It was part that, (checking kidney function and potassium level -- I take supplements) but they also insisted on doing a full cholesterol screen (not just the finger prick) every time I went in. I have medium high cholesterol, but a sensitivity to statins -- by the time they get to a dosage that affects my cholesterol level, I need help getting in and out of bed, and walk like an elderly man [1]. So after trying four or five statin with the same results, I've refused to take them, depending on exercise and improving diet instead of drugs. (The blood pressure medicine doesn't appear to have side effects, so I'm happy to take that.)
Despite this, they insist on doing the screen on every monthly visit, which is one of the reasons the price is so high. The issue is, they'll cut me off from the blood pressure medication if I don't come in monthly for the blood test, despite the fact I'm not taking the statins anymore.
[1] When I see an elderly man shuffling along taking tiny uncertain steps, I have to wonder if it's really his age or his medication that makes him walk like that.
The thing is, $20 a month is ok with me. It's down in the noise compared to my other legal expenses. It's the $200 monthly office visits that's killing my budget.
I'm not looking for free medicine, but common, routine things like this shouldn't need constant doctor's supervision. I suspect a profit motive.
I think the radiation issue referred to by many responders is a little exaggerated. It's not like you will get scanned routinely. ('For instance, every time you step on a plane...) It's much more likely that you will be scanned when other symptoms indicate that something is wrong. Test by, if you go to the doctor for a cough, they don't routinely prescribe a chest x-ray.
Or, come to think of it, maybe your doctor does. Practices vary widely. Maybe your exposure would depend on how enamored your doctor is of the technology.
> In the not so distant future, every household might have a Star Trek-like tricorder capable of detecting cancer or other diseases."
I find that unlikely. Much more likely: Even though the device itself costs $12 to make, it will be rigidly controlled and only available at high cost (either through insurance premiums or taxes) from your health provider.
I take one of the most common blood pressure medications available. It's so common and the quantities are so high that manufacture is cheap, so the drug is cheap. I don't even bother with insurance -- I pay cash for the drug. (Approx $20 per month.) However, I can only get it by prescription. My doctor requires monthly visits, including a blood pressure check (fairly pointless as I do it myself 3-4 times a week) and a blood test requiring lab work. After insurance, the cost to me is approx $200 a month. They keep my prescriptions on a short leash, designed to run out right at my appointment date. (Sometimes if they're busy my prescription will run out before my appointment, so when I see them I've been off the drug for 3-4 days, unless I call the office and beg for an extension.) The doctor says this is to insure that I keep my appointment. When I point out I have never missed an appointment and don't deserve to be treated like an errant child, I'm informed that all patients are treated this way.
To recap, a common, well tested drug that costs $20 a month (cash -- no insurance) that I've been taking for years costs me $220 a month total to take due to additional visits and tests required by the doctor's office before they'll allow me to continue taking the drug. Based on this business model, even if full ST:TNG-type scanners were available for less than the price of an iPad, I strongly suspect the actual devices will be rigidly controlled by law and only available through expensive doctor's visits.
(In December I told my doctor to shove it. I'm now shopping around for a doctor who doesn't hold my meds hostage.)
> What It real truth is, that companies like Apple, and my customer supplying parts to apple like, is they don't have to directly supervise people. It is so much easier for them just to be a engineering and marketing company and not worry at all about any "Production" at all. They feel that they are supporting "Talented Engineers" here.
There are a couple problems with that as far as I see -- (1) the people who buy your products have to get the money from somewhere, and if a large enough percentage of jobs go overseas, where do the funds come from to buy their product? Are Apple employees planning to sell products to each other? Is that a viable business model? (2) If you only make three or four popular products, you see major sales at first as everyone wants one, and as you move up the design curve everyone wants the next better one because it's a lot better than the previous one. But eventually you get up on the flat end of the curve, where either technological limits come into play or (like PCs a couple years ago) the product gets better (faster, whatever) than most users need. Then, everyone has one, and the one they have is good enough, and you've officially saturated the market. And then, if you've structured the company on the expectation of large numbers with high profit margin, you're dead.
