Consider I am driving down some back woods road and have my accident...
You're right. In an A&E situation like that, with no other option to save you from an almost certain death, it would be irresponsible not to use a robotic surgeon if available - the principle of non maleficence ("first, do no harm").
However, my earlier post was with regard to more routine 9 till 5 procedures -- for example, it would be better to ship an otherwise healthy transplant patient who has been on a waiting list for months, to another hospital to undergo the procedure, rather than go for robotics to save the journey. Sure, it might even be more expensive, but again ethical principles would caution against taking unnecessary risks.
One thing I considered before was borderline cases like the scientist in Antarctica who got breast cancer, and had to have an airdrop of supplies before being evac'd when the weather changed. While not strictly applicable, in a borderline case would you want to hold out for transport or go for a robot? You can't really answer that generally, only on a case by case basis, but I think that this robotic tech is good if only it gives healthcare staff more options in cases where there were previously one or none (A&E for example).
And as for usage in training, I can't see it. The only real theoretical advantage over a regular videotaped operation would be the interactivity of a simulator, at which point you might as well use a model/cadaver/etc anyway. And why would you need to run a simulation over a WAN? A regular computer with a decent 3D card and whatever special input device they're using would be fine.
Using telerobotics will enable patients living in remote locations to be able to undergo procedures they would normally have to travel to city locations to receive, Dr. McKinley said. Telerobotic surgery will also assist with medical training, enabling experienced surgeons to assist from a distance those who are still learning.
This is probably the killer app. Being a med student myself (and having just watched Scrubs) I think the ability to have someone watching over your shoulder during an important operation would greatly assist confidence during learning surgical procedures -- especially during unusual times of the morning when the hospital is understaffed etc., and you're the house surgeon lumped with everyone walking in the door.
However, allowing dangerous operations to be undertaken in remote locations is probably not a great idea... without qualified staff physically on hand, I don't think you'd want to trust someone's life to an IP connection; otherwise, the next time some DDoS or Outlook worm strikes, servers aren't the only thing we lose.
1) You can't really compare the race to human powered flight with the race to space when it comes to private enterprise. It's a lot harder, more expensive and a heck of a lot more dangerous to get into orbit than it is to do a powered glide down a beach.
Also, NASA and similar goverment bodies can allocate billions of dollars into researching new materials and methods... hundreds of independent contractors cannot manage those levels of funding. Finally, you're assuming space travel is economic for private enterprise -- aside from the occasional tourist there is as yet no valid business reason to develop space facilities (look at how little use the ISS is being put to by private enterprises). While I'd like to see more space exploration as much as anyone, I think large manned missions will remain in the domain of "because we can" type Government policy in the near future at least.
2) Likewise, your comparison to the American settlers ("entire colonies were lost...") doesn't stand up in today's CNN-ised world. Back then, if a disaster befell the other side of your continent, you heard about it months later and its impact was diluted; the culture accepted these kind of losses as it came with the territory, so to speak. These days, a single tragedy like the Space Shuttle gathers instantaneous, international media cover, and a disaster of colony-sized proportions would probably break the entire space programme, due to a public unwilling to accept those kinds of risks and casualty rates.
Hmm, you think they might want to improve that a little before releasing it to the public.
Of course, it depends on how long the recharge takes -- the robot wouldn't be much of a helper for the elderly if recharging takes another 2 hours, meaning the robot spends 50% of its time tied to the wall, but it wouldn't be so bad if it can recharge itself rapidly or perhaps even swap batteries somehow. Does anyone here know the average running time lengths for the current crop of personal robots?
I live a few tens of kilometres from the site of the flight -- Pearse is something of a local celebrity/historical figure, some (funny) pictures including an impression of the original plane.
A replica of his plane is on display in our local museum, sadly it's not online but it's mentioned at the bottom of this article, with the original at the Museum of Transport in Auckland (NZ's largest city, at the top of the North Island, we're in the middle of the South Island's east coast).
