Its hard to believe that someone who soils oneself and eats dirt has a better grasp of statistics than myself. Time to bring my infant daughter to my signal processing classes.
"The VentrAssist(TM) LVAS has the potential to become as commonplace and reliable as pacemakers."
That seems to be a pretty bold statement considering that implanting one of these is a pretty invasive procedure and that the implant leaves you with wires penetrating the skin leaving a path for infection. This technology combined with the AbioCor (did I get that right) transdermal battery would be pretty cool.
I also do not see any valve in the design, so if the battery were to fail, the heart would not be able to pump.
There are pacemaker / defibrillator (CRT) devices on the market today that offer, long term, effective treatment for several types of heart failure (see the new england journal of medicine), they require a minimally invasive procedure, are completely implanted - no external wires, and the heart maintains some pumping ability in the event of a device failure. Also, the patient regains a quality of life and independence that you could not have with worrying about keeping your batteries charged and wires protruding from your abdomen.
The design of the device is novel and very interesting and , without a doubt, will benefit a small population of patients. I am waiting, however, for the next generations of treatments that target the tissue and biology repsonsible for the pathology. Gene therapy, stem cells, etc. offer greater hope and better long term outcomes for patients. Pumps are only for sustaining until something better can be found.
That is not completely true - modern pacemakers are EMI resistant, none have been tested against EMP, I believe. An EMP is much different than interference from say a cellphone. Modern devices have passive and active filters to reject noise (for improper sensing) from emitters like microwaves and wireless devices and surge protectors from a brief high voltage on the leads.
That noise is narrowband and magnitudes less in power. The electronics are encased in a metal housing but the problem is in the leads which form a nice large loop within the body.
Pacemakers and defibrillators are still susceptible to MRI because the magnetic fields pass through the housing to the electronics inside and this can induce large currents inside the device and in the leads.
That said, it is a pretty small portion of the population that needs to worry about this, but If it is a worry testing and modeling, rather than speculation should be performed.
That bleeding heart article did not have very much information on the state of affairs of the technologies it was discussing.
The fact of the matter is that technologies exist today to dramatically reduce the demand for petroleum products. Our culture is as much to blame as our technology in this matter.
Oh yea, fuel cells save the day! Just where does the hydrogen come from, oil? Nuclear could be an option but would require much more energy. We would still be dependent on oil products. I suppose the production of hydrogen in a factory may yield some enviromental benefits, but I would think that our demand for oil wold increase bue to loss in the manufacturing process.
Why do we drive 4000 pound vehicles just to get to work and back. Do body panels really need to be made of steel? Weight is one of the biggest factors affecting fuel enonomy - if carmakers invested more in researching plastics and composites for body frames and components, vehicles, even large ones, would see a dramatic drop in weight. Of course, the steel industries would complain too.
Bicycles, motorcycles already exist and use much less energy to get around. It would be possible to create a "commuter" vehicle with some creature comforts that would fit the bill as well. Even if the vehicle was slow "30-40mph" I would drive it if it reduced highway congestion
I would probably buy an electric vehicle as my commute is well within the range, but I would still need a chemical car to make the long drives which I probably do about 10% of the time. If I have to pay insurance on my gas-hog I am going to drive it - unless the cost of the electric vehicle is very low.
Another random thought, the biggest problem with electric cars is taking the energy with you, which means you have to pack large, expensive and heavy batteries or a "futuristic" fuel cell. Why not find a way to put the cars on the electric "grid" and distribute the energy through the road like a train so you can carry a smaller battery load. This infrastructure doesn't exist and probably never will. The decision was made early in the 1900's when there were both electric and gas cars being produced. If electric won the race early on things would be different now.
The way things stand now, our vehicles are much more than transportation. They are a swiss army knofe developed over years of design iterations, they fit so many functions it will be hard to change.
An electric motor can maintain maximum torque throughout its entire RPM range and many can rev up past 10,000RPM - thats why they can have incredible acceleration.
Some missiles can be shot down in a controlled experiment. Not all, SDI is far from a deturrent of missile production. Super - Cavatation anyone?
Sure there is not defence for nanoweapons, its hard to defend against something that doesn't exsist.
Every time a new technology is in a early development stage, someone comes starts quoting from revelations. Will nano-machines trigger the end of exsistance? No, just think a little bit - life on earth is based on an inumerable abundance of nanomachines. They are called cells - last I checked there hasn't been a large cellular mass, short of the human mass, taking over the world.
