Yes, but having 1000 people combat in the same system, is a massive requirement on the servers. Today they weigh two tons, the whole cluster weighs two tons. Mine weighs 3 tons! It must be faster.
It'll take more for optometrists to lose their jobs... There are many many factors that go into making a pair of glasses correctly, and while much of that can be automated, the rest is subjective. I'm sure my sister (an optometrist) would welcome this kind of machine in her office to do the basic workup and screening, freeing her up to do the real diagnosis and perscription.
Different people react differently to all sorts of things like lens material, especially migraine sufferers.
Different perscriptions are appropriate for different situations, for example you need a lower perscription for computer use, and higher perscription for driving at night (because your perscription changes slightly when your eyes dilate). The degree of these small variations is subjective, and it takes knowledge and experience (and several tries) to figure out what's right for each person.
Aside from just writing a perscription, an optometrist routinely checks for a long list of eye problems and diseases. If you haven't had a complete eye exam in a while (or ever), it'd be a good idea, especially if covered by insurance. It's also highly recommended for babies at about 6 months. There are many problems such as lazy eye that can be corrected easily through vision therapy if diagnosed at that point.
This obviously would be a great advance for poor areas where optometry is unavailable, and can provide a cheap basic pair of lenses to everyone. But there is alot more to it than just another machine at Walmart. Count your blessings and get an eye exam if it's available to you. Kinda hard to be a computer geek without eyes...
In this field there are basically few options. You become a network guy who gets beeped at all hours of the night, a programmer who gets yanked like a puppet by the marketing wanks, or a project manager who kisses ass all day long hoping to get the programmers to actually do some work while lying full time to the marketing wanks.
In this field there are basically few options. You become a Surgeon who gets beeped at all hours of the night, an Internal Medicine doc who gets yanked like a puppet by the Insurance wanks, or a Private Practicianer who busts his ass all day long working an assembly line of patients just to make ends meet while lying full time to the insurance wanks.
There's a reason there aren't many MDs reading slashdot, and it's not usually because they're out playing golf. The medical profession isn't always what we crack it up to be.
1)"Free" is not a good motivator - coming in under budget is not a motivator if they want budget they need to spend budget
Unfortunately this is so true... I built a web calendar for a research group at a major university, using linux/apache and an opensource calendar. They went ahead and bought a Mac X Serve and had me port the thing over, doubling the billable hours for me (not that I minded), even though I had already demo'd it on one of their spare outdated PCs.
The basic law of government/educational budgets is "Use it or lose it."
Yes, free prequels sell the new books, but the basis of these sales is the fact that Baen picks great authors. The free ebooks generate exposure, but if the books sucked, nobody would buy the new books no matter how much exposure it gets.
Witness the music industry -- how many of us have bought the latest Britney Spears or Celine Dion trash? That crap gets way more exposure than a few Baen ebooks, but if it's crap, then nobody will buy it anyways. (If you happen to _like_ those singers, well, flame away;-). Heck why even bother pirating crap like that?
BTW, if you haven't yet, read the articles from Baen author Eric Flint regarding the free library and how he came up with the idea, as well as the remifications on his royalties from his books:
http://www.baen.com/library/palaver_index.htm
Slashdot Mirror
It'll take more for optometrists to lose their jobs... There are many many factors that go into making a pair of glasses correctly, and while much of that can be automated, the rest is subjective. I'm sure my sister (an optometrist) would welcome this kind of machine in her office to do the basic workup and screening, freeing her up to do the real diagnosis and perscription.
Different people react differently to all sorts of things like lens material, especially migraine sufferers.
Different perscriptions are appropriate for different situations, for example you need a lower perscription for computer use, and higher perscription for driving at night (because your perscription changes slightly when your eyes dilate). The degree of these small variations is subjective, and it takes knowledge and experience (and several tries) to figure out what's right for each person.
Aside from just writing a perscription, an optometrist routinely checks for a long list of eye problems and diseases. If you haven't had a complete eye exam in a while (or ever), it'd be a good idea, especially if covered by insurance. It's also highly recommended for babies at about 6 months. There are many problems such as lazy eye that can be corrected easily through vision therapy if diagnosed at that point.
This obviously would be a great advance for poor areas where optometry is unavailable, and can provide a cheap basic pair of lenses to everyone. But there is alot more to it than just another machine at Walmart. Count your blessings and get an eye exam if it's available to you. Kinda hard to be a computer geek without eyes...
Be careful and check the MD5 checksums of that AK47 download, or you might just blow yourself up trying to use it.
Darwin awards at its best.
In this field there are basically few options. You become a network guy who gets beeped at all hours of the night, a programmer who gets yanked like a puppet by the marketing wanks, or a project manager who kisses ass all day long hoping to get the programmers to actually do some work while lying full time to the marketing wanks.
In this field there are basically few options. You become a Surgeon who gets beeped at all hours of the night, an Internal Medicine doc who gets yanked like a puppet by the Insurance wanks, or a Private Practicianer who busts his ass all day long working an assembly line of patients just to make ends meet while lying full time to the insurance wanks.
There's a reason there aren't many MDs reading slashdot, and it's not usually because they're out playing golf. The medical profession isn't always what we crack it up to be.
Do they count the constant hacker and worm traffic that my firewall blocked from Comcast Cable (when I had it) in the totals?
1)"Free" is not a good motivator - coming in under budget is not a motivator if they want budget they need to spend budget
Unfortunately this is so true... I built a web calendar for a research group at a major university, using linux/apache and an opensource calendar. They went ahead and bought a Mac X Serve and had me port the thing over, doubling the billable hours for me (not that I minded), even though I had already demo'd it on one of their spare outdated PCs.
The basic law of government/educational budgets is "Use it or lose it."
I can go a week or so using the net pretty heavily without ever accessing the web at all.
/. for a week?!?
What?! No
Reminds me of building security after 9/11. Nobody could walk in without a card key, but sure, drive your car(bomb) right into the garage for $20/day.
Yes, free prequels sell the new books, but the basis of these sales is the fact that Baen picks great authors. The free ebooks generate exposure, but if the books sucked, nobody would buy the new books no matter how much exposure it gets. Witness the music industry -- how many of us have bought the latest Britney Spears or Celine Dion trash? That crap gets way more exposure than a few Baen ebooks, but if it's crap, then nobody will buy it anyways. (If you happen to _like_ those singers, well, flame away ;-). Heck why even bother pirating crap like that?
BTW, if you haven't yet, read the articles from Baen author Eric Flint regarding the free library and how he came up with the idea, as well as the remifications on his royalties from his books:
http://www.baen.com/library/palaver_index.htm