In a restaurant, the choice is "eat here or eat somewhere else". In a hospital, the choice is "use our services or die". I'm a little more inclined to be forgiving in that situation.
1) Not every patient who enters the Emergency Department is dying.
2) In my example, there are no restaurants that do not suffer from "dine and dash" patrons. The same is try for hospitals. There are no magical hospitals that get paid for 100% of the services they render.
Maybe this will help bring down health care costs as hopefully these will be a lot cheaper - and hopefully no longer will hospitals in the middle of nowhere have to spend several million dollars on an MRI machine.
Technology certainly doesn't have all the answers, but things like this can only lead to good.
While some of your hospital bill is due to the cost of acquiring and maintaining the expensive machines, are you also aware that part of your bill is due to people who use the hospital's services but don't pay for those services? Larger hospitals provide millions of dollars worth of services each year to people who can't pay for their medical treatment.
When was the last time you went into a restaurant and ordered a $24-dollar steak but had to pay $32 for that steak because 15% of the restaurants patrons are members of the "dine and dash" club? People would never stand for that. But no one complains when people use a hospital (especially the Emergency Department) and don't pay the bills associated with those services (which results in higher bills for people who *do* pay their bills).
People that don't have claustrophobia can't understand the sheer terror and panic it throws you into.
It's a very, very bad thing to experience.
pair-a-noyd, you don't have to apologize to anyone (here or anywhere else) about your experience in the MRI machine. I know exactly how you feel. I had the same problem myself. The bore of the MRI machine was not as big as my shoulders are wide. I was packed-in there pretty tight. I didn't make it very long before I made them pull me out. You are not alone, man. Plenty of people (even people with a smaller frame than me) hate being in those machines. If you have to get another scan in the future, look for a place with the "open sided" units (yes, I saw your comment about the doc not trusting the resolution of the opensided machines). Also, have them dope the crap out of you before the scan. With enough Xanax or Ativan in your system, you should be calm enough to tolerate the scan (but you'll need someone to drive you home after the procedure).
For some reason I find that your comment suits your screen name just fine...
Of course I understand completely that people don't have to justify their phobias, but you have to admit that you must have caused quite a few shaken heads, raised eyebrows, and sighs of exasperation on behalf of the medical staff. Especially considering that because of their scarcity such machines usually have a line of people waiting for them.
Fucking fuck you, you fucking judgmental prick. "Exasperated medical staff"? Go fuck yourself. Read my story (which is quite similar to the story posted by pair-a-noyd.) I am not normally claustrophobic but when I had to scrunch my shoulders together to fit into the bore of the MRI machine, that was a little too tight for me. It was like being stuffed headfirst into a sewer pipe.
As for the med techs who have "shaken heads and raised eyebrows", one of the techs who was in the room when I was supposed to be scanned commented that I should have been scheduled for the "large bore" MRI. Even the MRI techs know that certain people don't fit into the old, small-bore MRI.
Especially considering that because of their scarcity such machines usually have a line of people waiting for them.
Scarcity? I had no problem scheduling a scan at CDI (http://www.cdiradiology.com/), a place that is actually concerned about patient comfort and doesn't mock people who don't like playing "i'm the cork in the bottle". CDI actually gets a lot of referral business because people can't stand being in the small-bore MRI machines.
So fuck you, you obnoxious twit. Not all of us are 150lb beanpole geeks with the build of a 10 year-old-boy.
They tried to put me in one with the normal little tunnel (about as big around as a five gallon bucket) and I freaked out before I got 2' into it and made them back me out.
I agree with you 100%, pair-a-noyd. I'm almost 6' tall and pretty broad across the shoulders. I went to a local hospital for an MRI of my head. I went into the "bore" of the machine headfirst and I had to scrunch up my shoulders so I would fit into the machine. I made it about thirty seconds before I made them pull me out (I had no Xanax or Ativan prior to this MRI). I told the MRI techies that I wasn't going to be able to be stuff into that sewer pipe for ten or twenty minutes. They looked at me and then at the machine. One of them remarked, "We should have scheduled you for the large bore machine." Really? No fucking shit! Apparently the person who schedule my scan never thought to ask if I would need the "large bore" MRI machine to fit my shoulders.
