime, a bit of data mining and searching could dig up other relevant facts. However the Australian government (famous for Task Force Argos, who took someone to court for posting a video freely available on YouTube citing child abuse) and other governments around the world have demonstrated that they cannot be trusted to refrain from abusing such data.
Mention the words "terrorism" or "child pornography", and suddenly governments want to go so far as to break existing laws to prevent these crimes. However there is only one problem - if the person has not committed the crime yet, they are not a criminal. So we get cases built on "conspiracy to commit" and "intent to commit", cases which erode our freedom each single time. Because any psychologist will tell you that some very nasty thoughts can pass through the heads of very average people AND THERE IS NOTHING WRONG WITH THIS. The insides of our heads must remain inviolate and not subject to the state, or we become slaves. The law must draw the line at "yes but did the person go out and ACT on those fantasies?", not "did the person think about it". Otherwise everyone guilty of watching, writing or producing a murder mystery show is guilty of murder.
About a company calling itself Goatse Security?
Hang on, let me serve myself a glass of Tubgirl (tm) orange juice.
The target demographic is people who don't use air conditioning and/or drive down the highway with their windows down?
Cute idea. Wonder if anyone will actually manage to "smell" it. I guess the optional brick throwing machine that broke car windows as they pass was just too tricky.
Slashdot has just discovered the anaerobe
I guess you never heard that kid's story about the tortoise and the hare, right? Yeah yeah, no value, etc.
No value in starting a colony in the New World either, right? I mean the first colony in what was to become America was in Jamestown Virginia in 1607. The New World was discovered in 1492, 115 years earlier. Certainly there was "no rush" to set up colonies, because I guess the expense (a couple thousand pounds - a small personal fortune in those days) in no way justified such a venture... Moral: you don't know what you could be are losing out on until it's over.
Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL) for merely replicating what 'NASA accomplished in 1964,' who added that the company's success 'must not be confused with progress for our nation's human spaceflight program.'"
The bit he left out was the fact that America as a "nation" has lost the space race altogether. Unless of course you count buying seats on Soyuz spacecraft as part of the "American manned space program"... Yes America put a man on the moon - but what have they done SINCE then, Shelby - while YOU were in office? In fact, while Elon Musk was busy building a billion dollar company (PayPal) that many people use every day, all you did was suck up taxpayer dollars feeding off of society and pretending to be important. Then Mr. Musk goes on to found another visionary company while you just whine and bitch and believe that you actually contribute to society. Truth is that Shelby can be replaced instantly by someone just as mediocre.
SpaceX has demonstrated it can now lift useful, heavy payloads into orbit. This is the beginning of a business model - one that never worked for NASA. Instead of whining about how America did this a long time ago he should realize that this is not costing the taxpayer anything at all AND is the beginning of regular self funding, sustainable space flight. A boon to ALL of humanity.
Do you feel better now that you have fought the evil monster and saved the internet?
Yes, I know that. Hence the joke 01 (zero one), which is the big endian encoding of 2. However humor does not transmit well over the internet, apparently.
zero-one, please.... all you little endian people who count the wrong way around...