Man, especially China. We're outsourcing our manufacturing pollution to a place that's still operating on early 20th century standards. Do a google search for China and "ecological disaster".
That's absolutely true. And being desperate to get out of their current situation, the exploited workers will move to a higher paying job as soon as they have enough experience. So even when you get a gem who catches on quickly and starts to produce acceptable work, you won't have them long.
For instance, we've had night shift (our day shift) workers bragging about how they've finally got enough experience for a day shift job (our night shift) and then we never hear from them again.
And you know what? You can hardly blame them. They *are* being exploited, and rudely so, and anyone who could, would go on to a better job as soon as practical. It's not the workers' fault, and I think it's not even their organization's fault, necessarily. The fault firmly lies in the salescreatures who have a real talent for lying, and the suits who believe them.
The problem with that theory is that the money has to come from somewhere. Jobs still have to pay for worker's healthcare, it's just done in taxes instead of directly. And it get funneled through the US government, an institution that has proven repeatedly that it can't do anything efficiently.
> A foreman immediately roused 8,000 workers inside the company's dormitories, and then each employee was given a biscuit and a cup of tea, guided to a workstation and within half an hour started a 12-hour shift fitting glass screens into beveled frames. Within 96 hours, the plant was producing over 10,000 iPhones a day. 'The speed and flexibility is breathtaking,' says one Apple executive.
One person's "breathtaking" is another person's "appalling".
> A huge part of the whole cloud approach is that it is an approach to data storage that comes with all of the redundancy built in. The idea is that it's expensive to run your own redundant data stores, keep them secure, etc. So, one basically outsources it to the cloud.
Parenthetically, how is cloud storage even remotely more secure than a storage appliance in your own machine room? Especially since you're depending on some other company, who only has a contractual obligation to you, and is trying to run on ultra-thin margins? Yeah, if there was a major break-in, they'd be contractually at fault. But in that case the storage company would probably go under anyway, so who are you gonna sue?
I think I'll start a storage company as an LLC. I'll hire stellar marketing, make some slick brochures, and nobody has to know that it's a few 19 inch racks full of raid 0 SSD disks in a shed somewhere. I'll promise the world to my customers in order to get the business, and when disaster strikes -- the roof leaks, or someone figures how to get past the firewall, or the window mounted air conditioner breaks down -- I'll just walk away and start another company somewhere else. $$ Profit!
Agreed, but it still shows incredibly bad planning on the victim's part. In this age of RIAA/MPAA take-downs without any prior warning, you'd have to be one hell of an optimist to store unique data on someone else's cloud service. Backups may be a different thing -- then you're at risk until you find another backup solution but not totally hosed. But it seems from TFA that sites were linking directly to data on the cloud service. That's incredibly lazy architecting and people who do that in this age of cheap storage and web-administered storage appliances deserve what they get. Sorry, I commiserate, but you should have known better.
Even if the cloud storage company signs in blood on a parchment of human skin that they will surrender their soul if your data is lost, if the company is shut down, your data is still lost. Hope you get a good price for that soul on ebay.
I know cloud storage is trendy and all, and maybe I'm just an old fogey, but things like this just confirm my feeling that you should keep your stuff local. There isn't a lot of functional difference between a local storage appliance and storing your stuff in "the cloud". You can even outsource administration if you choose. The difference is, you won't lose your stuff due to the suspected bad behavior of some other company.
How many people got a chill when they saw "crowdsource" and "weapons testing" in the same heading? I had missed "software" on first glance. That made it only a little better.
I'm not sure how this works for temporary shelters, as concrete structures tend to be relatively permanent, getting repurposed instead of torn down.
Someone mentioned that it's the interior plumbing, sheetrock, molding and so forth that's most of the work, not the shell. I worked as a laborer for a building contractor in college, and I can vouch for this. The shell goes up surprisingly fast, and then the real work begins.
But one possible solution for the time and energy required to provision interiors would be to keep the insides as unadorned as the outside, with exposed pipes and wiring. (This isn't as dangerous as it sounds -- modern wiring is quite well sheathed, and wall plugs and switches are completely enclosed in metal or plastic.) This would also allow more convenient access to utility conduits should repairs be necessary. Residents will soon get used to the hollow echo of bare concrete. Or acoustic tiles could be attached in key spots.