I swore I'd never go back to that hospital for an MRI. I mentioned this to a neurologist that I know. He told me to skip the hospital and to go to a local place that does only imaging called CDI http://www.cdiradiology.com/.
I called CDI and mentioned my problem with being stuffed in the MRI like a cork in a bottle. They knew what I was talking about and scheduled me for the "open-sided MRI". On the day of the scan at CDI, I also received some Ativan or Xanax prior to the scan. The scan at CDI was a piece of cake and the staff treated me quite well.
I had another scan (this time it was my neck) and I didn't even think about going to the large local hospital for the scan. I said "I'll be getting this scan done at CDI." The second scan at CDI went as well as the first. Because CDI only does imaging, they seem to have newer, more patient-friendly machines than the local hospital.
If you need another scan in the future, don't hesitate to look for a place like CDI that specializes in imaging.
Re:How much would you pay?!
on
Is SETI Worth It?
·
· Score: 2, Funny
Let's say we not only find intelligent life but that we can communicate with them and they have the answers to all our problems...
What if that "intelligent life" looks at us the same way we look at cows grazing in a grassy field ("Beef...it's what's for dinner!")?
Re:Find a cure for cancer first
on
Is SETI Worth It?
·
· Score: 0, Offtopic
If you can write a program that will find a cure for cancer given enough computing power, I'm sure people would be happy to donate it.
Dr. Pande's group will find cures for diseases given enough computer power. Download the client today and start Folding!
Re:Find a cure for cancer first
on
Is SETI Worth It?
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
OTOH, cancer and AIDS research appears to me to be amply funded even given the scope of those problems.
You'll feel that way until your mom/sister/gf/wife gets breast cancer, loses her hair to chemo and then loses part or all of her breast(s) to surgery. After that happens, you'll wonder why we don't have better chemo treatments (ones that don't make you go bald) or why we need to hack off big lumps of flesh to make sure the cancer doesn't come back. I guarantee that you'll think that cancer research needs more funding and that searching for aliens suddenly doesn't seem so important.
Re:People waste money all the time
on
Is SETI Worth It?
·
· Score: 1
previously theorized that P2P Internet can be used like a supercomputer.
"previously theorized that distributed computing can be used like a supercomputer."
There. Fixed that for you. Apps like Folding@home are not P2P.
Saying "why is Benjamin Franklin bothering to fly that kite, what good is this 'electricity' he talks about?"...but it's good folklore that makes the point.
Lightning bolts I have observed over the course of forty years: 1000+
Aliens/alien spacecraft/alien civilizations I have observed over the course of forty years: 0
I remember it. I liked the feature that allows you to "stack" directories like those anatomy transparencies in encyclopedias. You could layer the directories like this: safety:appupdates:apps:osupdates:os. The os files go at the bottom. Any updates go in osupdates. That way, you can keep the original file if there are any problems. You can just delete the update and the original file takes over. Ditto with apps and appsupdate. The safety layer prevents any writes to the directory stack from affecting any files in the lower layers. You could have some users using one set of apps, and others using a different set of apps by changing the "stack".
What the hell are you rambling about? I spent quite a few years working with VMS on VAX and then VMS on Alpha. I don't remember seeing anything like what you described.
I noticed that you omitted using linebreaks in an effort to save energy.
Seriously, I asked you to provide a source that links distributed computing to global warming and you threw a bunch of numbers together. Please provide a credible source which documents the link between PCs and global warming. Thanks.
The millions of watts of wasted energy for distiributed computing non-sense is pushing the earth to global warming.
[citation needed]
That wasted watts also mean wasted money, go give your money to a fund or university, so they could buy dedicated hardware and do the required job much quicker.
Uhh, no. I am reluctant to donate money to 'charities' because a small slice of every dollar gets lost to "overheard" (salaries for administrative staff, expenses incurred by those staff, etc.). If I donate to the Folding@home project at Stanford by running Dr. Pande's software on my PCs, I know *exactly* what my donated dollars are being used for.
You wait until the hardware meets up with ability to solve the problem.
So, if I'm following you correctly, you want the medical researchers to stockpile all the research projects that have "heavy computing demands" until Intel comes out with their 128-core CPU? What do we do in the meantime? Just sit around say "Oh jeez, sorry we don't have a treatment for your leukemia. But in ten years, we are going to launch a computer program that will have an answer for us after running for just thirty days!"?