As the article states it's hard to verify his accomplishments, and for that reason I believe that the Wright brothers will hold their record for a while unless any stunning new evidence arises. Still, good on Pearse, one of aviation's original hackers:).
At the moment, I'm posting with Crazy Browser. It's free but not Open Source, and it's a small wrapper for the IE rendering engine that does tabbed browsing and popup killing all in one.
Hope you guys find it useful:). Otherwise, I also use Phoenix, similar with Mozilla.
Seriously, with people like Google rolling distributed computing into the next version of the Google toolbar, and the success of the various @home projects, I can see a better business model based around using people's hardware that is already in existence -- no need for a 10 billion outlay.
After all, who would mind leaving their Athlon/P4 on overnight to crunch some numbers, perhaps for a rebate on their connection bill or a similar reward system? That money could buy an awful lot of idle LAN boxes... and funding schools etc. like that would be great publicity.
Re:Soon there will be nothing left
on
Phoenix 0.3 Is Out
·
· Score: 5, Informative
(mousegestures, prefbar...no uninstall yet)
I'm posting from Phoenix 0.3 now. Check the release notes before posting -- Extension Uninstall is included in this new version. To find it, Tools->Preferences->Themes and Extensions, click on the "Extensions" tab and you can disable or uninstall your extensions quite happily.
Overall it's a great browser, it really shows off what Mozilla can do. I'm recommending it to friends, it can tempt them with all the speed of IE, the features of Mozilla, and the bloat of neither:).
Even More Blatant Karma Whoring
on
Slashdot Turns 5
·
· Score: 1
By all accounts the last batch of terrorists had basically good documentation -- arrived with proper visas, dotted their I's and crossed their T's. So how exactly would national ID cards stop this kind of attack happening again? "Smart Visas" would probably make a heck of a lot more sense.
I'm getting a bit sick of "The War On Terrorism (tm)" being trotted out as an universal excuse. If they want to bill the cards as cutting down on bureaucracy and red tape, or catching convicted fraudsters/thieves/etc, so be it, but otherwise, it's a bit late for kneejerk reactions.
If you try and circumvent any the copy protection (or, in the case of computer programs, explain how to do so to anyone else), you can be punished as much as if you were pirating the data yourself... Heck, if you even try to remove any of the tracking spyware, you'll be in equal amounts of trouble.
While the DMCA-like first provision is as bad as the U.S. law, what the heck give content producers the enforceable legal right to spy on me 24/7?
Bear in mind that - just like RIP - our poor legislators are hurrying this through by Christmas. They'll consult, but be done by October 31. To save time, they won't listen to any complaints about the original EUCD document. And the raft of provisions that they've chosen to omit (like the generous but eminently ignorable list of fair use rights in the original directive) aren't up for discussion either.
That's nice. We've let countries get into a game of one-upsmanship over the strictness of their fair-use-prevention laws, and they're not even going to let their citizens have a say in the process. What do we do when we wake up in 2003 and find it's 1984?
I'm at a college and lots of other people here receive mail from "FunnyCard" / "Mr Smiley" etc. along these lines. I always advise them to fill in:
admin@thiswebsite.com root@thiswebsite.com web master@thiswebsite.com postmaster@thiswebsite.com
et. al., until they supply as many as they need to view their card/crush/whatever cheesy thing you can't convince them to delete. Seems to work -- if they're not sending on random spam email then they've got nothing to worry about, if they are, then they reap the benefits:).
On another note, I recently got mail from Crush007 which is another kettle of fish entirely:). Luckily I figured this one out before filling in any details... have a read of their front page for a laugh.
You hit the counter with your +1 "HTTP GET".
The counter is still standing, and glaring in your direction. The gazebo next to it isn't looking happy, either.
Slashdot Mirror
Consider I am driving down some back woods road and have my accident...
