One shouldn't even be discussing patient confidentiality issues over a telephone either. Half the conversation can be heard, and most of what is said from one party can be inferred to get much of the meaning of the whole conversation. The example to which I was referring would involve requesting assistance in another area of the hospital or requesting supplies to a specified area, or for making a generalized announcement of an emergency procedure, such as a fire located in a certain area, or flooding from a water main break, or a critical equipment failure in an intensive care unit. Those examples would be ideal for hands-free communication.
With current technology, cell phones have voice/speech recognition, decent battery life, and have decreased in size approximately equal to a pager. There is no reason a small cell phone-like device a little larger than a Star Trek Communicator could not be manufactured. All the technology is there, and with low power embedded AltiVec'd-PowerPC chips, intelligent voice (user) command recognition should not be a problem to engineer into such a small device. The problem is there must be a market for such a device. The other problem is that one loses the "private" conversation with such a device unless s/he is alone. But if the device is used for work place communication, privacy is of no concern.
The bacteria have always been there and always will be present. Cell phones shouldn't be engineered to destroy bacteria because as we educated folk know, biological systems always find a way to work around obsticles. The phones should not be used in a hospital setting. Hospitals are notorious breeding grounds for all kinds of nasty bugs; I know, I worked in one for 7 years. The best way to prevent spreading bacteria is to clean all surfaces effectively with the appropriate surfactant and minimize contact.
This sheds some light on neural processing...
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Can You Raed Tihs?
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· Score: 1
This sheds some light on neural processing and perception. The first thing that came to mind when reading about this is that "if you can raed tihs?" also implies "context" into "raeding tihs". I found, personally, that after everyone started misspelling their comments that I could follow the sentence along, deciphering and interpreting as long as I could predict what was going to be said. Some people garbled the words so much that I could no longer comprehend the misspelled words simply because I could not predict what the writer was trying to explain. When I say that I can "predict" with some certainty what will be said, I mean that internally in my little brain, the gramatical syntax processing emerges to interpret sequentially what words have been read, interpreted, and what words should follow to make gramatical sense such that as we in the English language label as a "complete thought" with a subject, verb(s), direct object, indirect object, adjectives, etc... This is how I think we are still able to "raed tihs" as it is misspelled. It is an excellent exercise in measuring gramatical syntax and comprehension, including a feature known in the IQ and MQ arena as "span", i.e. attention span. This plays an inportant role in comprehension and mental functioning. The ability to focus and manipulate as many pieces of information (brain RAM) also is important for mental processing.
Strangely enough, since I didn't value the session at all, I never made it a point to remember her name. All I know is that I went to this psychic in Nashville, Tennessee, because my internet friend (a girl I met online) said she was really worth the time. As I said, I don't believe in "psychic crap" and I only went to the session out of respect for my friend. It was only an hour wasted and I wanted to keep my new female friend happy and not insult her. Personally, I think it was just one of those things couples do for fun when they are getting to know one another, but as it turned out, the internet chick dumped me, the geek, for a lawyer. Guess I wasn't very high up on the income and social prestige/status ladder of life. That was a bummer because she was really cute, Columbian ethnicity, PETITE, long dark thick hair, very attractive facial and body features, quiet reserved personality, very polite, nice complexion, a GRADUATE degree in accounting, etc...she was a keeper. Gosh, just thinking about this HURTS!
Perhaps. But the truth is that you were made aware of her predictions as they were made, and therefore cannot draw any conclusions as to the validity of said predictions. A somewhat more reasonable (but hardly scientifically or statistically valid) test would be if she had taken her "reading" of you and written the predictions down on paper for you to read later, after they had come true (or didn't.) But most poeple won't pay for that: they want to know right now whether they are going to be successful, die of a blood clot, or marry the man/woman of their dreams.
And I will bet dollars to doughnuts that if you had made a recording of the event, and played it back later, you would have found that she was substantially sharper than you thought, and reeled you in like a fish. There may be true psychics out there (unlikely though that may be) but most of them are just very, very good at social engineering. The fact that you walked away believing that she had made valid predictions about you, or even if she was ultimately proven correct, says absolutely nothing about whether some paranormal or heretofore undiscovered neurological activity was involved. Unfortunately, none of the serious research that I've been able to find on the subject (and there appears to have been some) has ever shown that these powers exist. Proponents will say, of course, that such powers simply do not work in a laboratory setting. The simple way around that would be to interview and track several thousand customers of/visitors to so-called psychics and see whether any patterns appear in the recorded statistics. Recording the actual reading would be a good idea as well, so that any verbal con-artistry can be weeded out of the numbers, but I doubt that many psychics would submit to that.
As I mentioned before, I rejected everything she said and I still don't *believe* in psychics. I still think it was just chance that everything happened as she said it would. I agree completely that these people are professional social engineers and can "read" people pretty well. I expected that when I went to the session, so I purposely did not show any emotion of facial expressions. I simply minimized my verbal responses to her questions and comments as much as I could. And interestingly enough, the psychic provides an audio recording of the session. I have gone back and listened to it about once a year and noticed that certain things happened approximately when she said they would. The timing of course is not important to me, but the fact that many (about 85%) of the events she said would happen have occured. Personally, I still don't believe in it for many reasons, i.e. there is no scientific validity that what she is saying is true, there is currently no way to measure this phenomenon, and I know that people are in control of their lives (not necessarily including traumatic accidents, but rather goals, life's expectations, reactions to events, motivations, drives, etc...)
Perhaps an interesting experiment would be to recruit volunteers for a study, not tell the volunteers that they are being read by a psychic, but only that someone will look at them and "evaluate" them based on a brief social meeting. It would be no different from meeting a psychologist to answer questions or make comments based on appearance, speech intonations, etc... The volunteers would not have access to the comments for 10 to 15 years. Then it would be interesting to see how much if any of the predictions would come true. Of course, we could always involve twins in the study just to throw off the psychics.
Well, enough of this pointless hogwash (and waste of time). I can't believe I'm commenting about psychics on Slashdot. I only wanted to clarify some assumptions about your post.
Also, strange sensations like Deja Vu or Premonition I don't think can be explained through this study.
