"Evidence-based medicine is not the norm in the US"
It is, and it isn't
Medical school is all about evidence based medicine, we are told to use nothing but, we are tested on our ability to sift through and select the evidence based answer and are reminded time and time again not to blindly assume against age old axioms and stereotypes. And then we get into the real world...
Many physicians, particularly older ones but there are also plenty of younger ones as well, are married to their classical training, and stop learning or trying to learn after having it beat out of them on the wards. Just as in any other area of life (or science) youth is dominated by the wide-eyed idealists, and the experienced are set in their ways. Add in the insurance companies who have more to say about what tests or treatments can get done on a patient than a physician, and the 80+ hour workweeks for your medical residents, and similar hours for many of your primary care specialists and it really is no surprise that science ends up waiting for the bus.
People are so afraid of socialized medicine, that they don't realize that they already have a particularly bad form of it.
First, I am a doctor, a mere resident, but I still have the letters.
And let me just say that this is crap research. Some idiot is trying to ride the current public hysteria regarding video games into a published paper and hopefully a large bag of money and further funding. One case? Please. This is just lazy. My guess is that somebody is desperately trying to satisfy a publication quota and this is the best the idiot could come up with. I would really like to see the other topics they submitted that were refused.
I have done a surgical rotation at a facility that uses a DaVinci robot to conduct some of its gynecological/urological procedures. The surgeon still has to work at it, and for those not familiar with the system, the surgeries can take 3 times longer and are more arduous than doing it the old fashioned way. In the hands of a practiced surgeon though, it's really a sight to behold in action, almost like a giant metal spider clipping and cutting.
Unless they are driving up there in a horse and buggy, and use whale oil lamps to light the night, i would say the illusion is pretty well broken anyway. Why not mount the dish on something near the house, or even on a post or something? It isn't going to distract anymore than the SUV sitting in the driveway
"Um, yeah we buried Grandma right here at these coordinates.. Right see we don't use headstones and we made sure the ground looks exactly like it did before we buried her here so you might not even be able to tell that we buried anyone here at all! What do you mean you think I just ditched the body in a ditch somewhere and then told you it was buried here? That is preposterous!"
I would be impressed if "eco" burial meant that they ground your loved one up for compost and then grew you some fruit or something.
"Socially awkward" is a description that plagues lots of people, even those that are not "nerds". Nerds are more likely to try and explain their shortcomings as some sort of mark of genius. "We think differently!" Everyone gets nervous, but often, only those that are inwardly focused to a fault and perhaps a touch narcissistic get bothered by it.
Proof means nothing. Take childhood immunizations for example. It has gotten into the minds of some people that immunizations cause autism in children. Never mind that there are literally mountains of evidence that refute this beyond any shadow of a doubt. Still, parents swallow the idea often because they are afraid of having children with autism (worse yet, the possibility that they are responsible for their child's condition) and are more likely to believe some mother/activist on a protest/awareness march than they are to listen to their physicians and science. The result is, that in the US we have a growing population of children with out vaccinations against a slew of diseases that up to this point have been largely eradicated, and now have an open window to reemerge.
The terrible truth is, that after the data was lost, they were not sure how much vacation time anyone still had but they were pretty sure he had a lot of it so he was probably burned.
I am going to guess that when notepads and address books were invented people postulated a similar decline in cognitive function. We have already heard the cries of grade school teacher everywhere lamenting the loss of cursive writing to keyboards.
Maybe when indoor plumbing was invented, some academics wondered if not having to run outside in the middle of the night, braving rabid raccoons and belligerent badgers to crap would lead to a nation full of morbidly obese people that can no longer fit out their doors?
It only stands to reason that as our environment changes, we are forced to learn new skills and abandon old ones that have become irrelevant.
Because a lot of people don't want to believe that we have poverty, violence and ignorance in this country because our social systems like public schools, medical care and social services are failing. It is much easier to say it is because there is violence in video games, swearing on television and gays trying to get married than admit that we as a people need to either make some changes or else accept the fact that a significant portion of our population is falling towards third world status.
Americans won't do it because we have a standard of living that is a lot higher than many of the illegals immigrants are used to. For the American worker, if they refuse the job they may lose it, but we have social support for the unemployed and there will be other jobs. Illegal immigrant workers on the other hand have no such luxury; all they have is poverty and death waiting for them if they refuse to work so they are a lot more motivated.
Labor laws in this country are what keep children out of factories and (usually) limit the workday and job requirements to something that is not going to wear out and compromise the health of the worker in as little as 5 or 6 years*. Wealth and benefit given to the employee has to come from somewhere though, and thus it translates to less profit for the company.