There should be a reasonable amount of caution with every new technology pursued, but, for goodness sake, don't take a fiction writer's account for fact, even though it may make a good movie.
Nanotech is a great technology with vast applications possible. I will not start to fear self replicating nanomachines until macromachines are able to replicate autonomously. A there is a great deal of complexity involved for a being to create a copy of oneself. That program is stored in DNA in living organisms - for machines, it is stored at the factory. We have not yet been able to figure out how to design and program a machine to iterate itself.
Even if we were able to create such a machine, it would need the materials to do so, time to do it, a place to be safe and a way to compete with other machines. Hmmm, it sounds like if such a thing were to take over the world - it would have to be alive. If life is possible on a sub-cellular scale, it probably already exsists.
Nanomachines will be able to perform simple tasks - thats it. Don't look for them to apporach the complexity of a living organism - by the time that happens we will be looking for the next new technology to end exsistence.
Thats enough of this, I am going to go watch the matrix, terminator, planet of the apes, the time machine and a lot of other movies on technological distopias. Now that would make a good discussion topic, eh?
What, is that supposed to be funny? These are high reliablity medical devices, which by neccesity, get tested at several different levels of the build.
Additionaly, once implanted, the patient needs to visit the physician once every 3-6 months where the doctor interrogates the device via telemetry. So you could say that it is tested.
No they dont, I should know - I build and test them. Pacemakers have a Lithium Iodide battery and most Defibrillators (implantable) use SVO or MnO2 batteries. Still the can have lifetimes 7-10 years depending on the amount of therapy needed.
To me, the biggest flaw in our system is the electoral college. We do not vote for president, we vot for electors - who in theory can vote for anyone they want. Of course they dont, beacuse their party would have their heads, but it could happen.
Another effect of the electorial system, is that some people's votes do not count at all. Any minority decision in any state results in 0 votes in that state - even if overall that decision is in the majority. The electorial system was designed by the founding fathers to stay in control because they really didn't trust regular folk. Elections are not determined by the number of voters but by their distribution.
But I do agree that is a waste of space, but it does serve a prurpose. Every culture has some sort of burial rite. We happen to stick our dead in a expensive box and put a stone on the hole. The egyptians built pyramids - is that a waste of space and energy? Maybe so, but it has a benefit and comfort the living. When land is at a premium, something will be done to increase our land use efficency.
From my experience working for an enviromental testing company, I agree that people have an impact on the enviroment around them. Of course the only ones that do not are dead.
Many "enviromentalists" know little about the enviroment, many just dislike people or long for the days of little house on the prairie. I do not think the planet could support 6 billion hunter gatherers, we have learned how to better cultivate the planet to support the population.
Technology, however, is a double edged sword. Along with our technological gain, has come some pain. Factories pollute, trees are cut down and species become extinct. This is where the evangelists linger, telling us how bad we are and how bad things are going to be.
Economists may be more apt to predict the Planet's future more correctly. They understand the allocation of resources - supply and demand. Eg, The supply for freshwater goes down, the demand for more efficent desalinization goes up. Determining the World's needs is a lot more complicated than taking north american consumption and multiplying by Eight.
Every period in history has had its own vision of the end of humanity, its human crisis. Still, humanity has endured. A number such as 83% is not an indicator of doom (if it is even accurate). It does tell us of our success and interconnectedness with the planet.
We have consumed nowhere near 83% of the planet's resources, there is much more volume than surface area. We are just going for the easy stuff first.
Yes the enviroment needs to be considered when planning for the future, but it should not hinder.
The condensation does not pose an immediate threat to the electronics, for it is basically distilled water. There is not ionic content in the water to carry current. The water will freeze rapidly as well, ice does not carry current. The water may alter paracitic capacitances as its dielectric constant is different than air, this may have some effect on the oscillator circuits - but will not fry anything.
By the way, the IPAQ also has some design problems - do not expect eh battery to work for long.
http://www.e-insite.net/ednmag/index.asp?layout=ar ticle&articleId=CA231579
Slashdot Mirror
I would think this would be a more attractive solution.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fluorinert
If I had a few massive cores laying around, could I discover new planets as well?
Its hard to believe that someone who soils oneself and eats dirt has a better grasp of statistics than myself. Time to bring my infant daughter to my signal processing classes.
From the ventracor website:
"The VentrAssist(TM) LVAS has the potential to become as commonplace and reliable as pacemakers."