Ok for a temporary shelter, but again, if temporary, why concrete? A test balloon for new techniques in resident housing, perhaps?
Now that you mention Asimov, I'm reminded of an early short story called, I think, "It's such a beautiful day", about a society with some kind of instantaneous inter-building transportation that works so well that nobody has ventured outside for decades. I had forgotten that part of Foundation. Apparently it was something Asimov thought about often.
The McGuffin was some kind of trans-dimensional door, necessary for it to be considered science fiction, but you could see where this could happen in real life. Living in a Le Corbusier Ziggurat with giant 4K screens on your rough, poured-concrete walls showing outside views from anywhere in the world and anywhere in time, working in a different Ziggurat in your exquisitely planned community, taking underground rail from home to work to various entertainment kiosks to watch whatever the entertainment moguls care to show you, trudging from mass transit to destination with your earbuds planted and your head down, staring at a four inch screen... You might never venture outside.
Something that has bothered me about some of the comments of this thread... There seems to be a misunderstanding of the difference between genetic and environment. The act of burning calves' horn buds so they do not grow horns does not change their genetic makeup. Their descendants, if they have any, will still have the capability to grow horns. So to say that "cows don't have horns anymore" when they're surgically removed at infancy is, I think, a misunderstanding of what "genetics" means. Altering a cow's genetics to produce offspring with longer or shorter horns or huge flapping suction-enabled tentacles with poison barbs, doesn't depend on whether the candidates currently have their horn buds burned off, as it is successive generations that would be affected by gene manipulation. Dig?
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Agreed, if it ever gets to that. I just have a feeling that the medical community won't allow us regular citizens to own such devices.
It was part that, (checking kidney function and potassium level -- I take supplements) but they also insisted on doing a full cholesterol screen (not just the finger prick) every time I went in. I have medium high cholesterol, but a sensitivity to statins -- by the time they get to a dosage that affects my cholesterol level, I need help getting in and out of bed, and walk like an elderly man [1]. So after trying four or five statin with the same results, I've refused to take them, depending on exercise and improving diet instead of drugs. (The blood pressure medicine doesn't appear to have side effects, so I'm happy to take that.)
Despite this, they insist on doing the screen on every monthly visit, which is one of the reasons the price is so high. The issue is, they'll cut me off from the blood pressure medication if I don't come in monthly for the blood test, despite the fact I'm not taking the statins anymore.
[1] When I see an elderly man shuffling along taking tiny uncertain steps, I have to wonder if it's really his age or his medication that makes him walk like that.
The thing is, $20 a month is ok with me. It's down in the noise compared to my other legal expenses. It's the $200 monthly office visits that's killing my budget.
I'm not looking for free medicine, but common, routine things like this shouldn't need constant doctor's supervision. I suspect a profit motive.
I think the radiation issue referred to by many responders is a little exaggerated. It's not like you will get scanned routinely. ('For instance, every time you step on a plane...) It's much more likely that you will be scanned when other symptoms indicate that something is wrong. Test by, if you go to the doctor for a cough, they don't routinely prescribe a chest x-ray.
Or, come to think of it, maybe your doctor does. Practices vary widely. Maybe your exposure would depend on how enamored your doctor is of the technology.
> In the not so distant future, every household might have a Star Trek-like tricorder capable of detecting cancer or other diseases."
I find that unlikely. Much more likely: Even though the device itself costs $12 to make, it will be rigidly controlled and only available at high cost (either through insurance premiums or taxes) from your health provider.
I take one of the most common blood pressure medications available. It's so common and the quantities are so high that manufacture is cheap, so the drug is cheap. I don't even bother with insurance -- I pay cash for the drug. (Approx $20 per month.) However, I can only get it by prescription. My doctor requires monthly visits, including a blood pressure check (fairly pointless as I do it myself 3-4 times a week) and a blood test requiring lab work. After insurance, the cost to me is approx $200 a month. They keep my prescriptions on a short leash, designed to run out right at my appointment date. (Sometimes if they're busy my prescription will run out before my appointment, so when I see them I've been off the drug for 3-4 days, unless I call the office and beg for an extension.) The doctor says this is to insure that I keep my appointment. When I point out I have never missed an appointment and don't deserve to be treated like an errant child, I'm informed that all patients are treated this way.