Deja Vu can be experienced by any person whose brain is properly stimulated. I worked as a Sleep Disorders Technician/EEG Technician at a hospital to finance my college education. Part of the on-the-job training was viewing videos and suggested reading by physicians and department managers. I recall seeing one video where a patient undergoing a medical study (from the 1960s) had a portion of the skull removed and the surface of the brain exposed. Doctors placed an array of electrodes on the cerebral cortex and stimulated the brain with a few microvolts of electricity. The patient, being conscious of course, said he had feelings of deja vu. On a related note, even the "tunnel experience" many people claim to see who have had near death experiences can also be stimulated without having the *real* near death experience.
Citing a strange experience, I very reluctantly went to a reknowned psychic with a close friend who said was known for helping police solve murder crimes. Being a scientist, I rejected the session as utter hogwash, but for the life of me, I cannot explain how most of everything the psychic woman told me has come true. Even the authors of the "The Mind's I", Douglas R. Hofstadter and Daniel C. Dennett have noted scientific studies that suggest some psychic phenomena cannot be explained by statistical chance alone. Perhaps these psychics are somehow able to extrapolate what clients might do in the future based on some electromagnetic signature or pattern in the brain. The reason I mention this is that part of my training as an EEG technician involved doing brain death determination studies. The test is performed using an Electroencephalographic recording instrument with the sensitivity set to the most sensitive setting. During that training, my mentor shouted in the room "nobody move", and I said "like this [waving my left arm]". My mentor then made a note in the patient log "technician waving arm" because my waving arm with an electromagnetic field was recorded in the dead patient's drain death determination EEG test. The EEG waves showing no brainwave activity from the patient, slowly swayed (very low frequency) in a manner associated with the movement of my arm. Perhaps these psychics are able to pick up on this electromagnetic field and obtain useful data from it. I know this is pure speculation without evidence, but when confronted with these phenomena, one can only guess as to a possible explaination based on current scientific principles.
My entire point is...the guy who bought his Dell laptop WASTED A LOT of time calling Dell, talking to clueless people who could never help him because Dell never intended people to question the Dell EULA. Dell assumes that the general population are mindless drones that respond to an environment rather than engage and participate in it. This guy wasted HOURS and got nowhere but pissed-off at Dell. My other point is that Apple NEVER does this to its customers. You see, Micro$oft started this bullshit being agressive with its EULA, now the hardware manufacturers are doing it. Why? Why harass your user base? Is it presumption that the Wintel world is so large that they can FUCK EVERYONE over whenever they want. It's cruel and serves no other purpose than to lock-in a purchase, oh you pressed ANY KEY and AGREED to the EULA, sorry, can't take back your computer, you're stuck with it. And I question is it legal? Well, probably, since Dell's doing it and they probably consulted with several lawyers. Is it moral? HELL NO! Fucking Bastards, Dell deserves negative press coverage from shit like this, man, now I'm pissed-off. I hate seeing people get screwed for no reason.
I am happy to own an Apple Power Macintosh. Apple doesn't screw around with its users. Apple doesn't put all kinds of weird icons like AOL, MSN, EarthLink on my desktop. The computer comes out of the box with a blank desktop, no gimick license agreements, and best of all, everything works well all the time. Good God, why oh why do people WASTE their time with Wintel?
My boss just won the raffle for an old company laptop. He went out and purchased a wireless PC card. When he installed it and loaded the software, the software said to install the Windows 98 2nd Edition installation CD. Well, he didn't have one since it was a recently retired company laptop, and installation CDs at the company are VERBOTTEN except for the IT department. I told him if he had an Apple, everything would have worked from the beginning, and he still would not have had to install any additional software. He spent 5 hours playing around with installation CDs at home, calling the wireless PC card company to see if they could just email him the drivers, he's even contacted the company IT department and they haven't gotten back with him yet. By golly, that old laptop sure was a bargain. That's 5 hours he could have used for spending time with his family, having fun, or doing something truly productive. I guess it comes down to "What is your time worth in your life?" Personally, I don't have any time to waste and I need everything to work out of the box with no fuss.
Apple, it's the way to go for personal computing needs. All you can do with a PC is use it as a space heater, a door stop, or an enclosure for a fireworks event.
Apple's Marketing department needs to show television commercials showing how EASY it is to network their computers to existing Windows and Linux corporate networks and continue running in the event of a virus/worm breakout in the Wintel world. Apple needs to show some compatibility with its computers if they ever intend on selling more units to new customers. Apple needs to show that its computers offer LOWER COST OF OWNERSHIP for many computing environments. I simply don't understand why Apple can't grow a spine and show a hint of agressive advertising. Apple has a really good product, both hardware and software, but people aren't going to buy their computers unless they know they aren't going to be stranded ALONE in the computing world when a slight hiccup occurs with hardware or software. One of my friends who works in business management put it like this: "I'm worried about support for software and hardware. Nobody uses Apples in business because they're not supported". While I disagree partially with my friend's statement, there is a little truth to it. If Apple's in the computer business to make money, it better start showing ADVANTAGES of its products compared to the DISADVANTAGES of competition, otherwise no one will notice their product offerings. With The Borg's long history of patches for its products not doing a very good job of protecting the security of networks, email, documents, etc... Apple could begin with an advertisement detailing those advantages.
Two things that annoy me are filling the gas tank and changing light bulbs. It's time we did alot less of both.
Couple of things:
1. "alot" should be "a lot". "Alot" is a proper word in the English dictionary and does not refer to quantity, look it up.
2. If you're tired of filling up your gas tank so frequently, their are many more cost efficient methods of transportation, the most economical being the bicycle. If that is too slow for your needs, move closer to your place of employment, grocery store, and bank, or get a gas/electric hybrid vehicle from Honda or Toyota, or purchase a small European diesel powered vehicle. Either way, you'll get about 60 miles per gallon.
3. Tired of changing lightbulbs? The Amish (largest population in Lancaster, PA) still use lanterns that burn precious petroleum fuels and even provide heat, a plus to anyone living in Ohio or further North. Candles I think probably give the most bang for the buck, and if you're truly talented enough, and I know you are since you posted an article on Slashdot, use that creative potential to harness the power of E A R W A X. I have no doubt that EARWAX could be a viable source of light, I know, I saw it done in the movie "Shrek", and it burns quite nicely and may even produce a pleasant aroma. Seriously though, Candle light served man through most of his existence on Earth. Hell, even the Bees produce wax that burns nicely and lasts long too, and it gives off a pleasant aroma.