...outweigh the years of life extended by treating cancers.
It's easy to feel that way until someone in your family is diagnosed with cancer. Also, treating cancer does not just "extend life". There are a lot of younger people (20 to 40 years old) who get different forms of cancer. For them, it's not "will I live to 76 or will i live to 80?" but "will I live to see 30?". Don't even get me started on the kids who are afflicted with these diseases.
So unless you heat your home with electricity, which practically no one north of Florida does unless they have VERY cheap electrical power, you'll still be paying more by running computers.
I don't think anyone would disagree with you. The point that the parent post was trying to make is that a nice side benefit of running a distributed computing client like F@H is that the heat from your computers will help heat your home. Would anyone suggest running a bunch of quad-cores at 100% as a replacement for natural gas? No. But since you have donated the cost of the electricity to run those machines to the distributed computing project, the heat generated by the PCs is free.
I'm very glad to help cancer research, but will this also result in the development of drug patents that (a) bankrupt some patients
The alternative is "don't help the distributed computing project" and those drugs will never be 'discovered'. Then, instead of being poor and alive, the patients will be wealthy and at room temperature.
I'm not talking about spare cycles. I'm talking about the naive notion that gets repeated in the press "the combined power of all these computers equals one of the fastest supercomputers in the world"
If you know so much about the topic, why aren't you at Stanford telling Dr. Pande and his group that they are wasting their time with all those desktops and PS3's? I'm sure Dr. Pande would love for you to point out how his research would be much better off if he'd just go buy some time on aupercomputer.
One of the problems that human surgeons sometimes have when working from CAT scans is that the organs inside the body tend to move around and change shape after you cut it open.
ARF! ARF! ARF-ARF!
"What is it, Lassie? Timmy fell in a well? Engineers have solved the problem of patients that move while they are being treated?"
The present design of the CyberKnife derives from the original concept of a frameless alternative to frame-based radiosurgery. The CyberKnife consists of three key components: 1) an advanced, lightweight linear accelerator (LINAC) (this device is used to produce a high energy (6MV) "killing beam" of radiation), 2) a robot which can point the linear accelerator from a wide variety of angles, and 3) several x-ray cameras (imaging devices) that are combined with powerful software to track patient position. The cameras obtain frequent pictures of the patient during treatment, and use this information to target the radiation beam emitted by the linear accelerator.
The robot is instrumental in precisely aiming this device. When a patient moves during treatment, the change in position is detected by the cameras, and the robot compensates by re-targeting the linear accelerator before administering the radiation beam. This process of continually checking and correcting ensures accurate radiation targeting throughout treatment.
Chicago was one of the cities that experienced rolling black outs because their electric grid couldn't handle the load.
Riiiiight. Fermi Lab is not very far from Chicago and I don't remember hearing any stories about "the grid" running out of juice to power the big ring at FNAL.
Also, Chicago has Da Bears. The odds of an IT worker from IL being willing to come in on a Sunday afternoon for datacenter work are much higher than, for example, asking a Packer fan from WI to work on Sunday afternoon. I predict lots of datacenter work/server upgrades during football season and then few upgrades with lots of unanswered pagers during baseball season.
2. The Altiga VPN concentrator is 100% GUI - there is no CLI.
3. I manage a wireless network that has close to 400 APs. The WLSE (with its GUI) is much easier to use that telnet'ing to each AP. As soon as we upgrade to LWAPP, GUI administration for our wireless network will be SOP.
While I am in-favor of killing the signal of loud-talking idiots in restaurants, there are legitimate reasons not to block cell coverage. I recently worked on a project that lets a paramedic crew send EKG data to an E.R. via a cellular connection. If paramedics were treating a patient lying on the floor of a restaurant and they wanted to transmit EKG data back to the docs at the E.R., hopefully the restaurant patrons with "jammers" would turn the jammers off. Yes, it's a special case and I acknowledge that somehow we did manage to get along back in the "olden days" when paramedics had to cart your ass to the hospital before the docs could see your EKG.