That seems to be a pretty bold statement considering that implanting one of these is a pretty invasive procedure and that the implant leaves you with wires penetrating the skin leaving a path for infection. This technology combined with the AbioCor (did I get that right) transdermal battery would be pretty cool.
I also do not see any valve in the design, so if the battery were to fail, the heart would not be able to pump.
There are pacemaker / defibrillator (CRT) devices on the market today that offer, long term, effective treatment for several types of heart failure (see the new england journal of medicine), they require a minimally invasive procedure, are completely implanted - no external wires, and the heart maintains some pumping ability in the event of a device failure. Also, the patient regains a quality of life and independence that you could not have with worrying about keeping your batteries charged and wires protruding from your abdomen.
The design of the device is novel and very interesting and , without a doubt, will benefit a small population of patients. I am waiting, however, for the next generations of treatments that target the tissue and biology repsonsible for the pathology. Gene therapy, stem cells, etc. offer greater hope and better long term outcomes for patients. Pumps are only for sustaining until something better can be found.
That is not completely true - modern pacemakers are EMI resistant, none have been tested against EMP, I believe. An EMP is much different than interference from say a cellphone. Modern devices have passive and active filters to reject noise (for improper sensing) from emitters like microwaves and wireless devices and surge protectors from a brief high voltage on the leads.
That noise is narrowband and magnitudes less in power. The electronics are encased in a metal housing but the problem is in the leads which form a nice large loop within the body.
Pacemakers and defibrillators are still susceptible to MRI because the magnetic fields pass through the housing to the electronics inside and this can induce large currents inside the device and in the leads.
That said, it is a pretty small portion of the population that needs to worry about this, but If it is a worry testing and modeling, rather than speculation should be performed.
That bleeding heart article did not have very much information on the state of affairs of the technologies it was discussing.
The fact of the matter is that technologies exist today to dramatically reduce the demand for petroleum products. Our culture is as much to blame as our technology in this matter.
Oh yea, fuel cells save the day! Just where does the hydrogen come from, oil? Nuclear could be an option but would require much more energy. We would still be dependent on oil products. I suppose the production of hydrogen in a factory may yield some enviromental benefits, but I would think that our demand for oil wold increase bue to loss in the manufacturing process.
Why do we drive 4000 pound vehicles just to get to work and back. Do body panels really need to be made of steel? Weight is one of the biggest factors affecting fuel enonomy - if carmakers invested more in researching plastics and composites for body frames and components, vehicles, even large ones, would see a dramatic drop in weight. Of course, the steel industries would complain too.
Bicycles, motorcycles already exist and use much less energy to get around. It would be possible to create a "commuter" vehicle with some creature comforts that would fit the bill as well. Even if the vehicle was slow "30-40mph" I would drive it if it reduced highway congestion
I would probably buy an electric vehicle as my commute is well within the range, but I would still need a chemical car to make the long drives which I probably do about 10% of the time. If I have to pay insurance on my gas-hog I am going to drive it - unless the cost of the electric vehicle is very low.
Another random thought, the biggest problem with electric cars is taking the energy with you, which means you have to pack large, expensive and heavy batteries or a "futuristic" fuel cell. Why not find a way to put the cars on the electric "grid" and distribute the energy through the road like a train so you can carry a smaller battery load. This infrastructure doesn't exist and probably never will. The decision was made early in the 1900's when there were both electric and gas cars being produced. If electric won the race early on things would be different now.
The way things stand now, our vehicles are much more than transportation. They are a swiss army knofe developed over years of design iterations, they fit so many functions it will be hard to change.
blah.. blahh...
An electric motor can maintain maximum torque throughout its entire RPM range and many can rev up past 10,000RPM - thats why they can have incredible acceleration.
What about those malicious carpenters who build homes with backdoors?
Some missiles can be shot down in a controlled experiment. Not all, SDI is far from a deturrent of missile production. Super - Cavatation anyone? Sure there is not defence for nanoweapons, its hard to defend against something that doesn't exsist.
Every time a new technology is in a early development stage, someone comes starts quoting from revelations. Will nano-machines trigger the end of exsistance? No, just think a little bit - life on earth is based on an inumerable abundance of nanomachines. They are called cells - last I checked there hasn't been a large cellular mass, short of the human mass, taking over the world.
There should be a reasonable amount of caution with every new technology pursued, but, for goodness sake, don't take a fiction writer's account for fact, even though it may make a good movie.
