I see several posts for people defending Doctor's on this board. Doctors lose lawsuits where they did nothing wrong. Patients sue every chance they get. Doctors will make mistakes, get used to it... blah blah blah.
Malpractice lawsuits would not be so lucrative if there were not egregious errors being made. Have you heard of Doctors amputating the wrong limbs? Have you heard of Doctors prescribing medication that patients were alergic to? My own wife's OB prescribed her BIRTH CONTROL accidentally when she was 5 months pregnant! (Thank goodness I asked the pharmacist for instructions when I picked up her perscription!)
Doctors make mistakes, yes. Many Doctors get sued for small mistakes that cause little harm, yes. But there is no clear place to draw the line. When I deploy software, we go through every possible scenario to insure a smooth deployment. We even further our efforts when it's a key deployment either for a large amount of end users, for an important end user community, or for a big dollar client we're afraid of pissing off. When you are dealing with human life, similar efforts should be made. When you prescribe potentially lethal medication, a certain amount of double checking is in order. When you have a patient cut open, it stands to reason that you will count your instruments before and after the procedure to make sure nothing is left inside. It stands to reason that you would check the open body cavity for any contaminants before re-sealing it. Doctors become complacent in their day to day jobs and that simply is not acceptable. The only thing to keep them in check is the potential of a malpractice lawsuit.
Frankly, I'd rather be on the list then off of it. At least then, I would be sure that a certain amount of effort would be made to ensure that I would not sue.
I use xiolink - which specializes in windows hosting, but I have a redhat box there and they've been competent.
check out webhostingtalk.com there's a decent community there that can help you out.
I wholeheartedly agree. If they want to offer the service, make a browser plug-in that people can install and use if they want. If you break the RFC's in this manner all kinds of software will break. Web browsing isn't the only thing people do on the web, and it's certainly not the most important thing that people do.
If you're worried about customers misspelling your domain, then buy the misspelling.
Remember manually typing in assembly or machine language code straight out of Compute! magazine into pfs:write on your double floppy disk apple IIc or e to play the latest video game of the month?
I was 7 when I started doing that.
I have to agree that understanding at least some of the basics of assembly forces you to have a better understanding of how computers work in general. For every 10,000 visual basic programmers, there is one guy out there who could tell you accurately how a computer works.
I'm afraid in 10 years there won't be any real OS upgrades because the current crop of graduates either don't know how to build the basics of an OS, or aren't interested in doing so.
Real progress won't be made until a visionary comes around who can build a computational system more efficient than a large grouping of transistors. That visionary is probably in diapers now, and won't realize the fruits of his labor until most of us have laid down our keyboards in favor of shuffle board sticks.
I signed up for the real player plus free trial - hoping that the popups and other buy-this-too spamming tactics would end if I forked over a monthly fee.
1) The pop-ups didn't stop. In fact, they increased. 2) Trying to cancel the free trial involves not only going to a web site to cancel, but after you do that you have to call and cancel. 3) To add insult to injury, it takes at least 60 minutes on the phone to cancel your free trial. 4) There is no option on the number they have you dial to cancel your account. 5) If you do manage to successfully navigate their phone menu system, the guy you end up getting on the phone doesn't cancel your account until you listen to him hard sell you and harrass you about cancelling.
I actually would like to have realplayer installed on my machine to take advantage of the occasional cnn or espn clip that is only available on real player, but the fact that they send you endless amounts of spam on top of putting popups all over your desktop to buy their products really makes me avoid this application on principal. I know that there are ways to configure things to reduce these problems, but quite frankly, you can't stop them completely without going through a great amount of effort.
Why should the US government care if a whois database is accurate? Big brother is just being a pain in the rear.
There are a million different reasons why people would want to put false information in a record, a million ways to make mistakes in a record, and lets face it - we don't need or want the government regulating the internet.
The internet should police itself. Government intervention slows down ingenuity, implements half ass solutions, and burdens networks and individuals all for little to no gain.
Sure the feds need to keep an eye on interstate commerce, economic trends, technology trends, etc. But I do not want the government telling me what information I have to provide to a publicly available and instantly internationally accessible information repository, and I don't want them telling me what I can or can't read, write, say, not say, etc.
