That was actually a very good computer analogy. Top notch researchers are almost at the oscilloscope level. They don't really know what's going on in there, but they've found ways to get glimpses. The average doctor treating (for example) depression? Just randomly connecting wires. That doesn't work? Let's put some voltage behind them.
It may be that diagnosis and treatment would be theoretically beneficial... IF THEY IDENTIFIED THE ACTUAL CAUSE! I don't know about anxiety, but a typical doctor dealing with depression will just throw SSRIs, SNRIs, TCAs, or even MAOIs at the problem. They don't think, they just prescribe. They make no attempt to understand the underlying pathology.
You brought up stress induced depression. The average doctor won't consider stress related disorders when dealing with depression, even if you ask him to. Tell a doctor you have depression and fatigue, and most of them wont even think about hypothyroidism. Tell a doctor you have depression and have trouble sleeping, and they'll tell you that it is a symptom of your depression*. They won't wonder about sleep apnea.
*(This is from the "depression is a disease not a symptom" philosophy. At the very least, there's a high chance of co-morbidity, or that the depression has been exacerbated by a sleep disorder.)
The medical profession really needs to wake up and understand that depression is not a disease. It is a symptom. There are many known causes, and probably many that are unknown. When dealing with a chronic condition, you can't just assume that it is idiopathic and treat the symptom, hoping that it will go away. That's unethical.
(You must make a true, good-faith effort to show that it really is ideopathic first. Just because you don't know what it is off the top of your head is no excuse to slack off.)
The problem seems to be made worse because doctors seem to like depression. Depression, as a diagnosis, is popular. It's almost as if doctors are hoping you'll be a depression patient.
He was told they'd get around to it no sooner than 7 weeks (roughly 2 months). They got it back to him in 4 months (or maybe 6, depending on how the math was done). It sounds like they misjudged the duration of the backlog.
He was given a time estimate, as a lower bound, and it took twice (or 3x) as long. That's not at all unusual for business. There is no indication of how long the actual unlocking took. From what little we know, it could easily have been minutes.
(You are right that the summary doesn't make as strong an implication as I thought it did.)
The summary implies that it did only take a couple of minutes... after months of sitting on a shelf while Apple dealt with the backlog of other phones needing to be unlocked by law enforcement.
And they wonder why medical bankruptcies account for something like 75% of all personal bankruptcies in the US. That statistic alone tells me something is very very wrong with the system...
You get ill, so you can't work. You can't work so you lose your job. Then you can't pay for insurance. Then you spend all your money, go bankrupt, and beg for government mercy. (Often counties have something like medicare for those who don't qualify for medicare. This is a good thing, but insurance companies prey on the broken system.) If they're well, they're a customer; if they're sick, they're someone else's problem.
Something is very broken with the system. We don't need Pelosi Care*, but we do need legislative intervention.
*(I don't believe Obama likes what wound up in it, nor do I think he was the driving force in getting it passed. I don't like Obama, but I'm not hanging this on him.)
Cancer cures won't be marketted til cancer treatments stop being a cash cow. After all, they only work so well, then you get a relapse after remission so you get to buy the treatments again.
Here, I'll disagree with you. Some cancer can be cured, and are regularly... but doctors never call cancer patients cured. That would lull a patient into a false sense of security, and besides, it could lead to a malpractice suit. If you've ever had cancer, you are statistically much more likely to get the same class of cancer again. This doesn't mean it "came back" (sometimes yes, not always).
What you mean to say is that curing individual cases of cancer is more profitable than preventing future occurrence of cancer in patients known to be very high risk. This may be somewhat true.
The irony is that idiocy like this is what convinced the founding fathers that the 2nd amendment was a pretty neat idea in the first place.
(Petty bureaucrats and politicians trying to micromanage life; preventing people from going about legitimate business; trying to control all weapons, other consequences be darned. This doesn't seem to cover onerous taxes, but coming from a California Democrat it's close enough.)
If the only thing keeping you from having sex with children is a law stating so, then you're beyond all help as it is.
That's only true to a degree. There are some pathetic monsters who will rape children regardless of the law. On the other hand, there are other countries in the world where child rape is not as rare as it is in the "civilized" world (girls or boys, depending on the local custom).