*I did say "usually" which means "not always"
This reminds me, I am certain to be cruicified for not remembering this bit of trivia, but the PS3 is looking more and more like that car that Homer designed for his brother....
I loved Katamari Damacy as soon as I started playing it after hunting it down through almost a dozen game stores. The best part of the game though is the difference in reactions you get between telling someone about how the game works and what it is, versus letting someone actually play the game.
I described it to about half a dozen people and the usual reactions ranged from "sounds weird" to "is this some stupid animu game?". I bring it over and let someone play it and the usual reaction is "where can I find a copy of this?"
There is already a Katamari Damacy 2 planned, and while I like the idea of a good game getting a well deserved sequel, but on the other hand part of the coolness of the game was its utter uniqueness.
Forgive my cynicism, but I've heard this "Downloadable content" shtick before.
While a good idea in theory, with only a few exceptions, developers just don't ever deliver on that promise, and why should they? The X-box just doesn't have the user base to justify extra hours of development for things that only about a quarter of the user base is even going to bother with. The only reason I even have Live anymore is beause I forgot to cancel it, and whole my circle of friends is hardly a representative sample of gamers, of the dozen or so that bought into it at launch, I am the only one that still has an account.
At this point printing "Downloadable Content" is akin to listing "Scene Selection" on a movie DVD as a special feature.
The multi-player in doom3 sucks; they are leaving that up to modders.
That is exactly what I thought, and it seems like this is only going to make it more difficult for that all so important "it can carry our mulitplayer capabilities" mod community to actually mod it.
I wonder though, are adding cheats and mods to single plyer games some day going to be sited as violating the DMCA? It could be argued that cheats make game easier, lead to quicker completion and thus lower sales (not that I am saying it is, but I believe nintendo once used an argument similar to this in one of their long ago battles with cheat devices like the game genie)
Maybe what they should do, is add a little feature that forces the client to provide the server with a copy of their config file; if the host wants to block people messing with the lighting effects, they could turn on a filter that could block the would be sort-of-cheaters or choose to ignore them if they don't care?
1. This is the internet we are talking about, people cheat when they get the chance, a lot.
2. In leagues this is not always possible, you may be stuck playing a specific opponent.
3. How many times can I change before it is cheating? How do you know I am not just indecisive?
4. This is the Internet, people will accuse you of cheating when you win, especially if the potential top cheat is there (OMG AIMBOT). Ever play a round of counter strike and get kicked for cheating even though you weren't?
All of these things will severely reduce the enjoyability of the online game. I don't think they are obligated to fix the bug just as I don't think people are obligated to buy their product if they are not happy with it.
I think you are 100% correct. The original piece of music had this subtle little defiance in it and that is why it is great.
I think the whole reason that this is happening goes something like this:
1) Parody Song criticizes political figures (a hornet's nest to begin with) 2) The people that own the rights to the real song are either offended by the political view point of the parody, or are being pressured by one or both of the two political figures whom the parody is targeted at. 3) They sue because this is America, and you can do that, senses of humor went out of style a long time ago and if someone does something funny that you don't find funny it must be wrong and bad so you may be entitled to money/the elimination of the opposing viewpoint.
This and everything else that has been going on with both parties convinces me I would be right to stay home on election day and get smashed on Listerine.*
I have not used X-box live in over 3 months, the last time I did use it was to download the KOTOR add-on which I needed since my original X-box died and I needed the patch again. I am still waiting for something enjoyable to play besides FPS and sports/racing. FS Warrior and Splinter Cell just don't do it for me.
Not that the service is bad or anything, I have little doubt that I will use it for something eventually but for now Its just a $50 a year money sink for me.
Who would I have to kill to see an update of System Shock on the DS? it has the Muscle, I think of that game as an ideal use for a touch screen dual display.
What you say makes sense, but we have been on this very road before. Sony launching a system comprised of a lot of simple design decisions, and Nintendo launching a system on which they were making some rather odd risky design decisions.
Right right this is not the same thing, the DS will be about half the price, Sony isn't getting the year head start and so on. But make no mistake, Sony isn't stupid, and they will do what they need to make the PSP a contender. What if Nobody wants to develop for the DS? Nintendo says that the DS isn't meant to compete with the PSP, but the fact that they will be sharing the market means that it will be directly competing whether they want to call it that or not.
Sony dethroned Nintendo once, it could happen again.