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In a restaurant, the choice is "eat here or eat somewhere else". In a hospital, the choice is "use our services or die". I'm a little more inclined to be forgiving in that situation.
1) Not every patient who enters the Emergency Department is dying.
2) In my example, there are no restaurants that do not suffer from "dine and dash" patrons. The same is try for hospitals. There are no magical hospitals that get paid for 100% of the services they render.
Maybe this will help bring down health care costs as hopefully these will be a lot cheaper - and hopefully no longer will hospitals in the middle of nowhere have to spend several million dollars on an MRI machine. Technology certainly doesn't have all the answers, but things like this can only lead to good.
While some of your hospital bill is due to the cost of acquiring and maintaining the expensive machines, are you also aware that part of your bill is due to people who use the hospital's services but don't pay for those services? Larger hospitals provide millions of dollars worth of services each year to people who can't pay for their medical treatment.
When was the last time you went into a restaurant and ordered a $24-dollar steak but had to pay $32 for that steak because 15% of the restaurants patrons are members of the "dine and dash" club? People would never stand for that. But no one complains when people use a hospital (especially the Emergency Department) and don't pay the bills associated with those services (which results in higher bills for people who *do* pay their bills).
People that don't have claustrophobia can't understand the sheer terror and panic it throws you into.
It's a very, very bad thing to experience.
pair-a-noyd, you don't have to apologize to anyone (here or anywhere else) about your experience in the MRI machine. I know exactly how you feel. I had the same problem myself. The bore of the MRI machine was not as big as my shoulders are wide. I was packed-in there pretty tight. I didn't make it very long before I made them pull me out. You are not alone, man. Plenty of people (even people with a smaller frame than me) hate being in those machines. If you have to get another scan in the future, look for a place with the "open sided" units (yes, I saw your comment about the doc not trusting the resolution of the opensided machines). Also, have them dope the crap out of you before the scan. With enough Xanax or Ativan in your system, you should be calm enough to tolerate the scan (but you'll need someone to drive you home after the procedure).
For some reason I find that your comment suits your screen name just fine...
Of course I understand completely that people don't have to justify their phobias, but you have to admit that you must have caused quite a few shaken heads, raised eyebrows, and sighs of exasperation on behalf of the medical staff. Especially considering that because of their scarcity such machines usually have a line of people waiting for them.
Fucking fuck you, you fucking judgmental prick. "Exasperated medical staff"? Go fuck yourself. Read my story (which is quite similar to the story posted by pair-a-noyd.) I am not normally claustrophobic but when I had to scrunch my shoulders together to fit into the bore of the MRI machine, that was a little too tight for me. It was like being stuffed headfirst into a sewer pipe.
As for the med techs who have "shaken heads and raised eyebrows", one of the techs who was in the room when I was supposed to be scanned commented that I should have been scheduled for the "large bore" MRI. Even the MRI techs know that certain people don't fit into the old, small-bore MRI.
Especially considering that because of their scarcity such machines usually have a line of people waiting for them.
Scarcity? I had no problem scheduling a scan at CDI (http://www.cdiradiology.com/), a place that is actually concerned about patient comfort and doesn't mock people who don't like playing "i'm the cork in the bottle". CDI actually gets a lot of referral business because people can't stand being in the small-bore MRI machines.
So fuck you, you obnoxious twit. Not all of us are 150lb beanpole geeks with the build of a 10 year-old-boy.
They tried to put me in one with the normal little tunnel (about as big around as a five gallon bucket) and I freaked out before I got 2' into it and made them back me out.
I agree with you 100%, pair-a-noyd. I'm almost 6' tall and pretty broad across the shoulders. I went to a local hospital for an MRI of my head. I went into the "bore" of the machine headfirst and I had to scrunch up my shoulders so I would fit into the machine. I made it about thirty seconds before I made them pull me out (I had no Xanax or Ativan prior to this MRI). I told the MRI techies that I wasn't going to be able to be stuff into that sewer pipe for ten or twenty minutes. They looked at me and then at the machine. One of them remarked, "We should have scheduled you for the large bore machine." Really? No fucking shit! Apparently the person who schedule my scan never thought to ask if I would need the "large bore" MRI machine to fit my shoulders.