Nanotech is a great technology with vast applications possible. I will not start to fear self replicating nanomachines until macromachines are able to replicate autonomously. A there is a great deal of complexity involved for a being to create a copy of oneself. That program is stored in DNA in living organisms - for machines, it is stored at the factory. We have not yet been able to figure out how to design and program a machine to iterate itself.
Even if we were able to create such a machine, it would need the materials to do so, time to do it, a place to be safe and a way to compete with other machines. Hmmm, it sounds like if such a thing were to take over the world - it would have to be alive. If life is possible on a sub-cellular scale, it probably already exsists.
Nanomachines will be able to perform simple tasks - thats it. Don't look for them to apporach the complexity of a living organism - by the time that happens we will be looking for the next new technology to end exsistence.
Thats enough of this, I am going to go watch the matrix, terminator, planet of the apes, the time machine and a lot of other movies on technological distopias. Now that would make a good discussion topic, eh?
Great!
What, is that supposed to be funny? These are high reliablity medical devices, which by neccesity, get tested at several different levels of the build. Additionaly, once implanted, the patient needs to visit the physician once every 3-6 months where the doctor interrogates the device via telemetry. So you could say that it is tested.
That is the biggest load of crap I have heard. Do some research before you post.
No they dont, I should know - I build and test them. Pacemakers have a Lithium Iodide battery and most Defibrillators (implantable) use SVO or MnO2 batteries. Still the can have lifetimes 7-10 years depending on the amount of therapy needed.
To me, the biggest flaw in our system is the electoral college. We do not vote for president, we vot for electors - who in theory can vote for anyone they want. Of course they dont, beacuse their party would have their heads, but it could happen.
Another effect of the electorial system, is that some people's votes do not count at all. Any minority decision in any state results in 0 votes in that state - even if overall that decision is in the majority. The electorial system was designed by the founding fathers to stay in control because they really didn't trust regular folk. Elections are not determined by the number of voters but by their distribution.
But we will have to wait until Msoft is done battling anonther superpower - the US government!
But I do agree that is a waste of space, but it does serve a prurpose. Every culture has some sort of burial rite. We happen to stick our dead in a expensive box and put a stone on the hole. The egyptians built pyramids - is that a waste of space and energy? Maybe so, but it has a benefit and comfort the living. When land is at a premium, something will be done to increase our land use efficency.
That is not the dead burying the bodies is it?
From my experience working for an enviromental testing company, I agree that people have an impact on the enviroment around them. Of course the only ones that do not are dead. Many "enviromentalists" know little about the enviroment, many just dislike people or long for the days of little house on the prairie. I do not think the planet could support 6 billion hunter gatherers, we have learned how to better cultivate the planet to support the population. Technology, however, is a double edged sword. Along with our technological gain, has come some pain. Factories pollute, trees are cut down and species become extinct. This is where the evangelists linger, telling us how bad we are and how bad things are going to be. Economists may be more apt to predict the Planet's future more correctly. They understand the allocation of resources - supply and demand. Eg, The supply for freshwater goes down, the demand for more efficent desalinization goes up. Determining the World's needs is a lot more complicated than taking north american consumption and multiplying by Eight. Every period in history has had its own vision of the end of humanity, its human crisis. Still, humanity has endured. A number such as 83% is not an indicator of doom (if it is even accurate). It does tell us of our success and interconnectedness with the planet. We have consumed nowhere near 83% of the planet's resources, there is much more volume than surface area. We are just going for the easy stuff first. Yes the enviroment needs to be considered when planning for the future, but it should not hinder.
Farmers have been attempting to do this with sheep for years - or maybe they were just lonely.
The condensation does not pose an immediate threat to the electronics, for it is basically distilled water. There is not ionic content in the water to carry current. The water will freeze rapidly as well, ice does not carry current. The water may alter paracitic capacitances as its dielectric constant is different than air, this may have some effect on the oscillator circuits - but will not fry anything.
This is great news, I will get 20% more pleasure from beating Carrot Top!
I have not seen such a poorly reported, uninformative article as this in a long time.
http://www.e-insite.net/ednmag/index.asp?layout=ar ticle&articleId=CA231579
dead sooner than you think
By the way, the IPAQ also has some design problems - do not expect eh battery to work for long. http://www.e-insite.net/ednmag/index.asp?layout=ar ticle&articleId=CA231579