This isn't a matter of genetics. Had those rapists been born in another country, with different norms and laws, most of them would never have offended. It is a matter of culture, and laws both reflect that and help to shape it. (Something illegal gradually gains an extra stigma, in this case deservedly so; something legal gradually loses it, to a degree.)
Put the other way around, children in countries with laws against child rape are generally safer than children who aren't. (depending on the nation and culture in question)
What they did in the study was clearly very dangerous. Anyone that does that on actual roads ought to be arrested and have their licence revoked.
I mean that.
Now try to see past what you originally thought I said. There is a jihad against phones in cars... in any way, shape, or form. The disinformation campaign is in full swing. This study was either commissioned for this holy war, or was co-opted by it.
There is an abundance of bad statistics out to prove cell phones are more dangerous than they really are. They go out of their way to use bad logic and mix data that doesn't apply. And by and large, they get believed and repeated. But you asked for a citation about what I've posted...
Hey, hey. I already said it was well deserved. Save the vitriol for the next Clinton election campaign.
The reason why so many people did not understand your post is because you stuck a long non-sequitur in the middle of your second sentence. Stay focused on your point, and people are more likely to understand you.
Try to understand what other people have actually written and they're more likely to want to communicate with you.
I think this was a politically driven study. They weren't after a better texting solution... they just wanted to ban phones in cars. At this rate (in CA) it will be illegal to possess a phone battery or charger in a moving vehicle. They just hate phones in cars. They're convinced that phones are killing millions of people every year, and don't you dare tell them that haven't a clue how statistics work. (Any batch of numbers, inappropriately crunched, will produce "statistics"... just not useful ones.
And the media? Accurate reporting of news? Avoiding misleading sensationalist headlines? Uh huh. Not going to happen. They're in a desperate race to the bottom. Shout the loudest, speak the simplest, try to keep your doors open.
I'm sure the study had a reasonable title. They could afford to. The media was going to misreport it for them regardless.
You've never seen someone drive with their knees? I think it's very bad behavior, but it happens all... the... time.
No, seriously. I'd guess more than half of under-thirty-year-olds have used their knees to drive at one point or another, with no hands free to take the wheel.
They're doing it right... [L]etting Texas A&M Transportation Institute do a study... about texting in the driving environment produced findings they wanted.
Removing the (well deserved) Obama bashing out of your post, and you beat me to the punch. There's a real drive in certain political circles right now to protect us from something that they perceive is dangerous (cell phones anywhere near a car). Any study that will "prove" their point is worth funding.
The fact of the matter is, talking on a cell phone (even without hands free) is by far the least dangerous "distracted driving" activity that happens everywhere, all the time. For instance, eating behind the wheel is legitimately dangerous... but it has nothing to do with cell phones, it must be alright! Changing the station/CD/song in your car? Messing with the AC? Shaving? Messing with the GPS??? How about talking to someone in the backseat?!? That's more dangerous than talking on a cell phone!
There is no logic to these people, only rotten/mishandled statistics. But we have to "protect people" from themselves through legislation. Otherwise how are they ever to survive?...
Complex system... yeah, sure... but still an EXCUSE.
An easy example: King Henry the 8th wanted to divorce his wife. The Pope wouldn't let him. He founded a church and did it anyway. It was a very complex system. This was hardly the only issue on the table. It was done in the name of religion, and in the name of the new church... but it was still, just an excuse.
This is not to say there weren't atheists who happened to assholes ("Hi Stalin!"). But they weren't assholes because they were atheists. Because they were communists, or socialists, or fascists, or conservative, or liberal, or any number of other justifications for actions, sure, but not because they were atheists. Because atheism offers virtually nothing by way of imperative.
You're deceiving yourself here. Many atheists tie fear of organized religion into their belief. It does not necessarily follow, but it is preached as part of the gospel of atheism. It becomes an inescapable truism that they cannot leave alone. And you think this fear doesn't have imperative implications?
And why doesn't the guilt-by-part-of-a-complex-system rationale work the other way around? Isn't that hypocritical? Atheists are very quick to denounce any and all involvement of their belief in the atrocities of atheist states. Atheism played the same exact role here that religion did in a great many historical atrocities that atheists are quick to point to.