4. One more suggestion, I promise! And this one is totally FREE, as in beer, but requires a little time to get working. There are these little bugs called "Lightening Bugs" that fly around at dusk. Yes, they are free, but you have to spend a little time to capture them. Now, once you have Lightening Bugs captured in a glass jar, rig up some contraption that allows them to fly into a collapsable cavity composed of TWO GLASS PLATES. The instant you smash these bugs between the plate glass, you'll have light for a few hours. Hell, this could be worth your while if you have young children. You get to wear-out the kids by having them hunt down the lightening bugs so you can have a romantic evening with the misses. Oh wait, I'm sorry, you have an account on Slashdot, YOU'RE NOT MARRIED!
B.S. does NOT mean Bachelor of Science, it means BULL SHIT!
M.S. does NOT mean Master of Science, it means MORE SHIT!
Ph.D. does NOT mean Doctor of Philosophy, it means PILED HIGHER AND DEEPER!
First you have to carefully evaluate your career goals. Is this what you really want to do? Next, is their a job market for Ph.D.s? I've been reading about the mass exodus of high tech jobs over to India and Asia, not good. Second, it matters significantly where you get a Ph.D. in science, in addition to any experience you have acquired. Do you have a really good track record of success? Any failures? How did you handle the failures? What types of companies do the graduates get to work at and for how long? Is the turnover number high for a particular job position or company?
A masters degree may be all that you really need. If you have the desire to get a Ph.D., an alternative to getting a Ph.D. is launching your own business as an independent programmer, consultant, etc... This too can be very rewarding both personally and financially. There's nothing quite like being the boss. Plus, you get to use travel and luncheons, dinners, small vacations as business expenses. In addition, after you've had several successes with a business venture, casually mentioning it to your employer may indicate you're more competent than the average Borg Drone and could make you a candidate for promotion.
Another alternative is to go back to school and get an M.B.A. The M.B.A. was designed for non-business majors, professionals in science and many other fields to work in administrative positions. Again, where you the M.B.A. also matters.
I was told by my undergraduate academic advisor NOT to get a Ph.D. from a non-ranked chemistry program. At the very minimum, one would want to get a Ph.D. from Ohio State University or the University of Michigan in AnnArbor, because the Ph.D. is a terminal degree, meaning there is no other degree above that, and with a Ph.D. you will be expected to perform with the same level of expertise, competancy and detail, and responsibility of your peers graduating from Harvard, Yale, Stanford, MIT, Columbia, Brown, (Ivy Leagues and many second-tiered schools).
So, very carefully evaluate what you think is best for you. Don't get a Ph.D. just so you can be called "doctor". Being called "doctor" from a non-ranked program can be more embarrassing and humiliating than the greatest on-the-job screw up you've ever done. When you go applying for positions that require Ph.D. experience, you may be at the interview to make the other candidates who graduated from better and more selective programs look better. I know, I've earned a masters degree from a non-ranked program (which is "OK" for most careers in chemistry), however, my next goal is to get an M.B.A. because that will take me further and get me out of the laboratory.
ALL YOUR CONSCIOUSNESS ARE BELONG TO YOUR GENETICS AND ENVIRONMENT.
So he can save our communities from wild fires by destroying and "thinning" millions of acres of treasured forests. Yes, indeed, this will save our homes, AND improve the environment! Because, as we all know, if the forests can't burn out of control to begin with, then global warming will be slowed down. But this initiative will only last a shot time, as George "Dubya" will see the gains of not having uncontrolled forest fires as a justification for burning more oil to replace the carbon dioxide that would have otherwise been dumped into the air by the forest fires.
Shucks, and you thought George "Dubya" wasn't environmentally friendly. Shame on you.
One of the side effects, however, is an unpleasant body odour
To counteract the foul stench caused by metabolizing creatine, take chlorophyll which is available at your local health food store. Chlorophyll is a natural internal deodorant that assists in destroying the stinky metabolites produced in our bodies, including bad breath. It does this through the chemistry of porphyrins, which are known to be very reactive when they are de-metalated (removing magnesium or copper from the porphyrin metal center in the case of chlorophyll).
On a somewhat related note, when you bruise your skin and observe yellow/brown/blue colorations in the area of the injury site, the hemoglobin (a porphyrin with iron in the metal center) is being broken down into the components of bile, which are those colors mentioned. In fact, some medications have porphyrins in them, so don't get exposed to direct sunlight when taking these meds, as de-metalated porphyrins break down into radicals upon exposure to UV radiation. This is why they are also used as insecticides.
Somebody's going to JAIL! NA NA, NA NA NA!...
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SCO Execs Dumping Stock
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· Score: 0, Offtopic
Don't you just love insider trading? I hope these guys get the full-blown federal ass-pounding prison experience. Now, if this could only happen to Billy Boy and his Borg Goons.
They could participate in the "Prison Life" magazine with an editorial written by Martha Stewart with titles such as "Creative Methods for Retrieving Objects from Outside Your Prison Cell", or "How to Shmooze the Parole Board into Letting You Out Earlier Than You Deserve", "Tricks for Getting the Warden to Grant You Special Priviledges", "Lies, Lies, and More Lies for Your Continued Tardiness with Your Parole Officer". Oh my! The titles could go on! But not to worry, there's plenty of TIME for those future articles!
Humans don't deserve immortality. Look at the way we treat one another. We use others for personal gain even when it is detrimental to the other party, we hold others down/back from personal and career development, again, for our personal gain/amusement. We destroy millions of acres of treasured forests and wild life (only if you live in the USA with George "Dubya" as President). Our economies are too consumer-oriented with emphasis being placed on expendable products (it's broke, don't fix it, discard it, and buy NEW!).
More importantly though, the human body was never meant to live longer than about 100 years. The brain begins to fail, the immune system begins to fail, toxins are not removed from the body as quickly and do more harm to the tissues and organs. Organs in general cannot sustain their functionality because those telomeres get chopped off with every divide. Key protein and hormaone production cells fail as well.
Relying on pigs and other animals is not the answer either. Any one see the movie "Parts"? Now that's the way to go! Grow humans for the sole purpose of replacement parts for the original.
Humans just are not ready yet for immortality, just as we (a pre-Warp society) are not yet ready to join the Federation of Planets. We have to hurry up and evolve a little more before we can tackle immortality. Should be another 10,000 to 20,000 years by my estimates. It will take this long because we will destroy so much of our natural environment that necessitates a change in our society and gene pool (many people will die) whereby the select few will survive to take the human race to the next level with an enhanced consciouness and sense of responsibility for life.