Does anyone see any similarities between the War On Drugs, the War on Terrorism, and the War on Communism?
We're going to spend hundreds of millions or billions of dollars, piss off the world as a whole, lose our civil rights, and many of us will lose our inalienable rights.
In the end nothing will have been accomplished but a short period of country-wide unity and a temporary popularity surge for a national leader who really does not deserve it.
I grew up in the land of the free, home of the brave. I don't know how much of the world has changed in my lifetime, but my perspective has changed dramatically.
Every day on the radio, I listen to people arguing to keep immigrant kids out of schools. I hear about civil rights being stripped, reorganized, recategorized, and minimized on a daily basis.
Quite frankly, I am beginning to see the US becoming so much like Nazi germany that I'm afraid of what the next decade will bring.
We are a free people, and a generally happy and prosperous country because of it.
As more of that changes and we move either to a 1984 type state or even worse to a fascist dicatatorship we will be facing revolution.
I will not allow this country to turn into a state where censorship and government oversight are the norm, and people are to afraid of the government to speak up. (oh wait, that already happened. what are we doing here people!)
Here's to hoping the next president is a lame duck.
Out here, we'll increase your breast size and suck some fat out of you in the same session. We'll have bee's sting your lips to make them poutier. We'll put a mild form of the plague in your forehead to get rid of your wrinkles. Would you rather not sweat? We've got a cream to prevent it. Want a smaller dog? How about a toy poodle instead of a regular sized one. Bloodhound's too tall? How about a basset. Don't like your hair color? Pick up some dye. Don't like your hair texture? Have a transplant. Drink too much? Have we got a liver for you...
Want a pink fish instead of a black and white one? What are you some kind of sick-o?
Oh and by the way... we don't use Master/Slave anymore around here. It offends people. We'll provide you with a newer abridged dictionary when we can settle the debate on whether or not we can still refer to fairies as fruit.
OK. Now second reply to my own post.
It's late. I got confused. I thought the name of the canadian company doing this was Meda Fusion as well. I'd delete or edit my previous post if I could.
It reminds me of a scam run on the US Government in the late 90's. Millions of dollars were granted to a company which had demonstrated such a system. Turns out it was nothing more than a RF modem.
As I recall, the system was immune to scrutiny in order to protect the Intellectual Property of the company.
Also... I remember several people citing the impossibility of broadband over power lines because of the interference caused by transformers on the above ground power lines. In order to enable broadband over power lines, you would have to either find a way to sustain a pure signal through the existing hardware (deemed impossible), or design and add a piece of hardware at every transformer.
I read about this in Wired if anyone cares to go searching for it. The article was entitled Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, printed at some point in 2002, but I was unsuccessful in locating the article in a brief attempt at searching their online archive.
I'd be very interested in this software as I live in Riverside County. Anonymous access disabled. If you grabbed it and are willing to send it to me, please send a note to skallest at hotmail dot com
Thanks.
You're pretty close, but the bad guy is SCO, not IBM.
SCO owns the unix license. SCO licensed unix to IBM. SCO analyzed linux and supposedly found their unix source code. SCO traced the added code back to IBM. IBM (allegedly) added the proprietary code to linux without telling anyone that it was SCO proprietary. SCO is suing IBM for the leak. SCO is threatening to demand payment from any enterprise running a linux server. SCO will not disclose what code is theirs so that the open source community can get rid of it and replace it.
Now the flip side is that Sun has it's own problems.
The GPL states that any derivative works must also be published under the GPL. (i.e. free, but you can charge for support) SCO released it's own software using a great deal of GPL code, selling it and selling support separately.
I think that all of this is correct, anyone care to add anything or correct me?
I voted on one of these machines in Riverside County. I was taken aback because I didn't know beforehand that an electronic voting system was in place. Immediately after voting, I had the same concern that no paper trail was created - and therefore no manual way to verify votes in a close election.
The visual representation was close to what was mailed to me, but it was not exactly the same - the names were not in the same order... No big deal if you were planning on voting for Schwarzenneger or Boustamante but it took me a while to find the candidate that I intended to vote for.