And atheists have killed for the cause of atheism. It just doesn't happen as often as gets claimed, and is typically blamed on the victim.
Addiction support groups don't need religion/god necessarily. For some people, it most certainly helps*. The 12 step programs out there, most notably AA, explicitly include a belief in a higher power (usually referred to as God). It's the foundational pivot upon which the program works.
(No, I'm not an AA member. My grandfather was an avid member and supporter, despite not believing in organized religion.)
*(I think it would help anyone, but I admit to being religious.;-) )
That's a strawman argument. (Not originating with you. You're just repeating it.)
3 out of those 5 are a vocal minority, and they aren't even that vocal. They just get mocked. A lot. By everyone. You actually lose credibility when you say something like that.
Are you implying that religion necessarily leads to "war, censorship, or... state policy".
I hope not, because that would be both factually incorrect, and pitifully bitter.
Religion has been used for that excuse, yes. Repeatedly even. So has atheism, communism, capitalism, imperialism and any number of other -isms. A group of people with strong beliefs made a really big boo-boo? Really? Strange. Never saw that coming.
Maybe we can avoid it in the future by having no strong beliefs. We must stand firm in avoiding all strong beliefs! Oh, wait...
atheists are religious too; they prescribe to the dogma that there is no god, but it's not like they have any more proof of their beliefs than those that believe god exists. they often argue...
These are atheists, but not the garden variety. Some of them prefer the term "evangelical atheists". That's how I try to refer to them, to try to specify which ones are trying to claim that I must be wrong, and therefore ought to change so that they can feel better about the world.
The ones who politely disagree with me are fine. We'll never agree on the subject, but we can come to an understanding.
When you use the blanket term "atheists" this way, it tends to marginalize those with more reasoned and reasonable stances. They begin to wonder if they really ought to be more like their rabid brethren, or at least if they should come to their own defense.
Slashdot Mirror
That was actually a very good computer analogy. Top notch researchers are almost at the oscilloscope level. They don't really know what's going on in there, but they've found ways to get glimpses. The average doctor treating (for example) depression? Just randomly connecting wires. That doesn't work? Let's put some voltage behind them.
You're skipping right over numerous known causes of depression, including several endocrinological, nutritional, and even oncological causes.
Not faulting you. Most doctors overlook them too (to their fault).
It may be that diagnosis and treatment would be theoretically beneficial... IF THEY IDENTIFIED THE ACTUAL CAUSE! I don't know about anxiety, but a typical doctor dealing with depression will just throw SSRIs, SNRIs, TCAs, or even MAOIs at the problem. They don't think, they just prescribe. They make no attempt to understand the underlying pathology.
You brought up stress induced depression. The average doctor won't consider stress related disorders when dealing with depression, even if you ask him to. Tell a doctor you have depression and fatigue, and most of them wont even think about hypothyroidism. Tell a doctor you have depression and have trouble sleeping, and they'll tell you that it is a symptom of your depression*. They won't wonder about sleep apnea.
*(This is from the "depression is a disease not a symptom" philosophy. At the very least, there's a high chance of co-morbidity, or that the depression has been exacerbated by a sleep disorder.)
The medical profession really needs to wake up and understand that depression is not a disease. It is a symptom. There are many known causes, and probably many that are unknown. When dealing with a chronic condition, you can't just assume that it is idiopathic and treat the symptom, hoping that it will go away. That's unethical.
(You must make a true, good-faith effort to show that it really is ideopathic first. Just because you don't know what it is off the top of your head is no excuse to slack off.)
The problem seems to be made worse because doctors seem to like depression. Depression, as a diagnosis, is popular. It's almost as if doctors are hoping you'll be a depression patient.
He was told they'd get around to it no sooner than 7 weeks (roughly 2 months). They got it back to him in 4 months (or maybe 6, depending on how the math was done). It sounds like they misjudged the duration of the backlog.
He was given a time estimate, as a lower bound, and it took twice (or 3x) as long. That's not at all unusual for business. There is no indication of how long the actual unlocking took. From what little we know, it could easily have been minutes.