I swore I'd never go back to that hospital for an MRI. I mentioned this to a neurologist that I know. He told me to skip the hospital and to go to a local place that does only imaging called CDI http://www.cdiradiology.com/.
I called CDI and mentioned my problem with being stuffed in the MRI like a cork in a bottle. They knew what I was talking about and scheduled me for the "open-sided MRI". On the day of the scan at CDI, I also received some Ativan or Xanax prior to the scan. The scan at CDI was a piece of cake and the staff treated me quite well.
I had another scan (this time it was my neck) and I didn't even think about going to the large local hospital for the scan. I said "I'll be getting this scan done at CDI." The second scan at CDI went as well as the first. Because CDI only does imaging, they seem to have newer, more patient-friendly machines than the local hospital.
If you need another scan in the future, don't hesitate to look for a place like CDI that specializes in imaging.
Let's say we not only find intelligent life but that we can communicate with them and they have the answers to all our problems...
What if that "intelligent life" looks at us the same way we look at cows grazing in a grassy field ("Beef...it's what's for dinner!")?
If you can write a program that will find a cure for cancer given enough computing power, I'm sure people would be happy to donate it.
Ask and ye shall receive:
http://folding.stanford.edu/
Dr. Pande's group will find cures for diseases given enough computer power. Download the client today and start Folding!
OTOH, cancer and AIDS research appears to me to be amply funded even given the scope of those problems.
You'll feel that way until your mom/sister/gf/wife gets breast cancer, loses her hair to chemo and then loses part or all of her breast(s) to surgery. After that happens, you'll wonder why we don't have better chemo treatments (ones that don't make you go bald) or why we need to hack off big lumps of flesh to make sure the cancer doesn't come back. I guarantee that you'll think that cancer research needs more funding and that searching for aliens suddenly doesn't seem so important.
previously theorized that P2P Internet can be used like a supercomputer.
"previously theorized that distributed computing can be used like a supercomputer."
There. Fixed that for you. Apps like Folding@home are not P2P.
Saying "why is Benjamin Franklin bothering to fly that kite, what good is this 'electricity' he talks about?"...but it's good folklore that makes the point.
Lightning bolts I have observed over the course of forty years: 1000+
Aliens/alien spacecraft/alien civilizations I have observed over the course of forty years: 0
I remember it. I liked the feature that allows you to "stack" directories like those anatomy transparencies in encyclopedias. You could layer the directories like this: safety:appupdates:apps:osupdates:os. The os files go at the bottom. Any updates go in osupdates. That way, you can keep the original file if there are any problems. You can just delete the update and the original file takes over. Ditto with apps and appsupdate. The safety layer prevents any writes to the directory stack from affecting any files in the lower layers. You could have some users using one set of apps, and others using a different set of apps by changing the "stack".
What the hell are you rambling about? I spent quite a few years working with VMS on VAX and then VMS on Alpha. I don't remember seeing anything like what you described.
You do the math!!
I noticed that you omitted using linebreaks in an effort to save energy.
Seriously, I asked you to provide a source that links distributed computing to global warming and you threw a bunch of numbers together. Please provide a credible source which documents the link between PCs and global warming. Thanks.
Ati's 1950 cards can do 30 times much work then your super uber cpu. Dont you feel stupid now?
Hmmmm....using video card GPUs for scientific number crunching. I wonder why no one has thought of that one...
http://folding.stanford.edu/English/FAQ-ATI
The millions of watts of wasted energy for distiributed computing non-sense is pushing the earth to global warming.
[citation needed]
That wasted watts also mean wasted money, go give your money to a fund or university, so they could buy dedicated hardware and do the required job much quicker.
Uhh, no. I am reluctant to donate money to 'charities' because a small slice of every dollar gets lost to "overheard" (salaries for administrative staff, expenses incurred by those staff, etc.). If I donate to the Folding@home project at Stanford by running Dr. Pande's software on my PCs, I know *exactly* what my donated dollars are being used for.
You wait until the hardware meets up with ability to solve the problem.
So, if I'm following you correctly, you want the medical researchers to stockpile all the research projects that have "heavy computing demands" until Intel comes out with their 128-core CPU? What do we do in the meantime? Just sit around say "Oh jeez, sorry we don't have a treatment for your leukemia. But in ten years, we are going to launch a computer program that will have an answer for us after running for just thirty days!"?