To recap, a common, well tested drug that costs $20 a month (cash -- no insurance) that I've been taking for years costs me $220 a month total to take due to additional visits and tests required by the doctor's office before they'll allow me to continue taking the drug. Based on this business model, even if full ST:TNG-type scanners were available for less than the price of an iPad, I strongly suspect the actual devices will be rigidly controlled by law and only available through expensive doctor's visits.
(In December I told my doctor to shove it. I'm now shopping around for a doctor who doesn't hold my meds hostage.)
> What It real truth is, that companies like Apple, and my customer supplying parts to apple like, is they don't have to directly supervise people. It is so much easier for them just to be a engineering and marketing company and not worry at all about any "Production" at all. They feel that they are supporting "Talented Engineers" here.
There are a couple problems with that as far as I see -- (1) the people who buy your products have to get the money from somewhere, and if a large enough percentage of jobs go overseas, where do the funds come from to buy their product? Are Apple employees planning to sell products to each other? Is that a viable business model? (2) If you only make three or four popular products, you see major sales at first as everyone wants one, and as you move up the design curve everyone wants the next better one because it's a lot better than the previous one. But eventually you get up on the flat end of the curve, where either technological limits come into play or (like PCs a couple years ago) the product gets better (faster, whatever) than most users need. Then, everyone has one, and the one they have is good enough, and you've officially saturated the market. And then, if you've structured the company on the expectation of large numbers with high profit margin, you're dead.
Man, especially China. We're outsourcing our manufacturing pollution to a place that's still operating on early 20th century standards. Do a google search for China and "ecological disaster".
That's absolutely true. And being desperate to get out of their current situation, the exploited workers will move to a higher paying job as soon as they have enough experience. So even when you get a gem who catches on quickly and starts to produce acceptable work, you won't have them long.
For instance, we've had night shift (our day shift) workers bragging about how they've finally got enough experience for a day shift job (our night shift) and then we never hear from them again.
And you know what? You can hardly blame them. They *are* being exploited, and rudely so, and anyone who could, would go on to a better job as soon as practical. It's not the workers' fault, and I think it's not even their organization's fault, necessarily. The fault firmly lies in the salescreatures who have a real talent for lying, and the suits who believe them.
The problem with that theory is that the money has to come from somewhere. Jobs still have to pay for worker's healthcare, it's just done in taxes instead of directly. And it get funneled through the US government, an institution that has proven repeatedly that it can't do anything efficiently.
> A foreman immediately roused 8,000 workers inside the company's dormitories, and then each employee was given a biscuit and a cup of tea, guided to a workstation and within half an hour started a 12-hour shift fitting glass screens into beveled frames. Within 96 hours, the plant was producing over 10,000 iPhones a day. 'The speed and flexibility is breathtaking,' says one Apple executive.
One person's "breathtaking" is another person's "appalling".
As in: It is impossible to know whether similarly large short-term temperature fluctuations may have occurred at other times, but are unresolved by the available resolution.
> A huge part of the whole cloud approach is that it is an approach to data storage that comes with all of the redundancy built in. The idea is that it's expensive to run your own redundant data stores, keep them secure, etc. So, one basically outsources it to the cloud.
Parenthetically, how is cloud storage even remotely more secure than a storage appliance in your own machine room? Especially since you're depending on some other company, who only has a contractual obligation to you, and is trying to run on ultra-thin margins? Yeah, if there was a major break-in, they'd be contractually at fault. But in that case the storage company would probably go under anyway, so who are you gonna sue?