Well my first PS2 went away to greener pastures about a year after I bought it. And my second one has started to choke on discs even after cleaning. If it gets bad, and adjusting the laser doesn't solve it, I might need to get another one and a price cut softens the blow a little bit.
If you don't have a PS2 but you have an X-box I would save your money and just wait for the Box version. I would be willing to bet a kidney that there will be a port within a year. The last 2 looked a lot nicer on the x-box and the ability to use custom soundtracks was cool too.
Me? I hope the PS3 hits the market before my current PS2 buys the farm.
I'm not sure I was defending as much as rationalizing. Whatever, it is a moot point and clearly something to try and put me on the defensive. You make the mistake of assuming that I have some sort of belief to defend.
Now as for the almighty shaft, it depends on how you define it. I say paying more is a shafting; maybe you do not. I am curious how you define the shaft in the case of early adopters.
The memory card situation is sort of a unique one though. Nintendo's inital offering, the 59(?) was indeed a waste. Why did they do it? Maybe to milk the consumer, more likely I just think they were being stupid for lack of a prettier word. They hold this lofty idea of a gaming ideal that isn't really based in any sort of reality. I think that there may have been a cost issue on their part (they couldn't sell bigger cards and still maintain profit) but I would not be surprised in the least if they actually thought it would be enough. Poor design? You bet.
Sony got away from this problem by making large memory cards, and cards are hardly an issue at all with the x-box seeing as you have a hard drive.
I would guess that the memory and the cost of production is just cheaper now. PS2, X-box and the cube are all less than half their original retail prices, so if you are going to cry foul on the cards you have to look at the bigger pie as well. Early adopters always get the shaft period, and I have a feeling that early adopters are use to it by now. That is just part of the price one pays if they want the latest new toys. My X-Box, PS2, and cube were all aquired at launch and I knew in advance that I was taking a loss on each of them since it was an inevitability that they would be cheaper if I waited a year or so.
Or maybe Nintendo just wants to screw people, perhaps they get some sort of sick pleasure from repetedly releasing half assed products and then charging people more money to fix those problems knowing that their fan base are going to continue to support them no matter how shoddy the product. I bet they have an entire department dedicated to coming up with new ways to screw people.
Slashdot Mirror
"Evidence-based medicine is not the norm in the US"
It is, and it isn't
Medical school is all about evidence based medicine, we are told to use nothing but, we are tested on our ability to sift through and select the evidence based answer and are reminded time and time again not to blindly assume against age old axioms and stereotypes. And then we get into the real world...
Many physicians, particularly older ones but there are also plenty of younger ones as well, are married to their classical training, and stop learning or trying to learn after having it beat out of them on the wards. Just as in any other area of life (or science) youth is dominated by the wide-eyed idealists, and the experienced are set in their ways. Add in the insurance companies who have more to say about what tests or treatments can get done on a patient than a physician, and the 80+ hour workweeks for your medical residents, and similar hours for many of your primary care specialists and it really is no surprise that science ends up waiting for the bus.
People are so afraid of socialized medicine, that they don't realize that they already have a particularly bad form of it.
First, I am a doctor, a mere resident, but I still have the letters.
And let me just say that this is crap research. Some idiot is trying to ride the current public hysteria regarding video games into a published paper and hopefully a large bag of money and further funding. One case? Please. This is just lazy. My guess is that somebody is desperately trying to satisfy a publication quota and this is the best the idiot could come up with. I would really like to see the other topics they submitted that were refused.
I have done a surgical rotation at a facility that uses a DaVinci robot to conduct some of its gynecological/urological procedures. The surgeon still has to work at it, and for those not familiar with the system, the surgeries can take 3 times longer and are more arduous than doing it the old fashioned way. In the hands of a practiced surgeon though, it's really a sight to behold in action, almost like a giant metal spider clipping and cutting.
Unless they are driving up there in a horse and buggy, and use whale oil lamps to light the night, i would say the illusion is pretty well broken anyway. Why not mount the dish on something near the house, or even on a post or something? It isn't going to distract anymore than the SUV sitting in the driveway
You are missing the big picture here
"Um, yeah we buried Grandma right here at these coordinates.. Right see we don't use headstones and we made sure the ground looks exactly like it did before we buried her here so you might not even be able to tell that we buried anyone here at all! What do you mean you think I just ditched the body in a ditch somewhere and then told you it was buried here? That is preposterous!"
I would be impressed if "eco" burial meant that they ground your loved one up for compost and then grew you some fruit or something.
"Socially awkward" is a description that plagues lots of people, even those that are not "nerds". Nerds are more likely to try and explain their shortcomings as some sort of mark of genius. "We think differently!" Everyone gets nervous, but often, only those that are inwardly focused to a fault and perhaps a touch narcissistic get bothered by it.
