What a fascinatingly oversimplified view you have of China. I guess it escaped your attention that they have the fastests-growing middle class in the world.
The People's Republic of China (mainland) maintain that Taiwan is a part of China, whereas the Republic of China (Taiwan) maintains that they are actually the legitimate government of China and that the PROC has no sovereign authority
I'd say that until and unless there was an open and fair election throughout China, without restrictions on who could seek office, neither of them has any legitimate claim to power over the Chinese mainland.
There's simply nowhere else that makes these things but China.
The USA, Mexico, Canada, Germany, Poland, India, Singapore, Indonesia, Thailand, France, the UK, all of Scandinavia, Israel, Ireland, Romania, Hungary, Czech, Taiwan, Japan, South Korea, Malaysia, and Australia are "simply nowhere" in your view?
(I'm sure I haven't named all of the countries with an electronics industry capable of making semiconductors and PCBs. These are just the first few that spring to mind.)
I'm for rolling back patents to the duration that our first patent laws granted, which as I recall was fourteen years. The purpose of patents, is that the state grants a monopoly on their use to the inventor in exchange for disclosure, so that inventors have a reason to tell the public how to do something instead of keeping them as trade secrets which may be forgotten when the inventor dies or goes out of business.
I'd say it was a mistake to ever consider a patent a form of property, as opposed to a contract between the inventor and the public.
deregulation and concentration of monopoly powers have lead to skyrocketing profits. Profits up 428 percent from 2000 to 2007, while US wages are only up 30%. Premiums have risen 120%.
If you believe that medical insurance has been deregulated, then you're an idiot. It's the regulation that makes the gouging possible. In a competitive environment, those kinds of profit margins are an invitation to new vendors to enter the business.
it killed their main way of maximizing profits: denial of coverage.
That's not even close to the "main" way they maximize profits. The insurance companies operate in a regulatory environment that they bought and paid for, which prevents even interstate competition.
If we want affordable medical care, the examples of how to do that are right in front of us: veterinary care and LASIK show exactly what happens when providers have to compete.
The ONLY winners in this whole fiasco are the insurance companies
You forgot: 1) the AMA, which still gets to limit how many people may enter the profession, 2) the pharmaceutical companies, 3) the bureaucracy, and 4) the congress.
The Republicans set us on the road to financial ruin, and the Democrats have just floored the accelerator.
This bill sells out the American people to some of the largest campaign contributors. The insurance companies, the AMA, and the pharmaceutical companies will reap hundreds of billions from their investment of tens of millions in bribes.
Cool tech, but before I'd live in a printed building, I'd want to know how its strength compares to reinforced concrete, particularly when subjected to a seismic event.
Well, you've presumably got motors to move the print head in three axes, a compressor to drive the sand and the glue through the print head... I'd guess that its power consumption would probably be less than that of a small excavator like a Bobcat operating for the same amount of time.
"Contour Crafting", which is being developed by a Dr. Koshnevis at USC. His approach is to have a robot lay a line of concrete and trowel it smooth as it's placed. I guess you could say that TFA describes a raster-type 3D printer, where Koshnevis has a vector-type 3D plotter.
I remember the time when surgeons would do 6-hour laparoscopies because it was IN. Later they realized that a 2-hour open surgery is actually better for the patient and laparoscopies were limited to cases where they make sense.
I can see why people would assume that the laparoscopic approach would be better (small incision, etc, etc.) I take it that being under general anesthesia for the shortest time possible outweighs other advantages that laparoscopy would offer?
Does it seem to you that it would be fruitful to work on making laparascopic surger less time-consuming?
They're remote manipulation systems, also known as "waldoes". Robots operate under the control of a stored program, not the direction of a human operator.
Slashdot Mirror
Rupert Murdoch is delivering on his threat to make readers pay
Saying you're going to stop giving something away is not a threat. It's ridiculous to characterize it in that way.
-jcr
I commend the decision, but I don't trust them.
-jcr
>Is there something bad about boiling a subject down to it's essence?
When it makes your position stupid and trivial, yes there is.
-jcr
Exactly. The only moral question here is whether the patient consents to the treatment.
-jcr
What a fascinatingly oversimplified view you have of China. I guess it escaped your attention that they have the fastests-growing middle class in the world.
-jcr
Best idea I've heard yet. The right to be left alone is one of the most important ones we have.
-jcr
without the foreign sales, unemployment there will put Michigan to shame.
Unless they figure out that they can consume most of their own production.