You're right. In an A&E situation like that, with no other option to save you from an almost certain death, it would be irresponsible not to use a robotic surgeon if available - the principle of non maleficence ("first, do no harm").
However, my earlier post was with regard to more routine 9 till 5 procedures -- for example, it would be better to ship an otherwise healthy transplant patient who has been on a waiting list for months, to another hospital to undergo the procedure, rather than go for robotics to save the journey. Sure, it might even be more expensive, but again ethical principles would caution against taking unnecessary risks.
One thing I considered before was borderline cases like the scientist in Antarctica who got breast cancer, and had to have an airdrop of supplies before being evac'd when the weather changed. While not strictly applicable, in a borderline case would you want to hold out for transport or go for a robot? You can't really answer that generally, only on a case by case basis, but I think that this robotic tech is good if only it gives healthcare staff more options in cases where there were previously one or none (A&E for example).
And as for usage in training, I can't see it. The only real theoretical advantage over a regular videotaped operation would be the interactivity of a simulator, at which point you might as well use a model/cadaver/etc anyway. And why would you need to run a simulation over a WAN? A regular computer with a decent 3D card and whatever special input device they're using would be fine.
This is probably the killer app. Being a med student myself (and having just watched Scrubs) I think the ability to have someone watching over your shoulder during an important operation would greatly assist confidence during learning surgical procedures -- especially during unusual times of the morning when the hospital is understaffed etc., and you're the house surgeon lumped with everyone walking in the door.
However, allowing dangerous operations to be undertaken in remote locations is probably not a great idea... without qualified staff physically on hand, I don't think you'd want to trust someone's life to an IP connection; otherwise, the next time some DDoS or Outlook worm strikes, servers aren't the only thing we lose.
1) You can't really compare the race to human powered flight with the race to space when it comes to private enterprise. It's a lot harder, more expensive and a heck of a lot more dangerous to get into orbit than it is to do a powered glide down a beach.
Also, NASA and similar goverment bodies can allocate billions of dollars into researching new materials and methods... hundreds of independent contractors cannot manage those levels of funding. Finally, you're assuming space travel is economic for private enterprise -- aside from the occasional tourist there is as yet no valid business reason to develop space facilities (look at how little use the ISS is being put to by private enterprises). While I'd like to see more space exploration as much as anyone, I think large manned missions will remain in the domain of "because we can" type Government policy in the near future at least.
2) Likewise, your comparison to the American settlers ("entire colonies were lost...") doesn't stand up in today's CNN-ised world. Back then, if a disaster befell the other side of your continent, you heard about it months later and its impact was diluted; the culture accepted these kind of losses as it came with the territory, so to speak. These days, a single tragedy like the Space Shuttle gathers instantaneous, international media cover, and a disaster of colony-sized proportions would probably break the entire space programme, due to a public unwilling to accept those kinds of risks and casualty rates.
Kuro5hin is hosting a story on the topic of response to tragedies like this now -- A Heartbreaking National Tragedy.
Well worth a read.
Hmm, you think they might want to improve that a little before releasing it to the public.
Of course, it depends on how long the recharge takes -- the robot wouldn't be much of a helper for the elderly if recharging takes another 2 hours, meaning the robot spends 50% of its time tied to the wall, but it wouldn't be so bad if it can recharge itself rapidly or perhaps even swap batteries somehow. Does anyone here know the average running time lengths for the current crop of personal robots?
I live a few tens of kilometres from the site of the flight -- Pearse is something of a local celebrity/historical figure, some (funny) pictures including an impression of the original plane.
:).
A replica of his plane is on display in our local museum, sadly it's not online but it's mentioned at the bottom of this article, with the original at the Museum of Transport in Auckland (NZ's largest city, at the top of the North Island, we're in the middle of the South Island's east coast).
As the article states it's hard to verify his accomplishments, and for that reason I believe that the Wright brothers will hold their record for a while unless any stunning new evidence arises. Still, good on Pearse, one of aviation's original hackers
OK, you can make planet jokes, but please -- no cracks about Uranus...