(You are right that the summary doesn't make as strong an implication as I thought it did.)
The summary implies that it did only take a couple of minutes... after months of sitting on a shelf while Apple dealt with the backlog of other phones needing to be unlocked by law enforcement.
And they wonder why medical bankruptcies account for something like 75% of all personal bankruptcies in the US. That statistic alone tells me something is very very wrong with the system...
You get ill, so you can't work. You can't work so you lose your job. Then you can't pay for insurance. Then you spend all your money, go bankrupt, and beg for government mercy. (Often counties have something like medicare for those who don't qualify for medicare. This is a good thing, but insurance companies prey on the broken system.) If they're well, they're a customer; if they're sick, they're someone else's problem.
Something is very broken with the system. We don't need Pelosi Care*, but we do need legislative intervention.
*(I don't believe Obama likes what wound up in it, nor do I think he was the driving force in getting it passed. I don't like Obama, but I'm not hanging this on him.)
Cancer cures won't be marketted til cancer treatments stop being a cash cow. After all, they only work so well, then you get a relapse after remission so you get to buy the treatments again.
Here, I'll disagree with you. Some cancer can be cured, and are regularly... but doctors never call cancer patients cured. That would lull a patient into a false sense of security, and besides, it could lead to a malpractice suit. If you've ever had cancer, you are statistically much more likely to get the same class of cancer again. This doesn't mean it "came back" (sometimes yes, not always).
What you mean to say is that curing individual cases of cancer is more profitable than preventing future occurrence of cancer in patients known to be very high risk. This may be somewhat true.
The irony is that idiocy like this is what convinced the founding fathers that the 2nd amendment was a pretty neat idea in the first place.
(Petty bureaucrats and politicians trying to micromanage life; preventing people from going about legitimate business; trying to control all weapons, other consequences be darned. This doesn't seem to cover onerous taxes, but coming from a California Democrat it's close enough.)
I don't believe you are in Australia, AC.
You're just using fodder from The Daily Show to troll Slashdot.
If the only thing keeping you from having sex with children is a law stating so, then you're beyond all help as it is.
That's only true to a degree. There are some pathetic monsters who will rape children regardless of the law. On the other hand, there are other countries in the world where child rape is not as rare as it is in the "civilized" world (girls or boys, depending on the local custom).
This isn't a matter of genetics. Had those rapists been born in another country, with different norms and laws, most of them would never have offended. It is a matter of culture, and laws both reflect that and help to shape it. (Something illegal gradually gains an extra stigma, in this case deservedly so; something legal gradually loses it, to a degree.)
Put the other way around, children in countries with laws against child rape are generally safer than children who aren't. (depending on the nation and culture in question)
What they did in the study was clearly very dangerous. Anyone that does that on actual roads ought to be arrested and have their licence revoked.
I mean that.
Now try to see past what you originally thought I said. There is a jihad against phones in cars... in any way, shape, or form. The disinformation campaign is in full swing. This study was either commissioned for this holy war, or was co-opted by it.
Strawman, and not a very good one.
There is an abundance of bad statistics out to prove cell phones are more dangerous than they really are. They go out of their way to use bad logic and mix data that doesn't apply. And by and large, they get believed and repeated. But you asked for a citation about what I've posted...
Here's one.
Are their numbers inflated? I'm guessing that they are... but so are the cell phone statistics.
Hey, hey. I already said it was well deserved. Save the vitriol for the next Clinton election campaign.
The reason why so many people did not understand your post is because you stuck a long non-sequitur in the middle of your second sentence. Stay focused on your point, and people are more likely to understand you.
Try to understand what other people have actually written and they're more likely to want to communicate with you.
I think this was a politically driven study. They weren't after a better texting solution... they just wanted to ban phones in cars. At this rate (in CA) it will be illegal to possess a phone battery or charger in a moving vehicle. They just hate phones in cars. They're convinced that phones are killing millions of people every year, and don't you dare tell them that haven't a clue how statistics work. (Any batch of numbers, inappropriately crunched, will produce "statistics"... just not useful ones.
And the media? Accurate reporting of news? Avoiding misleading sensationalist headlines? Uh huh. Not going to happen. They're in a desperate race to the bottom. Shout the loudest, speak the simplest, try to keep your doors open.