I think I'll start a storage company as an LLC. I'll hire stellar marketing, make some slick brochures, and nobody has to know that it's a few 19 inch racks full of raid 0 SSD disks in a shed somewhere. I'll promise the world to my customers in order to get the business, and when disaster strikes -- the roof leaks, or someone figures how to get past the firewall, or the window mounted air conditioner breaks down -- I'll just walk away and start another company somewhere else. $$ Profit!
Agreed, but it still shows incredibly bad planning on the victim's part. In this age of RIAA/MPAA take-downs without any prior warning, you'd have to be one hell of an optimist to store unique data on someone else's cloud service. Backups may be a different thing -- then you're at risk until you find another backup solution but not totally hosed. But it seems from TFA that sites were linking directly to data on the cloud service. That's incredibly lazy architecting and people who do that in this age of cheap storage and web-administered storage appliances deserve what they get. Sorry, I commiserate, but you should have known better.
Even if the cloud storage company signs in blood on a parchment of human skin that they will surrender their soul if your data is lost, if the company is shut down, your data is still lost. Hope you get a good price for that soul on ebay.
I know cloud storage is trendy and all, and maybe I'm just an old fogey, but things like this just confirm my feeling that you should keep your stuff local. There isn't a lot of functional difference between a local storage appliance and storing your stuff in "the cloud". You can even outsource administration if you choose. The difference is, you won't lose your stuff due to the suspected bad behavior of some other company.
Exactly! I'm probably older than you; Kent State is what flashed into my mind.
Gamer?
> I totally support the way our military is becoming like a dystopian comedy RPG.
I reluctantly agree, in the sense that at least it's entertaining.
How many people got a chill when they saw "crowdsource" and "weapons testing" in the same heading? I had missed "software" on first glance. That made it only a little better.
Completely automated brutalism. Great.
I'm not sure how this works for temporary shelters, as concrete structures tend to be relatively permanent, getting repurposed instead of torn down.
Someone mentioned that it's the interior plumbing, sheetrock, molding and so forth that's most of the work, not the shell. I worked as a laborer for a building contractor in college, and I can vouch for this. The shell goes up surprisingly fast, and then the real work begins.
But one possible solution for the time and energy required to provision interiors would be to keep the insides as unadorned as the outside, with exposed pipes and wiring. (This isn't as dangerous as it sounds -- modern wiring is quite well sheathed, and wall plugs and switches are completely enclosed in metal or plastic.) This would also allow more convenient access to utility conduits should repairs be necessary. Residents will soon get used to the hollow echo of bare concrete. Or acoustic tiles could be attached in key spots.
Ok for a temporary shelter, but again, if temporary, why concrete? A test balloon for new techniques in resident housing, perhaps?
Now that you mention Asimov, I'm reminded of an early short story called, I think, "It's such a beautiful day", about a society with some kind of instantaneous inter-building transportation that works so well that nobody has ventured outside for decades. I had forgotten that part of Foundation. Apparently it was something Asimov thought about often.
The McGuffin was some kind of trans-dimensional door, necessary for it to be considered science fiction, but you could see where this could happen in real life. Living in a Le Corbusier Ziggurat with giant 4K screens on your rough, poured-concrete walls showing outside views from anywhere in the world and anywhere in time, working in a different Ziggurat in your exquisitely planned community, taking underground rail from home to work to various entertainment kiosks to watch whatever the entertainment moguls care to show you, trudging from mass transit to destination with your earbuds planted and your head down, staring at a four inch screen... You might never venture outside.
Something that has bothered me about some of the comments of this thread... There seems to be a misunderstanding of the difference between genetic and environment. The act of burning calves' horn buds so they do not grow horns does not change their genetic makeup. Their descendants, if they have any, will still have the capability to grow horns. So to say that "cows don't have horns anymore" when they're surgically removed at infancy is, I think, a misunderstanding of what "genetics" means. Altering a cow's genetics to produce offspring with longer or shorter horns or huge flapping suction-enabled tentacles with poison barbs, doesn't depend on whether the candidates currently have their horn buds burned off, as it is successive generations that would be affected by gene manipulation. Dig?
> Microsoft sues Samsung for Windows patent infringement
Excellent idea. At least they'd have to look up sometimes.
We're really close to losing an entire generation.