Proof means nothing. Take childhood immunizations for example. It has gotten into the minds of some people that immunizations cause autism in children. Never mind that there are literally mountains of evidence that refute this beyond any shadow of a doubt. Still, parents swallow the idea often because they are afraid of having children with autism (worse yet, the possibility that they are responsible for their child's condition) and are more likely to believe some mother/activist on a protest/awareness march than they are to listen to their physicians and science. The result is, that in the US we have a growing population of children with out vaccinations against a slew of diseases that up to this point have been largely eradicated, and now have an open window to reemerge.
The terrible truth is, that after the data was lost, they were not sure how much vacation time anyone still had but they were pretty sure he had a lot of it so he was probably burned.
That will teach him next time.
"What about people like me that are a little of each and some of neither?"
Simple, you don't exist, now get out of here and stop invalidating the data!
I am going to guess that when notepads and address books were invented people postulated a similar decline in cognitive function. We have already heard the cries of grade school teacher everywhere lamenting the loss of cursive writing to keyboards.
Maybe when indoor plumbing was invented, some academics wondered if not having to run outside in the middle of the night, braving rabid raccoons and belligerent badgers to crap would lead to a nation full of morbidly obese people that can no longer fit out their doors?
It only stands to reason that as our environment changes, we are forced to learn new skills and abandon old ones that have become irrelevant.
Because a lot of people don't want to believe that we have poverty, violence and ignorance in this country because our social systems like public schools, medical care and social services are failing. It is much easier to say it is because there is violence in video games, swearing on television and gays trying to get married than admit that we as a people need to either make some changes or else accept the fact that a significant portion of our population is falling towards third world status.
Americans won't do it because we have a standard of living that is a lot higher than many of the illegals immigrants are used to. For the American worker, if they refuse the job they may lose it, but we have social support for the unemployed and there will be other jobs. Illegal immigrant workers on the other hand have no such luxury; all they have is poverty and death waiting for them if they refuse to work so they are a lot more motivated. Labor laws in this country are what keep children out of factories and (usually) limit the workday and job requirements to something that is not going to wear out and compromise the health of the worker in as little as 5 or 6 years*. Wealth and benefit given to the employee has to come from somewhere though, and thus it translates to less profit for the company. *I did say "usually" which means "not always"
This reminds me, I am certain to be cruicified for not remembering this bit of trivia, but the PS3 is looking more and more like that car that Homer designed for his brother....
What was that called again?
I loved Katamari Damacy as soon as I started playing it after hunting it down through almost a dozen game stores. The best part of the game though is the difference in reactions you get between telling someone about how the game works and what it is, versus letting someone actually play the game.
I described it to about half a dozen people and the usual reactions ranged from "sounds weird" to "is this some stupid animu game?". I bring it over and let someone play it and the usual reaction is "where can I find a copy of this?"
There is already a Katamari Damacy 2 planned, and while I like the idea of a good game getting a well deserved sequel, but on the other hand part of the coolness of the game was its utter uniqueness.
Awaiting the conspiracy theories... oh right, that would only be if that happened on the x-box or gamecube right?
Forgive my cynicism, but I've heard this "Downloadable content" shtick before.
While a good idea in theory, with only a few exceptions, developers just don't ever deliver on that promise, and why should they? The X-box just doesn't have the user base to justify extra hours of development for things that only about a quarter of the user base is even going to bother with. The only reason I even have Live anymore is beause I forgot to cancel it, and whole my circle of friends is hardly a representative sample of gamers, of the dozen or so that bought into it at launch, I am the only one that still has an account.
At this point printing "Downloadable Content" is akin to listing "Scene Selection" on a movie DVD as a special feature.
The multi-player in doom3 sucks; they are leaving that up to modders.
That is exactly what I thought, and it seems like this is only going to make it more difficult for that all so important "it can carry our mulitplayer capabilities" mod community to actually mod it.
I wonder though, are adding cheats and mods to single plyer games some day going to be sited as violating the DMCA? It could be argued that cheats make game easier, lead to quicker completion and thus lower sales (not that I am saying it is, but I believe nintendo once used an argument similar to this in one of their long ago battles with cheat devices like the game genie)
Maybe what they should do, is add a little feature that forces the client to provide the server with a copy of their config file; if the host wants to block people messing with the lighting effects, they could turn on a filter that could block the would be sort-of-cheaters or choose to ignore them if they don't care?