I'm sitting here, commenting on the parent poster sitting there, and you're sitting somewhere else, reading Slashdot.
Anyone else see the problem?
At the moment, I'm posting with Crazy Browser. It's free but not Open Source, and it's a small wrapper for the IE rendering engine that does tabbed browsing and popup killing all in one.
:). Otherwise, I also use Phoenix, similar with Mozilla.
Hope you guys find it useful
Distributed Dot Net.
Seriously, with people like Google rolling distributed computing into the next version of the Google toolbar, and the success of the various @home projects, I can see a better business model based around using people's hardware that is already in existence -- no need for a 10 billion outlay.
After all, who would mind leaving their Athlon/P4 on overnight to crunch some numbers, perhaps for a rebate on their connection bill or a similar reward system? That money could buy an awful lot of idle LAN boxes... and funding schools etc. like that would be great publicity.
(mousegestures, prefbar...no uninstall yet)
:).
I'm posting from Phoenix 0.3 now. Check the release notes before posting -- Extension Uninstall is included in this new version. To find it, Tools->Preferences->Themes and Extensions, click on the "Extensions" tab and you can disable or uninstall your extensions quite happily.
Overall it's a great browser, it really shows off what Mozilla can do. I'm recommending it to friends, it can tempt them with all the speed of IE, the features of Mozilla, and the bloat of neither
Here's the Google cache of the site ;).
I s'pose you could say Orville was wright all along, then...
...that no-one has mentioned the Denoser project.
:).
Simply put, if your website is smiley-heavy, you can achieve up to a 33% reduction in bandwidth costs simply by removing the nose from your smiley
OK, that's my contribution to Ancient Geek studies over with...
Liquid nitrogen to cool beer? Blegh!
:).
Everyone knows that you use a jet engine to cool your beer
Project E.U.N.U.C.H - The "Extreme Use of Nearly Universal Cooling Hardware" ;).
...we can make those Counter-Strike campers listen to Reason (tm).
By all accounts the last batch of terrorists had basically good documentation -- arrived with proper visas, dotted their I's and crossed their T's. So how exactly would national ID cards stop this kind of attack happening again? "Smart Visas" would probably make a heck of a lot more sense.
I'm getting a bit sick of "The War On Terrorism (tm)" being trotted out as an universal excuse. If they want to bill the cards as cutting down on bureaucracy and red tape, or catching convicted fraudsters/thieves/etc, so be it, but otherwise, it's a bit late for kneejerk reactions.
That's nice. We've let countries get into a game of one-upsmanship over the strictness of their fair-use-prevention laws, and they're not even going to let their citizens have a say in the process. What do we do when we wake up in 2003 and find it's 1984?
I'm at a college and lots of other people here receive mail from "FunnyCard" / "Mr Smiley" etc. along these lines. I always advise them to fill in:
b master@thiswebsite.comm
:).
:). Luckily I figured this one out before filling in any details... have a read of their front page for a laugh.
admin@thiswebsite.com
root@thiswebsite.com
we
postmaster@thiswebsite.co
et. al., until they supply as many as they need to view their card/crush/whatever cheesy thing you can't convince them to delete. Seems to work -- if they're not sending on random spam email then they've got nothing to worry about, if they are, then they reap the benefits
On another note, I recently got mail from Crush007 which is another kettle of fish entirely
...there's always this.
Please tell me it doesn't use Lucas electrics.
Please tell me that NASA's been learning its metrics...
...with all those magnetic bacteria kicking around Mars these days :).
You hit the counter with your +1 "HTTP GET". The counter is still standing, and glaring in your direction. The gazebo next to it isn't looking happy, either.
We sent an explorer to Mars,
The maker of chocolate bars.
They returned one day
With rocks and a sway
Of budget boosts beyond par.