Not exactly new, is it. I was running a distributed cancer protein matching app six or seven years ago. Oxford University did it.
The Folding@home project at Stanford has been around that long as well.
http://folding.stanford.edu/
...outweigh the years of life extended by treating cancers.
It's easy to feel that way until someone in your family is diagnosed with cancer. Also, treating cancer does not just "extend life". There are a lot of younger people (20 to 40 years old) who get different forms of cancer. For them, it's not "will I live to 76 or will i live to 80?" but "will I live to see 30?". Don't even get me started on the kids who are afflicted with these diseases.
I am serious wondering why they dint think of the PS3s. 700,000 PS3s recently subscribed to a network that ended up in Peta Flops peak performance.
I think you are thinking of the Folding@home project at Stanford:
http://folding.stanford.edu/English/FAQ-PS3
So unless you heat your home with electricity, which practically no one north of Florida does unless they have VERY cheap electrical power, you'll still be paying more by running computers.
I don't think anyone would disagree with you. The point that the parent post was trying to make is that a nice side benefit of running a distributed computing client like F@H is that the heat from your computers will help heat your home. Would anyone suggest running a bunch of quad-cores at 100% as a replacement for natural gas? No. But since you have donated the cost of the electricity to run those machines to the distributed computing project, the heat generated by the PCs is free.
Yes, my gas furnace runs less often when my Folding machines are going full-throttle.
http://kakaostats.com/usum.php?u=583666
I'm very glad to help cancer research, but will this also result in the development of drug patents that (a) bankrupt some patients
The alternative is "don't help the distributed computing project" and those drugs will never be 'discovered'. Then, instead of being poor and alive, the patients will be wealthy and at room temperature.
I'm not talking about spare cycles. I'm talking about the naive notion that gets repeated in the press "the combined power of all these computers equals one of the fastest supercomputers in the world"
If you know so much about the topic, why aren't you at Stanford telling Dr. Pande and his group that they are wasting their time with all those desktops and PS3's? I'm sure Dr. Pande would love for you to point out how his research would be much better off if he'd just go buy some time on aupercomputer.
http://folding.stanford.edu/
ARF! ARF! ARF-ARF!
"What is it, Lassie? Timmy fell in a well? Engineers have solved the problem of patients that move while they are being treated?"
http://www.cksociety.org/PatientInfo/radiosurgery.asp
Chicago was one of the cities that experienced rolling black outs because their electric grid couldn't handle the load.
Riiiiight. Fermi Lab is not very far from Chicago and I don't remember hearing any stories about "the grid" running out of juice to power the big ring at FNAL.
Also, Chicago has Da Bears. The odds of an IT worker from IL being willing to come in on a Sunday afternoon for datacenter work are much higher than, for example, asking a Packer fan from WI to work on Sunday afternoon. I predict lots of datacenter work/server upgrades during football season and then few upgrades with lots of unanswered pagers during baseball season.
I've done deep Cisco work directly in IOS
What does that mean? Did you telnet to a switch, login, enter 'enable' and then 'config t'?
Everybody does that.
do your network jocks configure Cisco equipment thru a GUI?
1. Well, ASDM is not a bad tool to have around when working with the ASA's
http://www.cisco.com/en/US/docs/security/asa/asa80/asdm60/user/guide/usrguide.html
2. The Altiga VPN concentrator is 100% GUI - there is no CLI.
3. I manage a wireless network that has close to 400 APs. The WLSE (with its GUI) is much easier to use that telnet'ing to each AP. As soon as we upgrade to LWAPP, GUI administration for our wireless network will be SOP.
While I am in-favor of killing the signal of loud-talking idiots in restaurants, there are legitimate reasons not to block cell coverage. I recently worked on a project that lets a paramedic crew send EKG data to an E.R. via a cellular connection. If paramedics were treating a patient lying on the floor of a restaurant and they wanted to transmit EKG data back to the docs at the E.R., hopefully the restaurant patrons with "jammers" would turn the jammers off. Yes, it's a special case and I acknowledge that somehow we did manage to get along back in the "olden days" when paramedics had to cart your ass to the hospital before the docs could see your EKG.