-jcr
The People's Republic of China (mainland) maintain that Taiwan is a part of China, whereas the Republic of China (Taiwan) maintains that they are actually the legitimate government of China and that the PROC has no sovereign authority
I'd say that until and unless there was an open and fair election throughout China, without restrictions on who could seek office, neither of them has any legitimate claim to power over the Chinese mainland.
-jcr
There's simply nowhere else that makes these things but China.
The USA, Mexico, Canada, Germany, Poland, India, Singapore, Indonesia, Thailand, France, the UK, all of Scandinavia, Israel, Ireland, Romania, Hungary, Czech, Taiwan, Japan, South Korea, Malaysia, and Australia are "simply nowhere" in your view?
(I'm sure I haven't named all of the countries with an electronics industry capable of making semiconductors and PCBs. These are just the first few that spring to mind.)
-jcr
I'm for rolling back patents to the duration that our first patent laws granted, which as I recall was fourteen years. The purpose of patents, is that the state grants a monopoly on their use to the inventor in exchange for disclosure, so that inventors have a reason to tell the public how to do something instead of keeping them as trade secrets which may be forgotten when the inventor dies or goes out of business.
I'd say it was a mistake to ever consider a patent a form of property, as opposed to a contract between the inventor and the public.
-jcr
deregulation and concentration of monopoly powers have lead to skyrocketing profits. Profits up 428 percent from 2000 to 2007, while US wages are only up 30%. Premiums have risen 120%.
If you believe that medical insurance has been deregulated, then you're an idiot. It's the regulation that makes the gouging possible. In a competitive environment, those kinds of profit margins are an invitation to new vendors to enter the business.
-jcr
it killed their main way of maximizing profits: denial of coverage.
That's not even close to the "main" way they maximize profits. The insurance companies operate in a regulatory environment that they bought and paid for, which prevents even interstate competition.
If we want affordable medical care, the examples of how to do that are right in front of us: veterinary care and LASIK show exactly what happens when providers have to compete.
-jcr
The long and short of it is, it empowers the IRS to force people to purchase an insurance policy, under the threat of imprisonment for non-compliance.
-jcr
The ONLY winners in this whole fiasco are the insurance companies
You forgot: 1) the AMA, which still gets to limit how many people may enter the profession, 2) the pharmaceutical companies, 3) the bureaucracy, and 4) the congress.
The Republicans set us on the road to financial ruin, and the Democrats have just floored the accelerator.
-jcr
You're on your way to a non-broken health care system!
Obviously you're unfamiliar with the contents of the bill.
-jcr
This bill sells out the American people to some of the largest campaign contributors. The insurance companies, the AMA, and the pharmaceutical companies will reap hundreds of billions from their investment of tens of millions in bribes.
-jcr
Supersonic cruise missiles should be hitting the market just about the time that shipboard anti-missile lasers do.
-jcr
Regrettably true. Even if you could collect the judgements, it would be difficult to schedule the cases often enough to clear a grand a day.
-jcr
For every spam I got, I could buy a nice house in the mountains. If I had a grand for each of them, I could retire the national debt!
-jcr
Cool tech, but before I'd live in a printed building, I'd want to know how its strength compares to reinforced concrete, particularly when subjected to a seismic event.
-jcr
Well, you've presumably got motors to move the print head in three axes, a compressor to drive the sand and the glue through the print head... I'd guess that its power consumption would probably be less than that of a small excavator like a Bobcat operating for the same amount of time.
-jcr
"Contour Crafting", which is being developed by a Dr. Koshnevis at USC. His approach is to have a robot lay a line of concrete and trowel it smooth as it's placed. I guess you could say that TFA describes a raster-type 3D printer, where Koshnevis has a vector-type 3D plotter.
-jcr
I remember the time when surgeons would do 6-hour laparoscopies because it was IN. Later they realized that a 2-hour open surgery is actually better for the patient and laparoscopies were limited to cases where they make sense.
I can see why people would assume that the laparoscopic approach would be better (small incision, etc, etc.) I take it that being under general anesthesia for the shortest time possible outweighs other advantages that laparoscopy would offer?
Does it seem to you that it would be fruitful to work on making laparascopic surger less time-consuming?
-jcr
They're remote manipulation systems, also known as "waldoes". Robots operate under the control of a stored program, not the direction of a human operator.
-jcr
Seems to me that in some parts of the world, you'd never see the ocean completely flat. Should be far more reliable than wind power.
-jcr