Ya know, the economy is pretty bad right now, for everyone. But you can't get law-suit happy when your profits go down. I don't know who is worse, the RIAA or SCO. They keep this up, the DOJ will set them straight in time. Meanwhile, The Borg are loving every minute of this, keeps businesses in the Borg Collective for a while longer, that is until people start to THINK for themselves again. Of course, there is always Apple and Mac OS X. The best of both worlds: able to run open-source software with a single recompile for X Windows, able to leap tall Wall Street needs by running M$ Office as the business world requires.
Let's nominate this guy for a Darwin Award. I mean, c'mon, if the guy is stupid enough to do ALL THESE THINGS and land a rather cushy 1 year federal hard ass-pounding prison term, I'd think he's rather damned fortunate he didn't get the all expenses paid 20-year vacation/sabatical from daily grind of whatever it is he calls work.
Gosh, THIS is good news. I was absolutely DEVASTATED when HP stopped making (the HP48) calculators. I've never owned an HP49, but heard they were close to the HP48. Wow, this is exciting, of course, only a geek/nerd would be. I can't wait to get my hands on one. USB, cool, it should work with Mac OS X. I just hope it runs all my old code. And I thought I was doomed to using Texas Instruments calculators for the rest of my life or persuing eBay for HP leftovers. Anyone not in the know must know that HP made THE BEST calculators EVER for reliability, functionality, ACCURACY, and features. These things were designed to last a lifetime of a professional.
For those interested in running an HP48 on their Macintosh (Mac OS X and 9), here's a good HP48 emulator:
Does anyone honestly believe that Apple has any REAL control of the iTunes Music Store? Agreements with the record labels had to be made. This is above all else, a money making venture, a software service to which Apple excels. And just to remind everyone, the reason we have DRM today is because people abused digital media in the past, and there is ample evidence to support that argument. Apple gives us more freedom than most, but just because it has approximately 4% market share doesn't mean the record labels give away all that freedom to the independently thinking few. When iTunes 4.0 was released, many people abused the internet file sharing feature and Apple taketh away.
If the RIAA starts going after the parents' of file sharing children, people are going to get really pissed and some crack will find out where members of the RIAA live and do a few "Malvo's" on them. While I agree that this is highly illegal, the RIAA will take this subtle hint and back-off this bullshit that their industry is dying because of file sharers. The RIAA needs to wake up, the entire fricking economy is REALLY BAD OFF now. Everyone's profits are down except Exxon Mobile! Another reason their profits are down is because their business model is antiquated and FAILING miserably. This is nolonger about intellectual propery rights, it's about money and protecting and keeping the cash hord large enough to fight unethical legal battles on every front.
All your music are belong to constructive and destructive interefering multiphasic sines waves.
I don't know if the time line is right, but upper management has a grip on greed that is currently driving manufacturing and white collar jobs over seas to cheaper labor markets. With the implementation of ISO standards (9000, 9001, 17025, GMP, GLP, etc...) into many work places, it won't be before long that these satelite companies in India, China, and Russia wake up, break away from the parent companies (either by economic pressures or political pressure from governments) and form their own upper management. This is exactly how the United States will lose its Super Power status because it will be filled with an high population of unskilled workers who are no longer educated in science, engineering, and manufacturing. Those jobs will all be found overseas. What will be left is a waste land of service jobs, management, doctors, lawyers, and politicians in case case their own economy will eventually collapse onto themselves. The quality of college education will start to decline because the science and engineering jobs will decline in popularity, won't be saught after by prospective students, and hence will receive progressively less funding from the US Government. Don't worry, it gets worse. Driven by the ever need for greed, the management will start to implement robotics to drive down the costs of service in the USA as the economy continues its downward trend and which causes Alan Greenspan's most horrid fears: DEFLATION. Products and services will have to become so cheap and low cost that robotics will be the only answer to the economic pressures that WE HAVE IMPOSED ON OURSELVES.
Welcome to the 21st Century! We are headed for either one of two futures: an "Artificial Intelligence" future where population controls will exist and we must be very careful about where we spend our resources for manufacturing, or we will endure the future of "Terminators" where we will create machines that think andeventually over take us.
Let's face it people, Human existence is starting to get REALLY expensive. Why the hell do you think all those jobs are moving to overseas markets? Overall, the quality of life of the human race will improve TEMPORARILY, until there will be no place cheaper to manufacture goods and services. We are experiencing an economic equilibrium. When that is reached, then the robotics will appear in everyday life. And we have this to look forward to because of GREED, 20% to 50% profits are always expected on Wall Street, and these rocket scientist Harvard MBAs will do everything to meet or beat the street. Companies don't care about quality of life, they care about MONEY! What's this say about Human Nature? It's all about resources, the "Haves" and the "Have Nots".
Toledo, Ohio: The Toledo Museum of Art, world reknowned for its works of art. The Toledo Zoo, one of the best zoos in North America.
Surrounding areas: 20 miles southwest of Toledo is Oak Openings Preserve. One of America's prized Oak Savannas that includes a 17 mile hiking trail. 50 - 75 Northeast of Toledo are several Lake Erie Islands, one of which is home to Put-In-Bay, a really nice place to pick up chicks and get stoned frickin' drunk. Be sure to visit the Perry Monument on Put-In-Bay Island, it provides a wonderfully breathtaking view that allows you to see all along the coast of northern Ohio and Southern Canada. Also, there are plenty of Hooters in this area and a host of coed colleges and universities to supply them. Also in this general area is Cedar Point, home of the highest, fastest rollercoaster in the World (Top Thrill Dragster: 120 mph in 4 seconds!), and home to more rollercoasters than any other amusement park in the world. North of Toledo is Detroit, home of the Big TWO automakers, used to be the Big Three, until DaimlerBenz purchased Chrysler and renamed itself DaimlerChrysler. You can visit the Dodge-Wilson Estate (the Dodge of Chrysler) or the Ford Estate that is REALLY cool if you like seeing Automakers' family living quarters.
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One shouldn't even be discussing patient confidentiality issues over a telephone either. Half the conversation can be heard, and most of what is said from one party can be inferred to get much of the meaning of the whole conversation. The example to which I was referring would involve requesting assistance in another area of the hospital or requesting supplies to a specified area, or for making a generalized announcement of an emergency procedure, such as a fire located in a certain area, or flooding from a water main break, or a critical equipment failure in an intensive care unit. Those examples would be ideal for hands-free communication.
