On a related hote, I just found a website for CASPIAN (Consumers Against Supermarket Privacy Invasion and Numbering), which has much useful information.
Oh, the irony. The parent was modded 50% flamebait when I read it. And yet, right in the/. moderation FAQ it says:
Flamebait -- Flamebait refers to comments whose sole purpose is to insult and enrage. If someone is not-so-subtly picking a fight (racial insults are a dead giveaway), it's Flamebait.
It also has some similarities to hypnosis. There are many people who hypnotize themselves to avoid pain in everything from routine dental work to surgery.
The premise, as others have noted, is that the mind can only focus on one thing at a time. Also, all pain is in the mind (paralyzed people cannot feel pain when they're injured...because the brain never gets the signals). If the mind is taught not to "register" the pain, it doesn't happen. Pain is separate from injury.
Before anyone dismisses this out-of-hand as quackery, consider that the NIH and JAMA have published studies on it (links found with a quick Google search and not comprehensive).
Also, since someone else in a different thread brought up childbirth: HypnoBirthing.
So? I don't think they're going to *force* anyone to pilot the thing, and the one who volunteers will surely know the dangers. As long as they take precautions not to injure anyone else, I don't have a problem with it.
I think of it as being somewhat analagous to the manned space program. Every now an then some people die, and it's a horrible tragedy, but they (and their families) knew the dangers, and they're helping to advance our knowledge of these fields. I also believe that the adventurous, inquisitive spirit is what advances civilization.
More than you ever wanted to know about it can be found here and a picture of the space toilet is here.
Liquid waste is collected and jettisoned now and then, while solid waste is freeze-dried and brought back to earth.
As a side note, I worked for a time at the company that makes the space toilet. The lead engineer is now legendary (and known as "Dr. Flush"). There are some great stories that people tell about when it was being developed. In order to test it properly for things like odor containment, they had to have real samples... so they had a trailer out back for employees to go, uh, contribute to science.
There's also a story about a toilet malfunction and an astronaut eating M&Ms (on a live feed back to earth), but I won't get into that...
Now, to figure out why I'm spending this much time posting about space toilets...
Give me companies that aren't reliant on the US government for their existence. As far as I'm concerned, Boeing and Lockheed would collapse under their own weight if they didn't get cushy government contracts on a regular basis. The government has even conceded as much, in the way they hand out contracts.
And while I, an engineer, think metric is the way to go, my point was that when you're working with the rest of the world (as in the ISS, but which is *not* the case with Armadillo Aerospace and Scaled Composites as far as I know), it just makes sense to be consistent.
Actually, there are certain "consessions and compromises" that I would've like to have seen in the design. Other posters have pointed out some, but my pet peeve is that I really would've liked to have seen consistent use of metric measurements.
I worked for a company that worked on some of the life support components of the ISS. All measurements were done in English (American, Imperial, whatever you want to call them) measurements. This means that there are not only redundant components of the ISS, but even redundant toolboxes -- metric and English.
I spent my three months at this company having flashbacks to the movie "Apollo 13," then bailed to a different company the first chance I got. My time there was enough to give me a lifetime's worth of "stupid engineer" stories. I suspect most aerospace companies have similar practices. This, in my opinion, is the biggest reason aerospace is so expensive.
First, ignore all the naysayers who are telling you not to do it. It seems like a lot of people are saying you'd be stupid to leave medicine for IT; my take on it is that if you'd be happier doing IT, then you're wasting your life doing medicine.
Next, get your feet wet by playing with a different OS or two. Install them, read up on them, tinker. Tinker with different computer components, too. Once you've done that for a while, get some more formal training. Take a programming class at the local college, or if you're ultra-disciplined and already have a bit of background, you could try teaching yourself from a book.
By this point you should be getting an idea what you like, what you don't like, and what you'd like to learn more about. Follow that. Whether you go for a degree or not will depend somewhat on what exactly you want to do in the IT field.
Even if you eventually decide to stay in medicine (or jump to something completely different), no knowledge is ever wasted. Good luck!
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The Ultimate Shopper for Safeway, and Rob's Giant BonusCard Swap Meet for Giant.
On a related hote, I just found a website for CASPIAN (Consumers Against Supermarket Privacy Invasion and Numbering), which has much useful information.
And yet the grandparent is modded up as funny...
The premise, as others have noted, is that the mind can only focus on one thing at a time. Also, all pain is in the mind (paralyzed people cannot feel pain when they're injured...because the brain never gets the signals). If the mind is taught not to "register" the pain, it doesn't happen. Pain is separate from injury.
Before anyone dismisses this out-of-hand as quackery, consider that the NIH and JAMA have published studies on it (links found with a quick Google search and not comprehensive).
Also, since someone else in a different thread brought up childbirth: HypnoBirthing.
I think of it as being somewhat analagous to the manned space program. Every now an then some people die, and it's a horrible tragedy, but they (and their families) knew the dangers, and they're helping to advance our knowledge of these fields. I also believe that the adventurous, inquisitive spirit is what advances civilization.
Liquid waste is collected and jettisoned now and then, while solid waste is freeze-dried and brought back to earth.
As a side note, I worked for a time at the company that makes the space toilet. The lead engineer is now legendary (and known as "Dr. Flush"). There are some great stories that people tell about when it was being developed. In order to test it properly for things like odor containment, they had to have real samples... so they had a trailer out back for employees to go, uh, contribute to science.
There's also a story about a toilet malfunction and an astronaut eating M&Ms (on a live feed back to earth), but I won't get into that...
Now, to figure out why I'm spending this much time posting about space toilets...
There's one at MIT, too. No word yet on how many have been jailed.
Fine. What I should have written is this:
Give me companies that aren't reliant on the US government for their existence. As far as I'm concerned, Boeing and Lockheed would collapse under their own weight if they didn't get cushy government contracts on a regular basis. The government has even conceded as much, in the way they hand out contracts.
And while I, an engineer, think metric is the way to go, my point was that when you're working with the rest of the world (as in the ISS, but which is *not* the case with Armadillo Aerospace and Scaled Composites as far as I know), it just makes sense to be consistent.
Actually, there are certain "consessions and compromises" that I would've like to have seen in the design. Other posters have pointed out some, but my pet peeve is that I really would've liked to have seen consistent use of metric measurements.
I worked for a company that worked on some of the life support components of the ISS. All measurements were done in English (American, Imperial, whatever you want to call them) measurements. This means that there are not only redundant components of the ISS, but even redundant toolboxes -- metric and English.
I spent my three months at this company having flashbacks to the movie "Apollo 13," then bailed to a different company the first chance I got. My time there was enough to give me a lifetime's worth of "stupid engineer" stories. I suspect most aerospace companies have similar practices. This, in my opinion, is the biggest reason aerospace is so expensive.
Give me private companies (Armadillo Aerospace, Burt Rutan's projects) any day. They're the ones who'll finally get us into space reliably.
Next, get your feet wet by playing with a different OS or two. Install them, read up on them, tinker. Tinker with different computer components, too. Once you've done that for a while, get some more formal training. Take a programming class at the local college, or if you're ultra-disciplined and already have a bit of background, you could try teaching yourself from a book.
By this point you should be getting an idea what you like, what you don't like, and what you'd like to learn more about. Follow that. Whether you go for a degree or not will depend somewhat on what exactly you want to do in the IT field.
Even if you eventually decide to stay in medicine (or jump to something completely different), no knowledge is ever wasted. Good luck!