1. This is the internet we are talking about, people cheat when they get the chance, a lot. 2. In leagues this is not always possible, you may be stuck playing a specific opponent. 3. How many times can I change before it is cheating? How do you know I am not just indecisive? 4. This is the Internet, people will accuse you of cheating when you win, especially if the potential top cheat is there (OMG AIMBOT). Ever play a round of counter strike and get kicked for cheating even though you weren't? All of these things will severely reduce the enjoyability of the online game. I don't think they are obligated to fix the bug just as I don't think people are obligated to buy their product if they are not happy with it.
I think you are 100% correct. The original piece of music had this subtle little defiance in it and that is why it is great.
I think the whole reason that this is happening goes something like this:
1) Parody Song criticizes political figures (a hornet's nest to begin with)
2) The people that own the rights to the real song are either offended by the political view point of the parody, or are being pressured by one or both of the two political figures whom the parody is targeted at.
3) They sue because this is America, and you can do that, senses of humor went out of style a long time ago and if someone does something funny that you don't find funny it must be wrong and bad so you may be entitled to money/the elimination of the opposing viewpoint.
This and everything else that has been going on with both parties convinces me I would be right to stay home on election day and get smashed on Listerine.*
*yeah the quotes not exact.
I have had X-box live since launch
I have not used X-box live in over 3 months, the last time I did use it was to download the KOTOR add-on which I needed since my original X-box died and I needed the patch again. I am still waiting for something enjoyable to play besides FPS and sports/racing. FS Warrior and Splinter Cell just don't do it for me.
Not that the service is bad or anything, I have little doubt that I will use it for something eventually but for now Its just a $50 a year money sink for me.
Who would I have to kill to see an update of System Shock on the DS? it has the Muscle, I think of that game as an ideal use for a touch screen dual display.
What you say makes sense, but we have been on this very road before. Sony launching a system comprised of a lot of simple design decisions, and Nintendo launching a system on which they were making some rather odd risky design decisions.
Right right this is not the same thing, the DS will be about half the price, Sony isn't getting the year head start and so on. But make no mistake, Sony isn't stupid, and they will do what they need to make the PSP a contender. What if Nobody wants to develop for the DS? Nintendo says that the DS isn't meant to compete with the PSP, but the fact that they will be sharing the market means that it will be directly competing whether they want to call it that or not.
Sony dethroned Nintendo once, it could happen again.
Well my first PS2 went away to greener pastures about a year after I bought it. And my second one has started to choke on discs even after cleaning. If it gets bad, and adjusting the laser doesn't solve it, I might need to get another one and a price cut softens the blow a little bit.
If you don't have a PS2 but you have an X-box I would save your money and just wait for the Box version. I would be willing to bet a kidney that there will be a port within a year. The last 2 looked a lot nicer on the x-box and the ability to use custom soundtracks was cool too.
Me? I hope the PS3 hits the market before my current PS2 buys the farm.
I'm not sure I was defending as much as rationalizing. Whatever, it is a moot point and clearly something to try and put me on the defensive. You make the mistake of assuming that I have some sort of belief to defend.
Now as for the almighty shaft, it depends on how you define it. I say paying more is a shafting; maybe you do not. I am curious how you define the shaft in the case of early adopters.
The memory card situation is sort of a unique one though. Nintendo's inital offering, the 59(?) was indeed a waste. Why did they do it? Maybe to milk the consumer, more likely I just think they were being stupid for lack of a prettier word. They hold this lofty idea of a gaming ideal that isn't really based in any sort of reality. I think that there may have been a cost issue on their part (they couldn't sell bigger cards and still maintain profit) but I would not be surprised in the least if they actually thought it would be enough. Poor design? You bet.
Sony got away from this problem by making large memory cards, and cards are hardly an issue at all with the x-box seeing as you have a hard drive.
I would guess that the memory and the cost of production is just cheaper now. PS2, X-box and the cube are all less than half their original retail prices, so if you are going to cry foul on the cards you have to look at the bigger pie as well. Early adopters always get the shaft period, and I have a feeling that early adopters are use to it by now. That is just part of the price one pays if they want the latest new toys. My X-Box, PS2, and cube were all aquired at launch and I knew in advance that I was taking a loss on each of them since it was an inevitability that they would be cheaper if I waited a year or so.
Or maybe Nintendo just wants to screw people, perhaps they get some sort of sick pleasure from repetedly releasing half assed products and then charging people more money to fix those problems knowing that their fan base are going to continue to support them no matter how shoddy the product. I bet they have an entire department dedicated to coming up with new ways to screw people.