I didn't have the impression that any of the volunteers present were technically proficient enough to resolve any technical problems that might come up. I wonder what would happen if one of the machines crashed? Do you disregard that machine's votes? Do you accept the data on that machine as valid?
I'm very concerned about the scripted testing process that was in place. A voting system should go through the most strict level of testing prior to each election. It's plainly not acceptable to lose any votes.
What action can I take? Can I bring forth a lawsuit to enforce strict testing? In my mind, the actions of the administrators was fraudulent and criminal at best. A lack of understanding of the technical issues is not an excuse.
I can record a song off the radio to CD easily. In fact, the radio provides higher quality recordings that what I have experienced on Rhapsody, and frankly a better variety of music from artists that I would be interested in.
The radio and filesharing is free, Rhapsody is $10/month.
The only thing that filesharing gives me access to that I don't already have is obscure artists and songs with lyrics that can't be broadcast.
$1/song makes it $20/cd. the price is too high. the service is poor and the quality is at best questionable.
system:systemroot\system32\eula.txt
Mine is even a little bit different than those two:
you agree to be bound by the terms of this
eula by installing, copying, or otherwise
using the software. if you do not agree, do
not install, copy, or use the software; you
may return it to your place of purchase for a
full refund, if applicable.
Windows XP Pro, Build 2600, SP 1
It would be interesting if the EULA Changed with service packs:). Gotta dig the build number.
LOL - the copy/pasted section of the agreement created this error when posting:
Lameness filter encountered. Post aborted!
Slashdot Mirror
I see several posts for people defending Doctor's on this board. Doctors lose lawsuits where they did nothing wrong. Patients sue every chance they get. Doctors will make mistakes, get used to it... blah blah blah.
Malpractice lawsuits would not be so lucrative if there were not egregious errors being made. Have you heard of Doctors amputating the wrong limbs? Have you heard of Doctors prescribing medication that patients were alergic to? My own wife's OB prescribed her BIRTH CONTROL accidentally when she was 5 months pregnant! (Thank goodness I asked the pharmacist for instructions when I picked up her perscription!)
Doctors make mistakes, yes. Many Doctors get sued for small mistakes that cause little harm, yes. But there is no clear place to draw the line. When I deploy software, we go through every possible scenario to insure a smooth deployment. We even further our efforts when it's a key deployment either for a large amount of end users, for an important end user community, or for a big dollar client we're afraid of pissing off. When you are dealing with human life, similar efforts should be made. When you prescribe potentially lethal medication, a certain amount of double checking is in order. When you have a patient cut open, it stands to reason that you will count your instruments before and after the procedure to make sure nothing is left inside. It stands to reason that you would check the open body cavity for any contaminants before re-sealing it. Doctors become complacent in their day to day jobs and that simply is not acceptable. The only thing to keep them in check is the potential of a malpractice lawsuit.
Frankly, I'd rather be on the list then off of it. At least then, I would be sure that a certain amount of effort would be made to ensure that I would not sue.
I use xiolink - which specializes in windows hosting, but I have a redhat box there and they've been competent. check out webhostingtalk.com there's a decent community there that can help you out.
The Sattelite Company Audits You!
sorry, the search is: the answer to life the universe and everything it used to be better, but it still has the google calculator result. (6 times 9)
I'm a big fan of the answer that google gives to a search for "The Answer to Life, the Universe, and Everything"
I wholeheartedly agree. If they want to offer the service, make a browser plug-in that people can install and use if they want. If you break the RFC's in this manner all kinds of software will break. Web browsing isn't the only thing people do on the web, and it's certainly not the most important thing that people do. If you're worried about customers misspelling your domain, then buy the misspelling.
Luke Stewart makes millions selling this idea to congress
The concept is a bad one. It's impractical. The people who say they have the technology never do.
You've been had.
Remember manually typing in assembly or machine language code straight out of Compute! magazine into pfs:write on your double floppy disk apple IIc or e to play the latest video game of the month?
I was 7 when I started doing that.