With current technology, cell phones have voice/speech recognition, decent battery life, and have decreased in size approximately equal to a pager. There is no reason a small cell phone-like device a little larger than a Star Trek Communicator could not be manufactured. All the technology is there, and with low power embedded AltiVec'd-PowerPC chips, intelligent voice (user) command recognition should not be a problem to engineer into such a small device. The problem is there must be a market for such a device. The other problem is that one loses the "private" conversation with such a device unless s/he is alone. But if the device is used for work place communication, privacy is of no concern.
The bacteria have always been there and always will be present. Cell phones shouldn't be engineered to destroy bacteria because as we educated folk know, biological systems always find a way to work around obsticles. The phones should not be used in a hospital setting. Hospitals are notorious breeding grounds for all kinds of nasty bugs; I know, I worked in one for 7 years. The best way to prevent spreading bacteria is to clean all surfaces effectively with the appropriate surfactant and minimize contact.
This sheds some light on neural processing and perception. The first thing that came to mind when reading about this is that "if you can raed tihs?" also implies "context" into "raeding tihs". I found, personally, that after everyone started misspelling their comments that I could follow the sentence along, deciphering and interpreting as long as I could predict what was going to be said. Some people garbled the words so much that I could no longer comprehend the misspelled words simply because I could not predict what the writer was trying to explain. When I say that I can "predict" with some certainty what will be said, I mean that internally in my little brain, the gramatical syntax processing emerges to interpret sequentially what words have been read, interpreted, and what words should follow to make gramatical sense such that as we in the English language label as a "complete thought" with a subject, verb(s), direct object, indirect object, adjectives, etc... This is how I think we are still able to "raed tihs" as it is misspelled. It is an excellent exercise in measuring gramatical syntax and comprehension, including a feature known in the IQ and MQ arena as "span", i.e. attention span. This plays an inportant role in comprehension and mental functioning. The ability to focus and manipulate as many pieces of information (brain RAM) also is important for mental processing.
Wow, this is cool stuff!
Did you go to Sylvia Browne?
Strangely enough, since I didn't value the session at all, I never made it a point to remember her name. All I know is that I went to this psychic in Nashville, Tennessee, because my internet friend (a girl I met online) said she was really worth the time. As I said, I don't believe in "psychic crap" and I only went to the session out of respect for my friend. It was only an hour wasted and I wanted to keep my new female friend happy and not insult her. Personally, I think it was just one of those things couples do for fun when they are getting to know one another, but as it turned out, the internet chick dumped me, the geek, for a lawyer. Guess I wasn't very high up on the income and social prestige/status ladder of life. That was a bummer because she was really cute, Columbian ethnicity, PETITE, long dark thick hair, very attractive facial and body features, quiet reserved personality, very polite, nice complexion, a GRADUATE degree in accounting, etc...she was a keeper. Gosh, just thinking about this HURTS!
Perhaps. But the truth is that you were made aware of her predictions as they were made, and therefore cannot draw any conclusions as to the validity of said predictions. A somewhat more reasonable (but hardly scientifically or statistically valid) test would be if she had taken her "reading" of you and written the predictions down on paper for you to read later, after they had come true (or didn't.) But most poeple won't pay for that: they want to know right now whether they are going to be successful, die of a blood clot, or marry the man/woman of their dreams.
And I will bet dollars to doughnuts that if you had made a recording of the event, and played it back later, you would have found that she was substantially sharper than you thought, and reeled you in like a fish. There may be true psychics out there (unlikely though that may be) but most of them are just very, very good at social engineering. The fact that you walked away believing that she had made valid predictions about you, or even if she was ultimately proven correct, says absolutely nothing about whether some paranormal or heretofore undiscovered neurological activity was involved. Unfortunately, none of the serious research that I've been able to find on the subject (and there appears to have been some) has ever shown that these powers exist. Proponents will say, of course, that such powers simply do not work in a laboratory setting. The simple way around that would be to interview and track several thousand customers of/visitors to so-called psychics and see whether any patterns appear in the recorded statistics. Recording the actual reading would be a good idea as well, so that any verbal con-artistry can be weeded out of the numbers, but I doubt that many psychics would submit to that.
As I mentioned before, I rejected everything she said and I still don't *believe* in psychics. I still think it was just chance that everything happened as she said it would. I agree completely that these people are professional social engineers and can "read" people pretty well. I expected that when I went to the session, so I purposely did not show any emotion of facial expressions. I simply minimized my verbal responses to her questions and comments as much as I could. And interestingly enough, the psychic provides an audio recording of the session. I have gone back and listened to it about once a year and noticed that certain things happened approximately when she said they would. The timing of course is not important to me, but the fact that many (about 85%) of the events she said would happen have occured. Personally, I still don't believe in it for many reasons, i.e. there is no scientific validity that what she is saying is true, there is currently no way to measure this phenomenon, and I know that people are in control of their lives (not necessarily including traumatic accidents, but rather goals, life's expectations, reactions to events, motivations, drives, etc...)
Perhaps an interesting experiment would be to recruit volunteers for a study, not tell the volunteers that they are being read by a psychic, but only that someone will look at them and "evaluate" them based on a brief social meeting. It would be no different from meeting a psychologist to answer questions or make comments based on appearance, speech intonations, etc... The volunteers would not have access to the comments for 10 to 15 years. Then it would be interesting to see how much if any of the predictions would come true. Of course, we could always involve twins in the study just to throw off the psychics.
Well, enough of this pointless hogwash (and waste of time). I can't believe I'm commenting about psychics on Slashdot. I only wanted to clarify some assumptions about your post.
Also, strange sensations like Deja Vu or Premonition I don't think can be explained through this study.
Deja Vu can be experienced by any person whose brain is properly stimulated. I worked as a Sleep Disorders Technician/EEG Technician at a hospital to finance my college education. Part of the on-the-job training was viewing videos and suggested reading by physicians and department managers. I recall seeing one video where a patient undergoing a medical study (from the 1960s) had a portion of the skull removed and the surface of the brain exposed. Doctors placed an array of electrodes on the cerebral cortex and stimulated the brain with a few microvolts of electricity. The patient, being conscious of course, said he had feelings of deja vu. On a related note, even the "tunnel experience" many people claim to see who have had near death experiences can also be stimulated without having the *real* near death experience.