I'm sure the study had a reasonable title. They could afford to. The media was going to misreport it for them regardless.
You've never seen someone drive with their knees? I think it's very bad behavior, but it happens all... the... time.
No, seriously. I'd guess more than half of under-thirty-year-olds have used their knees to drive at one point or another, with no hands free to take the wheel.
Removing the (well deserved) Obama bashing out of your post, and you beat me to the punch. There's a real drive in certain political circles right now to protect us from something that they perceive is dangerous (cell phones anywhere near a car). Any study that will "prove" their point is worth funding.
The fact of the matter is, talking on a cell phone (even without hands free) is by far the least dangerous "distracted driving" activity that happens everywhere, all the time. For instance, eating behind the wheel is legitimately dangerous... but it has nothing to do with cell phones, it must be alright! Changing the station/CD/song in your car? Messing with the AC? Shaving? Messing with the GPS??? How about talking to someone in the backseat?!? That's more dangerous than talking on a cell phone!
There is no logic to these people, only rotten/mishandled statistics. But we have to "protect people" from themselves through legislation. Otherwise how are they ever to survive?...
Complex system... yeah, sure... but still an EXCUSE.
An easy example: King Henry the 8th wanted to divorce his wife. The Pope wouldn't let him. He founded a church and did it anyway. It was a very complex system. This was hardly the only issue on the table. It was done in the name of religion, and in the name of the new church... but it was still, just an excuse.
You're deceiving yourself here. Many atheists tie fear of organized religion into their belief. It does not necessarily follow, but it is preached as part of the gospel of atheism. It becomes an inescapable truism that they cannot leave alone. And you think this fear doesn't have imperative implications?
And why doesn't the guilt-by-part-of-a-complex-system rationale work the other way around? Isn't that hypocritical? Atheists are very quick to denounce any and all involvement of their belief in the atrocities of atheist states. Atheism played the same exact role here that religion did in a great many historical atrocities that atheists are quick to point to.
And atheists have killed for the cause of atheism. It just doesn't happen as often as gets claimed, and is typically blamed on the victim.
AFAIK zlib is still the best if you measure the speed/compression ratio.
That's a good reason to like zlib.
But technically the best way to get speed over compression is no compression at all (infinitely fast / 1).
Technically. [runs to hide from ballistic fruit]
Parent is AC.
Only responding to ask people not to feed the troll.
Addiction support groups don't need religion/god necessarily. For some people, it most certainly helps*. The 12 step programs out there, most notably AA, explicitly include a belief in a higher power (usually referred to as God). It's the foundational pivot upon which the program works.
(No, I'm not an AA member. My grandfather was an avid member and supporter, despite not believing in organized religion.)
*(I think it would help anyone, but I admit to being religious. ;-) )
Not all religions teach that. Not even all Christian religions teach that.
I'm not in favor of marijuana, but this isn't far from the truth.
Mental health professionals are mental for their antidepressants.
That's a strawman argument. (Not originating with you. You're just repeating it.)
3 out of those 5 are a vocal minority, and they aren't even that vocal. They just get mocked. A lot. By everyone. You actually lose credibility when you say something like that.
Are you implying that religion necessarily leads to "war, censorship, or ... state policy".
I hope not, because that would be both factually incorrect, and pitifully bitter.
Religion has been used for that excuse, yes. Repeatedly even. So has atheism, communism, capitalism, imperialism and any number of other -isms. A group of people with strong beliefs made a really big boo-boo? Really? Strange. Never saw that coming.
Maybe we can avoid it in the future by having no strong beliefs. We must stand firm in avoiding all strong beliefs! Oh, wait...
These are atheists, but not the garden variety. Some of them prefer the term "evangelical atheists". That's how I try to refer to them, to try to specify which ones are trying to claim that I must be wrong, and therefore ought to change so that they can feel better about the world.
The ones who politely disagree with me are fine. We'll never agree on the subject, but we can come to an understanding.
When you use the blanket term "atheists" this way, it tends to marginalize those with more reasoned and reasonable stances. They begin to wonder if they really ought to be more like their rabid brethren, or at least if they should come to their own defense.