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User: chooks

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  1. Re:better than getting sued on America's Doctors Are Performing Expensive Procedures That Don't Work (vox.com) · · Score: 1

    That's what being in a sue-happy environment will get you. If there was something more serious going on that a simple and cheap blood test can shed light on, and they missed it, the malpractice headline would be merciless. Generally you would only follow up on abnormal lab tests, but that distinction may not have been communicated (although for a broken arm you would have to have clinical follow up at some point anyways...unless you had another plan for managing your broken arm). As for lab testing, believe me, no physician is making money off of basic laboratory testing. A BMP and urine dipstick is maybe $20 (tops) until the hospital administration charge master gets a hold of it, in which case you can add a zero. At any rate, the doc is following procedures create by administration. If you want to see where the true money grab is, google hospital administration costs versus physicians (or something similar).

  2. Re:That's how "Look-Say" made illiterate generatio on Ask Slashdot: How Do You Read Code? · · Score: 1

    Thanks for sharing the article. It is an interesting read.

  3. Would this be torture for the engineer, or torture for the girl?

  4. Re: I call bullshit. on BMW Traps A Car Thief By Remotely Locking His Doors (cnet.com) · · Score: 1

    BMW cars have been this way for a LONG time. My 1998 318i didn't have any remote lock/unlock features, but if you locked the doors with the key (I know...so primitive) then you couldn't unlock the doors from inside. There was a big warning sticker on the windshield stating this fact.

    In case of loss of power (and presumably other situations that sensors could pick out), this "feature" was over-ridden and you could unlock the car doors from inside.

  5. Re:A real comparison? on Steve Wozniak May Swap His Tesla For A Chevy Bolt (siliconbeat.com) · · Score: 1

    As someone who'd love an electric car, I'm already out of the running with a family of four children. I don't have the cash for a "second" car - it make better financial sense for me to spend that cash on gasoline.

    You can get nice off-lease EVs for dirt cheap, low miles, and excellent battery conditions. I bought a 2013 Nissan Leaf for around 9K that was essentially in mint condition. It's not a Tesla, but for my 3 mile commute each way, it does the trick nicely (and the charger at work is a nice bonus in minimizing my overall costs).

    The problem though is size -- especially with 4 kids in the picture. My wife and I have the short range cheap commuting car (the Leaf) and a long range ICE cross-over. Works great so far and has been easy on the wallet.

    I wasn't sure about the whole EV thing, but now having one I love it (and the way they drive/handle -- its very much a fun car to drive)

  6. Re:Russia would have nada If the US system was hon on US Investigating Potential Covert Russian Plan To Disrupt November Elections (washingtonpost.com) · · Score: 1

    Never thought of it like that before. Thanks for the post.

  7. Re:What exactly is this post about? on Welcome To Alphanumeric Car Hell (theverge.com) · · Score: 1

    Hmm...anal leaf.. .sounds more like an anatomic structure

  8. Re:median vs average on New Cars Are Too Expensive For The Typical Family, Says Study (gulfnews.com) · · Score: 1

    Don't forget a sexy assistant to help you bleed the brakes at the end...

    And ideally it should only take an hour, but if it is your first time doing it, then plan on doubling or tripling the estimate as a Newbie factor. Also in cars these days there is probably some OBD bullcrap light that won't reset unless you have the equipment to do that kind of stuff or take it to a mech...

  9. Re:Burnout, Depression, Anxiety in Em Dept staff on Medical Errors Are Number 3 Cause of US Deaths, Researchers Say (npr.org) · · Score: 1

    What is the point if the service only takes healthy patients?

    I think that is exactly the point. It's a fixed bid type thing as opposed to T&M.

  10. Re:And then there's filters... on Names That Break Computers (bbc.com) · · Score: 1
  11. Re:Progress in Human Geography? on Reason Excoriates Paper On "Glaciers, Gender, and Science" (reason.com) · · Score: 1

    Don't forget the huge tracts of land...

  12. Re: Sixth man on the soundstage! on Apollo Astronaut Edgar Mitchell, Sixth Man On the Moon, Dies At 85 (examiner.com) · · Score: 1

    Wow. That is the most bat-shit crazy thing I have seen in quite some time.

  13. Re:Why is this posted? on Canonical Patches Two Kernel Vulnerabilities In Ubuntu 14.04 (softpedia.com) · · Score: 1

    I was wondering the same thing. My 14.04 laptop (my main work laptop) gets kernel updates from Canoncial not infrequently. Not sure why this one is special enough for /.

  14. Re:For once I agree on Mozilla Plans To Remove Support For Firefox Complete Themes · · Score: 1

    Thank you.

  15. Re:That's one way to do it on Microsoft's Mission To Reignite the PC Sector (nytimes.com) · · Score: 1

    Given a choice between browsing on a phone vs. a desktop? You have gotta be kidding me. Desktop. Every. Single. Time. Input devices that work well and a LARGE screens (multiple). Given a choice, desktop, every time.

    Now the reality is that there ISN'T a choice between phone and desktop in most cases. On the bus: phone. At a conference: phone. On the can: phone. It's great for checking up on things, facebook and whatnot, and reading limited amounts of information. But there is no way I am using that in preference to a dual 26" monitor setup with average desktop hardware if I have choice.