Citing a strange experience, I very reluctantly went to a reknowned psychic with a close friend who said was known for helping police solve murder crimes. Being a scientist, I rejected the session as utter hogwash, but for the life of me, I cannot explain how most of everything the psychic woman told me has come true. Even the authors of the "The Mind's I", Douglas R. Hofstadter and Daniel C. Dennett have noted scientific studies that suggest some psychic phenomena cannot be explained by statistical chance alone. Perhaps these psychics are somehow able to extrapolate what clients might do in the future based on some electromagnetic signature or pattern in the brain. The reason I mention this is that part of my training as an EEG technician involved doing brain death determination studies. The test is performed using an Electroencephalographic recording instrument with the sensitivity set to the most sensitive setting. During that training, my mentor shouted in the room "nobody move", and I said "like this [waving my left arm]". My mentor then made a note in the patient log "technician waving arm" because my waving arm with an electromagnetic field was recorded in the dead patient's drain death determination EEG test. The EEG waves showing no brainwave activity from the patient, slowly swayed (very low frequency) in a manner associated with the movement of my arm. Perhaps these psychics are able to pick up on this electromagnetic field and obtain useful data from it. I know this is pure speculation without evidence, but when confronted with these phenomena, one can only guess as to a possible explaination based on current scientific principles.
My entire point is...the guy who bought his Dell laptop WASTED A LOT of time calling Dell, talking to clueless people who could never help him because Dell never intended people to question the Dell EULA. Dell assumes that the general population are mindless drones that respond to an environment rather than engage and participate in it. This guy wasted HOURS and got nowhere but pissed-off at Dell. My other point is that Apple NEVER does this to its customers. You see, Micro$oft started this bullshit being agressive with its EULA, now the hardware manufacturers are doing it. Why? Why harass your user base? Is it presumption that the Wintel world is so large that they can FUCK EVERYONE over whenever they want. It's cruel and serves no other purpose than to lock-in a purchase, oh you pressed ANY KEY and AGREED to the EULA, sorry, can't take back your computer, you're stuck with it. And I question is it legal? Well, probably, since Dell's doing it and they probably consulted with several lawyers. Is it moral? HELL NO! Fucking Bastards, Dell deserves negative press coverage from shit like this, man, now I'm pissed-off. I hate seeing people get screwed for no reason.
I am happy to own an Apple Power Macintosh. Apple doesn't screw around with its users. Apple doesn't put all kinds of weird icons like AOL, MSN, EarthLink on my desktop. The computer comes out of the box with a blank desktop, no gimick license agreements, and best of all, everything works well all the time. Good God, why oh why do people WASTE their time with Wintel?
My boss just won the raffle for an old company laptop. He went out and purchased a wireless PC card. When he installed it and loaded the software, the software said to install the Windows 98 2nd Edition installation CD. Well, he didn't have one since it was a recently retired company laptop, and installation CDs at the company are VERBOTTEN except for the IT department. I told him if he had an Apple, everything would have worked from the beginning, and he still would not have had to install any additional software. He spent 5 hours playing around with installation CDs at home, calling the wireless PC card company to see if they could just email him the drivers, he's even contacted the company IT department and they haven't gotten back with him yet. By golly, that old laptop sure was a bargain. That's 5 hours he could have used for spending time with his family, having fun, or doing something truly productive. I guess it comes down to "What is your time worth in your life?" Personally, I don't have any time to waste and I need everything to work out of the box with no fuss.
Apple, it's the way to go for personal computing needs. All you can do with a PC is use it as a space heater, a door stop, or an enclosure for a fireworks event.
Apple's Marketing department needs to show television commercials showing how EASY it is to network their computers to existing Windows and Linux corporate networks and continue running in the event of a virus/worm breakout in the Wintel world. Apple needs to show some compatibility with its computers if they ever intend on selling more units to new customers. Apple needs to show that its computers offer LOWER COST OF OWNERSHIP for many computing environments. I simply don't understand why Apple can't grow a spine and show a hint of agressive advertising. Apple has a really good product, both hardware and software, but people aren't going to buy their computers unless they know they aren't going to be stranded ALONE in the computing world when a slight hiccup occurs with hardware or software. One of my friends who works in business management put it like this: "I'm worried about support for software and hardware. Nobody uses Apples in business because they're not supported". While I disagree partially with my friend's statement, there is a little truth to it. If Apple's in the computer business to make money, it better start showing ADVANTAGES of its products compared to the DISADVANTAGES of competition, otherwise no one will notice their product offerings. With The Borg's long history of patches for its products not doing a very good job of protecting the security of networks, email, documents, etc... Apple could begin with an advertisement detailing those advantages.
Sorry. I do have an aunt near Detroit, but she's not a geek.
Thank you so much NerdGirl82 for your response.
Best Regards, A lonely geek chemist.
This summer, I married a long-time slashdotter. #3115, to be precise.
Do you have any single girlfirends aged 25 to 35 living in the Detroit Michigan/Toledo Ohio area?
Two things that annoy me are filling the gas tank and changing light bulbs. It's time we did alot less of both.
Couple of things:
1. "alot" should be "a lot". "Alot" is a proper word in the English dictionary and does not refer to quantity, look it up.
2. If you're tired of filling up your gas tank so frequently, their are many more cost efficient methods of transportation, the most economical being the bicycle. If that is too slow for your needs, move closer to your place of employment, grocery store, and bank, or get a gas/electric hybrid vehicle from Honda or Toyota, or purchase a small European diesel powered vehicle. Either way, you'll get about 60 miles per gallon.
3. Tired of changing lightbulbs? The Amish (largest population in Lancaster, PA) still use lanterns that burn precious petroleum fuels and even provide heat, a plus to anyone living in Ohio or further North. Candles I think probably give the most bang for the buck, and if you're truly talented enough, and I know you are since you posted an article on Slashdot, use that creative potential to harness the power of E A R W A X. I have no doubt that EARWAX could be a viable source of light, I know, I saw it done in the movie "Shrek", and it burns quite nicely and may even produce a pleasant aroma. Seriously though, Candle light served man through most of his existence on Earth. Hell, even the Bees produce wax that burns nicely and lasts long too, and it gives off a pleasant aroma.