I have to agree that understanding at least some of the basics of assembly forces you to have a better understanding of how computers work in general. For every 10,000 visual basic programmers, there is one guy out there who could tell you accurately how a computer works.
I'm afraid in 10 years there won't be any real OS upgrades because the current crop of graduates either don't know how to build the basics of an OS, or aren't interested in doing so.
Real progress won't be made until a visionary comes around who can build a computational system more efficient than a large grouping of transistors. That visionary is probably in diapers now, and won't realize the fruits of his labor until most of us have laid down our keyboards in favor of shuffle board sticks.
I signed up for the real player plus free trial - hoping that the popups and other buy-this-too spamming tactics would end if I forked over a monthly fee.
1) The pop-ups didn't stop. In fact, they increased.
2) Trying to cancel the free trial involves not only going to a web site to cancel, but after you do that you have to call and cancel.
3) To add insult to injury, it takes at least 60 minutes on the phone to cancel your free trial.
4) There is no option on the number they have you dial to cancel your account.
5) If you do manage to successfully navigate their phone menu system, the guy you end up getting on the phone doesn't cancel your account until you listen to him hard sell you and harrass you about cancelling.
I actually would like to have realplayer installed on my machine to take advantage of the occasional cnn or espn clip that is only available on real player, but the fact that they send you endless amounts of spam on top of putting popups all over your desktop to buy their products really makes me avoid this application on principal. I know that there are ways to configure things to reduce these problems, but quite frankly, you can't stop them completely without going through a great amount of effort.
Why should the US government care if a whois database is accurate? Big brother is just being a pain in the rear.
There are a million different reasons why people would want to put false information in a record, a million ways to make mistakes in a record, and lets face it - we don't need or want the government regulating the internet.
The internet should police itself. Government intervention slows down ingenuity, implements half ass solutions, and burdens networks and individuals all for little to no gain.
Sure the feds need to keep an eye on interstate commerce, economic trends, technology trends, etc. But I do not want the government telling me what information I have to provide to a publicly available and instantly internationally accessible information repository, and I don't want them telling me what I can or can't read, write, say, not say, etc.
Does anyone see any similarities between the War On Drugs, the War on Terrorism, and the War on Communism?
We're going to spend hundreds of millions or billions of dollars, piss off the world as a whole, lose our civil rights, and many of us will lose our inalienable rights.
In the end nothing will have been accomplished but a short period of country-wide unity and a temporary popularity surge for a national leader who really does not deserve it.
OK. I'm disturbed.
I grew up in the land of the free, home of the brave. I don't know how much of the world has changed in my lifetime, but my perspective has changed dramatically.
Every day on the radio, I listen to people arguing to keep immigrant kids out of schools. I hear about civil rights being stripped, reorganized, recategorized, and minimized on a daily basis.
Quite frankly, I am beginning to see the US becoming so much like Nazi germany that I'm afraid of what the next decade will bring.
We are a free people, and a generally happy and prosperous country because of it.
As more of that changes and we move either to a 1984 type state or even worse to a fascist dicatatorship we will be facing revolution.
I will not allow this country to turn into a state where censorship and government oversight are the norm, and people are to afraid of the government to speak up. (oh wait, that already happened. what are we doing here people!)
Here's to hoping the next president is a lame duck.
and it's a dual boot system with Redhat on the boot menu. I wouldn't be surprised if he hasn't upgraded yet to Office XP either :)
Out here, we'll increase your breast size and suck some fat out of you in the same session. We'll have bee's sting your lips to make them poutier. We'll put a mild form of the plague in your forehead to get rid of your wrinkles. Would you rather not sweat? We've got a cream to prevent it. Want a smaller dog? How about a toy poodle instead of a regular sized one. Bloodhound's too tall? How about a basset. Don't like your hair color? Pick up some dye. Don't like your hair texture? Have a transplant. Drink too much? Have we got a liver for you...
Want a pink fish instead of a black and white one? What are you some kind of sick-o?
Oh and by the way... we don't use Master/Slave anymore around here. It offends people. We'll provide you with a newer abridged dictionary when we can settle the debate on whether or not we can still refer to fairies as fruit.