  16. Re:Hole Punch - Double Sided Floppy on Ask Slashdot: What Is Your Most Awesome Hardware Hack? · · Score: 1

    I admit that I never washed floppies :)

    I always tried a nibble copier to copy games from friends. 70% of the time it worked 50%of the time. Ultima IV was one that sort-of worked from my nibble-copied version, but not really. It worked enough that I could try to fight Lord British and get killed though...

  17. Re:Hole Punch - Double Sided Floppy on Ask Slashdot: What Is Your Most Awesome Hardware Hack? · · Score: 1

    Ah memories. I did that to a game disk (Gunship by Microprose for the C64). But then when I saved a game I forgot to turn it over to the "blank" side and ended up wiping the game. That I had borrowed. And then had to come up with $35 (!) to replace it. One of my first auto-LARTs.

    While the sound of the 1540 chugging away was nice, it's hard to replace the bare-metal sound of the TI-99/4A tape drive loading a program :)

  18. Re:66KPH on Ask Slashdot: What Is Your Most Awesome Hardware Hack? · · Score: 1

    Great story, thanks for sharing!

  19. Re:In 7th grade... on Ask Slashdot: What Is Your Most Awesome Hardware Hack? · · Score: 2

    I didn't really have a chance as it was a short-lived experiment; while I liked to consider the basement workshop to be my own RC lab (aka super-secret lair for The Devising of Strange Contraptions to Masturbate With), the reality was that I needed to disassemble Said Device before I risked having to explain the Purpose to my dad...

    I hate to break it to you, but your Dad probably already knew the Purpose of the Device.

  20. Re:Activity or productivity on (Over-)Measuring the Working Man · · Score: 1

    Where I am at you get points (with bonus $$$ allocated on a per-point basis) for being "a good citizen" -- e.g. organizing material for collaboration, putting a subject-based website together, etc.... In general, they are things that don't have a direct correspondence with a particular "mission goal" (or part of your job description) but it helps everyone do their work better/stronger/faster.

  21. Re: To be expected on Windows 10 Grabs 5.21% Market Share, Passing Windows Vista and Windows 8 · · Score: 1

    I do the same (Ubuntu host, Win 7 VM). The only issue I have is that the win7 pro VM I have takes a very long time to boot up -- not sure if there is a way to speed it up. I only allocate 8Gb of RAM but it seems like that should be enough...

    I'll have to try the playonlinux for office. I have been trying to get Evolution to work with the job's Exchange server without much success and maybe that would give me an alternative that would take me one step closer to ditching even the Windows VM I have...

  22. Re:Groklaw Needed More Than Ever on Oracle: Google Has "Destroyed" the Market For Java · · Score: 1

    Java uses a single-inheritance model wherein ultimately everything is implicitly a subclass of the Object base class. Therefore, you are unable to write code that does not ultimately extend or enhance the Object class.

    To say this modifies the API is probably an overstatement, but technically (which is the best kind of right) it is extending it. Also, you do modify the intrinsic behavior of Object by overriding its methods (e.g. equals(...) and hash()) when needed.

  23. Re:Amazing and dreadful, simultaneously on Who Owns Your Overtime? · · Score: 1

    Hmmm...that is exactly the opposite of my experiences contracting (1099 and W2). The pay is usually way more than being an FTE. As far as days off, when I did W2, then I would get payed for holidays. I was getting about 75% of the total billing rate (at that time I recall that being pretty standard...maybe it is different now) with that gig, so it's not like I didn't earn those days off -- it just levelled out my paycheck a bit.

    The best part of being paid hourly though is...being paid hourly. One gig I started and essentially sat on my butt (well...experimented with code, learned some new APIs etc...) for several months while the business fiddled around trying to figure out what to do. It was great paid training. Once they decided they needed something built, it hit a time crunch so I effectively doubled my income for a month or two working 60-80 weeks. It was glorious. Also I didn't have to worry about the office politics (layoffs were going to happen soon) so it was nice just working on my hourly work.

    Yeah - it is harder to deal with getting new contracts, getting let go at any time, etc... but the realty in today's market is that FTEs still have to worry about that too...and are more open to abuse, don't get paid for their work, etc...Why not face reality and at least get compensated for it?

    -chooks

  24. Re:Why isn't this illegal again? on Disney Making Laid-Off US Tech Workers Train Foreign H1-B Replacements · · Score: 1

    It's actually a little more complicated than that. The ability to get state licensure for a foriegn medical graduate (FMG -- which also includes US-born students that attend international medical or Caribbean medical schools) is more rate limited by the ability to obtain the requisite post-graduate (e.g. residency) training required for licensure. Residency spots in general are limited by the ACGME (American Council of Graduate Medical Education) and ultimately by congress as post-graduate medical education is funded through Medicare. The number of residency spots for a particular specialty vary, but in general the more desirable the residency, the fewer number of spots (e.g. dermatology, opthamology, etc...). FMGs have a very difficult time matching into competetive residencies and most will match to less competetitive and more plentiful primary care fields.

    Once an ACGME accrediated residency is finished (or technically at least one year is finished -- which is enough to qualify to sit for and pass USMLE Step 3 licensure) then state licensure is not an issue. It is a pain in the ass, but as long as you haven't had a criminal record, disciplinary actions, etc... then you just need to shell out the $60 - $800 (depending on the state) and jump through bureaucratic hoops for an unrestricted state license.

    So really the states have little to do with supply. The ACGME and congress (through funding allocation) perform more of that function.

  25. Re:Memory erased by cosmic rays on Ask Slashdot: Your Most Unusual Hardware Hack? · · Score: 1

    Cool story. Thanks for sharing.