4. One more suggestion, I promise! And this one is totally FREE, as in beer, but requires a little time to get working. There are these little bugs called "Lightening Bugs" that fly around at dusk. Yes, they are free, but you have to spend a little time to capture them. Now, once you have Lightening Bugs captured in a glass jar, rig up some contraption that allows them to fly into a collapsable cavity composed of TWO GLASS PLATES. The instant you smash these bugs between the plate glass, you'll have light for a few hours. Hell, this could be worth your while if you have young children. You get to wear-out the kids by having them hunt down the lightening bugs so you can have a romantic evening with the misses. Oh wait, I'm sorry, you have an account on Slashdot, YOU'RE NOT MARRIED!
ALL YOUR LIGHT ARE BELONG TO THE SUN.
Some of Apple's configuration infomation is stored as plain old XML which is viewable and editable in any text editor.
'nuff said. Why oh why do people troll?
There is some truth to this:
B.S. does NOT mean Bachelor of Science, it means BULL SHIT!
M.S. does NOT mean Master of Science, it means MORE SHIT!
Ph.D. does NOT mean Doctor of Philosophy, it means PILED HIGHER AND DEEPER!
First you have to carefully evaluate your career goals. Is this what you really want to do? Next, is their a job market for Ph.D.s? I've been reading about the mass exodus of high tech jobs over to India and Asia, not good. Second, it matters significantly where you get a Ph.D. in science, in addition to any experience you have acquired. Do you have a really good track record of success? Any failures? How did you handle the failures? What types of companies do the graduates get to work at and for how long? Is the turnover number high for a particular job position or company?
A masters degree may be all that you really need. If you have the desire to get a Ph.D., an alternative to getting a Ph.D. is launching your own business as an independent programmer, consultant, etc... This too can be very rewarding both personally and financially. There's nothing quite like being the boss. Plus, you get to use travel and luncheons, dinners, small vacations as business expenses. In addition, after you've had several successes with a business venture, casually mentioning it to your employer may indicate you're more competent than the average Borg Drone and could make you a candidate for promotion.
Another alternative is to go back to school and get an M.B.A. The M.B.A. was designed for non-business majors, professionals in science and many other fields to work in administrative positions. Again, where you the M.B.A. also matters.
I was told by my undergraduate academic advisor NOT to get a Ph.D. from a non-ranked chemistry program. At the very minimum, one would want to get a Ph.D. from Ohio State University or the University of Michigan in AnnArbor, because the Ph.D. is a terminal degree, meaning there is no other degree above that, and with a Ph.D. you will be expected to perform with the same level of expertise, competancy and detail, and responsibility of your peers graduating from Harvard, Yale, Stanford, MIT, Columbia, Brown, (Ivy Leagues and many second-tiered schools).
So, very carefully evaluate what you think is best for you. Don't get a Ph.D. just so you can be called "doctor". Being called "doctor" from a non-ranked program can be more embarrassing and humiliating than the greatest on-the-job screw up you've ever done. When you go applying for positions that require Ph.D. experience, you may be at the interview to make the other candidates who graduated from better and more selective programs look better. I know, I've earned a masters degree from a non-ranked program (which is "OK" for most careers in chemistry), however, my next goal is to get an M.B.A. because that will take me further and get me out of the laboratory.
ALL YOUR CONSCIOUSNESS ARE BELONG TO YOUR GENETICS AND ENVIRONMENT.
So he can save our communities from wild fires by destroying and "thinning" millions of acres of treasured forests. Yes, indeed, this will save our homes, AND improve the environment! Because, as we all know, if the forests can't burn out of control to begin with, then global warming will be slowed down. But this initiative will only last a shot time, as George "Dubya" will see the gains of not having uncontrolled forest fires as a justification for burning more oil to replace the carbon dioxide that would have otherwise been dumped into the air by the forest fires.
Shucks, and you thought George "Dubya" wasn't environmentally friendly. Shame on you.
One of the side effects, however, is an unpleasant body odour
To counteract the foul stench caused by metabolizing creatine, take chlorophyll which is available at your local health food store. Chlorophyll is a natural internal deodorant that assists in destroying the stinky metabolites produced in our bodies, including bad breath. It does this through the chemistry of porphyrins, which are known to be very reactive when they are de-metalated (removing magnesium or copper from the porphyrin metal center in the case of chlorophyll).
On a somewhat related note, when you bruise your skin and observe yellow/brown/blue colorations in the area of the injury site, the hemoglobin (a porphyrin with iron in the metal center) is being broken down into the components of bile, which are those colors mentioned. In fact, some medications have porphyrins in them, so don't get exposed to direct sunlight when taking these meds, as de-metalated porphyrins break down into radicals upon exposure to UV radiation. This is why they are also used as insecticides.
Don't you just love insider trading? I hope these guys get the full-blown federal ass-pounding prison experience. Now, if this could only happen to Billy Boy and his Borg Goons.
They could participate in the "Prison Life" magazine with an editorial written by Martha Stewart with titles such as "Creative Methods for Retrieving Objects from Outside Your Prison Cell", or "How to Shmooze the Parole Board into Letting You Out Earlier Than You Deserve", "Tricks for Getting the Warden to Grant You Special Priviledges", "Lies, Lies, and More Lies for Your Continued Tardiness with Your Parole Officer". Oh my! The titles could go on! But not to worry, there's plenty of TIME for those future articles!
Humans don't deserve immortality. Look at the way we treat one another. We use others for personal gain even when it is detrimental to the other party, we hold others down/back from personal and career development, again, for our personal gain/amusement. We destroy millions of acres of treasured forests and wild life (only if you live in the USA with George "Dubya" as President). Our economies are too consumer-oriented with emphasis being placed on expendable products (it's broke, don't fix it, discard it, and buy NEW!).
More importantly though, the human body was never meant to live longer than about 100 years. The brain begins to fail, the immune system begins to fail, toxins are not removed from the body as quickly and do more harm to the tissues and organs. Organs in general cannot sustain their functionality because those telomeres get chopped off with every divide. Key protein and hormaone production cells fail as well.
Relying on pigs and other animals is not the answer either. Any one see the movie "Parts"? Now that's the way to go! Grow humans for the sole purpose of replacement parts for the original.