We will be proposing the excorsizing of all daemons from *nix systems.
OK. Now second reply to my own post. It's late. I got confused. I thought the name of the canadian company doing this was Meda Fusion as well. I'd delete or edit my previous post if I could.
Wired Article
2001 article. My mistake.
Holy Cow!!! The name of the company that scammed the US Government... You guessed it. Media Fusion.
IT IS A SCAM!
It reminds me of a scam run on the US Government in the late 90's. Millions of dollars were granted to a company which had demonstrated such a system. Turns out it was nothing more than a RF modem.
As I recall, the system was immune to scrutiny in order to protect the Intellectual Property of the company.
Also... I remember several people citing the impossibility of broadband over power lines because of the interference caused by transformers on the above ground power lines. In order to enable broadband over power lines, you would have to either find a way to sustain a pure signal through the existing hardware (deemed impossible), or design and add a piece of hardware at every transformer.
I read about this in Wired if anyone cares to go searching for it. The article was entitled Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, printed at some point in 2002, but I was unsuccessful in locating the article in a brief attempt at searching their online archive.
I'd be very interested in this software as I live in Riverside County. Anonymous access disabled. If you grabbed it and are willing to send it to me, please send a note to skallest at hotmail dot com Thanks.
Can someone explain to me how the GPL could be considered unconstitutional? What right could be interpereted as being violated?
Here's how I understand it.
You're pretty close, but the bad guy is SCO, not IBM.
SCO owns the unix license.
SCO licensed unix to IBM.
SCO analyzed linux and supposedly found their unix source code.
SCO traced the added code back to IBM.
IBM (allegedly) added the proprietary code to linux without telling anyone that it was SCO proprietary.
SCO is suing IBM for the leak.
SCO is threatening to demand payment from any enterprise running a linux server.
SCO will not disclose what code is theirs so that the open source community can get rid of it and replace it.
Now the flip side is that Sun has it's own problems.
The GPL states that any derivative works must also be published under the GPL. (i.e. free, but you can charge for support)
SCO released it's own software using a great deal of GPL code, selling it and selling support separately.
I think that all of this is correct, anyone care to add anything or correct me?
I voted on one of these machines in Riverside County. I was taken aback because I didn't know beforehand that an electronic voting system was in place. Immediately after voting, I had the same concern that no paper trail was created - and therefore no manual way to verify votes in a close election. The visual representation was close to what was mailed to me, but it was not exactly the same - the names were not in the same order... No big deal if you were planning on voting for Schwarzenneger or Boustamante but it took me a while to find the candidate that I intended to vote for. I didn't have the impression that any of the volunteers present were technically proficient enough to resolve any technical problems that might come up. I wonder what would happen if one of the machines crashed? Do you disregard that machine's votes? Do you accept the data on that machine as valid? I'm very concerned about the scripted testing process that was in place. A voting system should go through the most strict level of testing prior to each election. It's plainly not acceptable to lose any votes. What action can I take? Can I bring forth a lawsuit to enforce strict testing? In my mind, the actions of the administrators was fraudulent and criminal at best. A lack of understanding of the technical issues is not an excuse.
I can record a song off the radio to CD easily. In fact, the radio provides higher quality recordings that what I have experienced on Rhapsody, and frankly a better variety of music from artists that I would be interested in.
The radio and filesharing is free, Rhapsody is $10/month.
The only thing that filesharing gives me access to that I don't already have is obscure artists and songs with lyrics that can't be broadcast.
$1/song makes it $20/cd. the price is too high. the service is poor and the quality is at best questionable.
Where did you find magic broad sword +2 vs Nose goblins? I'll trade you for it!
system:systemroot\system32\eula.txt Mine is even a little bit different than those two: you agree to be bound by the terms of this eula by installing, copying, or otherwise using the software. if you do not agree, do not install, copy, or use the software; you may return it to your place of purchase for a full refund, if applicable. Windows XP Pro, Build 2600, SP 1 It would be interesting if the EULA Changed with service packs :). Gotta dig the build number.
LOL - the copy/pasted section of the agreement created this error when posting:
Lameness filter encountered. Post aborted!