Humans just are not ready yet for immortality, just as we (a pre-Warp society) are not yet ready to join the Federation of Planets. We have to hurry up and evolve a little more before we can tackle immortality. Should be another 10,000 to 20,000 years by my estimates. It will take this long because we will destroy so much of our natural environment that necessitates a change in our society and gene pool (many people will die) whereby the select few will survive to take the human race to the next level with an enhanced consciouness and sense of responsibility for life.
Ya know, the economy is pretty bad right now, for everyone. But you can't get law-suit happy when your profits go down. I don't know who is worse, the RIAA or SCO. They keep this up, the DOJ will set them straight in time. Meanwhile, The Borg are loving every minute of this, keeps businesses in the Borg Collective for a while longer, that is until people start to THINK for themselves again. Of course, there is always Apple and Mac OS X. The best of both worlds: able to run open-source software with a single recompile for X Windows, able to leap tall Wall Street needs by running M$ Office as the business world requires.
WHACK!
Let's nominate this guy for a Darwin Award. I mean, c'mon, if the guy is stupid enough to do ALL THESE THINGS and land a rather cushy 1 year federal hard ass-pounding prison term, I'd think he's rather damned fortunate he didn't get the all expenses paid 20-year vacation/sabatical from daily grind of whatever it is he calls work.
Gosh, THIS is good news. I was absolutely DEVASTATED when HP stopped making (the HP48) calculators. I've never owned an HP49, but heard they were close to the HP48. Wow, this is exciting, of course, only a geek/nerd would be. I can't wait to get my hands on one. USB, cool, it should work with Mac OS X. I just hope it runs all my old code. And I thought I was doomed to using Texas Instruments calculators for the rest of my life or persuing eBay for HP leftovers. Anyone not in the know must know that HP made THE BEST calculators EVER for reliability, functionality, ACCURACY, and features. These things were designed to last a lifetime of a professional.
e /x48.html
For those interested in running an HP48 on their Macintosh (Mac OS X and 9), here's a good HP48 emulator:
http://www.markus-fritze.de/x48/
http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/math_scienc
All YOUR CALCULATOR ARE BELONG TO HEWLETT PACKARD!
Does anyone honestly believe that Apple has any REAL control of the iTunes Music Store? Agreements with the record labels had to be made. This is above all else, a money making venture, a software service to which Apple excels. And just to remind everyone, the reason we have DRM today is because people abused digital media in the past, and there is ample evidence to support that argument. Apple gives us more freedom than most, but just because it has approximately 4% market share doesn't mean the record labels give away all that freedom to the independently thinking few. When iTunes 4.0 was released, many people abused the internet file sharing feature and Apple taketh away.
If the RIAA starts going after the parents' of file sharing children, people are going to get really pissed and some crack will find out where members of the RIAA live and do a few "Malvo's" on them. While I agree that this is highly illegal, the RIAA will take this subtle hint and back-off this bullshit that their industry is dying because of file sharers. The RIAA needs to wake up, the entire fricking economy is REALLY BAD OFF now. Everyone's profits are down except Exxon Mobile! Another reason their profits are down is because their business model is antiquated and FAILING miserably. This is nolonger about intellectual propery rights, it's about money and protecting and keeping the cash hord large enough to fight unethical legal battles on every front.
All your music are belong to constructive and destructive interefering multiphasic sines waves.
I don't know if the time line is right, but upper management has a grip on greed that is currently driving manufacturing and white collar jobs over seas to cheaper labor markets. With the implementation of ISO standards (9000, 9001, 17025, GMP, GLP, etc...) into many work places, it won't be before long that these satelite companies in India, China, and Russia wake up, break away from the parent companies (either by economic pressures or political pressure from governments) and form their own upper management. This is exactly how the United States will lose its Super Power status because it will be filled with an high population of unskilled workers who are no longer educated in science, engineering, and manufacturing. Those jobs will all be found overseas. What will be left is a waste land of service jobs, management, doctors, lawyers, and politicians in case case their own economy will eventually collapse onto themselves. The quality of college education will start to decline because the science and engineering jobs will decline in popularity, won't be saught after by prospective students, and hence will receive progressively less funding from the US Government. Don't worry, it gets worse. Driven by the ever need for greed, the management will start to implement robotics to drive down the costs of service in the USA as the economy continues its downward trend and which causes Alan Greenspan's most horrid fears: DEFLATION. Products and services will have to become so cheap and low cost that robotics will be the only answer to the economic pressures that WE HAVE IMPOSED ON OURSELVES.
Welcome to the 21st Century! We are headed for either one of two futures: an "Artificial Intelligence" future where population controls will exist and we must be very careful about where we spend our resources for manufacturing, or we will endure the future of "Terminators" where we will create machines that think andeventually over take us.
Let's face it people, Human existence is starting to get REALLY expensive. Why the hell do you think all those jobs are moving to overseas markets? Overall, the quality of life of the human race will improve TEMPORARILY, until there will be no place cheaper to manufacture goods and services. We are experiencing an economic equilibrium. When that is reached, then the robotics will appear in everyday life. And we have this to look forward to because of GREED, 20% to 50% profits are always expected on Wall Street, and these rocket scientist Harvard MBAs will do everything to meet or beat the street. Companies don't care about quality of life, they care about MONEY! What's this say about Human Nature? It's all about resources, the "Haves" and the "Have Nots".
Toledo, Ohio: The Toledo Museum of Art, world reknowned for its works of art. The Toledo Zoo, one of the best zoos in North America.
Surrounding areas: 20 miles southwest of Toledo is Oak Openings Preserve. One of America's prized Oak Savannas that includes a 17 mile hiking trail. 50 - 75 Northeast of Toledo are several Lake Erie Islands, one of which is home to Put-In-Bay, a really nice place to pick up chicks and get stoned frickin' drunk. Be sure to visit the Perry Monument on Put-In-Bay Island, it provides a wonderfully breathtaking view that allows you to see all along the coast of northern Ohio and Southern Canada. Also, there are plenty of Hooters in this area and a host of coed colleges and universities to supply them. Also in this general area is Cedar Point, home of the highest, fastest rollercoaster in the World (Top Thrill Dragster: 120 mph in 4 seconds!), and home to more rollercoasters than any other amusement park in the world. North of Toledo is Detroit, home of the Big TWO automakers, used to be the Big Three, until DaimlerBenz purchased Chrysler and renamed itself DaimlerChrysler. You can visit the Dodge-Wilson Estate (the Dodge of Chrysler) or the Ford Estate that is REALLY cool if you like seeing Automakers' family living quarters.