No, accuracy and margin of error are different concepts.
First of all Theranos is FOS. All the stuff she is touting to do is available on the open market. We will see about their prices. Their 'accuracy' is test-to-test repeatability - NOT confirmation with a reference sample. You can be very accurate and very wrong. Theranos is probably not either, and for clinical laboratory work you don't need to be terribly precise. But all of their breathless hype is total BS.
Getting lab work a couple hours (even days) earlier isn't going to change things much unless you are so ill that you are in a place that can get such studies routinely. They still have to get CLIA waivers for any test that is done outside their central lab.
And we'll see about prices. If you look at the wholesale prices for 'standard' central labs like Quest it's pretty cheap. The problem comes after the several levels of markup. Theranos will be subject to the same issues. And it's not like the current labs have people making test tubes from recycled glass - it's incredibly automated. Much of the costs comes from quality control and Theranos is going to have the same issues.
Oh, and you can, with a prescription from a health care provider, buy a bunch of cute little point of care testing devices already. Have been able to do this for years. Works great in the field. At Walgreens, again, not so sure how useful it's going to be.
I'm not sure where this breathless PR piece is leading to. We've been using 'micro' samples in automatic lab analyzers for years. Just because you can get the results from Walgreen's doesn't change things.
I imagine that Walgreens is going to run only a few tests - cholesterol, pregnancy, HIV antibody. Tests where the FDA has approved patient education for point of care testing. I don't think you can order a whole lot more without 'practicing medicine' and for that you need some sort of license. Perhaps they will limit the testing to places where they have a mini clinic with a PA (physician's assistant) or NP (nurse practitioner).
Ordering tests without knowledge of some important things (like pretest probability / accuracy and sensitivity of the tests) is basically worthless.
But what the hell, it will make somebody some money. That's what counts.
But changing rates changes evolutionary pressures and therefore morphology and organization. So, there may well be other effects than a stochastic slowing process.
Overall, life is going to be constrained by the physics of the organizing molecules - proteins and sugars can only do so much. Other chemistries are certainly possible, but we've yet to see them work.
So you are saying that somewhere, in some distant and unexplored ocean there are islands filed with mouldering ancient texts that explain the origin of life, the universe and everything? Fascinating.
Have you considered pitching this idea to a video game company?
That, and his followers may have decided that since he was such an important personage, that having random crows nibble him to nothingness wasn't all that great of an idea. Some faction of his followers had to take the reigns of command and they may have felt that having an interred burial ground more advantageous.
Well, it may be more complex. "in case it ends up on the Internet" is clinically insane but may well be a poorly constructed argument by someone who doesn't really understand the issues or want to argue.
If it's a performance, there may well be reasons to limit photography ranging from the reasonable desire to have the production go on without 150 paparazzi parents standing up / using flash / tripods or RED1's in everyone elses face or they may be trying to capitalize on having one photog produce all the media so they can make some money on it.
Yes, there are better ways to handle this sort of thing but that doesn't require anybody to actually implement them.
Re:What's wrong with gathering data?
on
Rigging Up Baby
·
· Score: 4, Interesting
For every child that has been 'saved' by having a monitor go off when the child stopped breathing, thousands of parents have had the shit scared out of them for no reason whatsoever, have run the perfectly normal child to the ER (risking a serious automobile accident) or have simply been worn down staring at the display. And these are with kids who have some significant risk of apnea in the first place.
Placing these things in the general pediatric population is going to be fun. And the data will be so heterogeneous that it will be useless scientifically.
They did not build the seawall to protection level suggested by their own geologists. They created a 'backup' system that had obvious holes in it. The groundwork had indeed been done (pardon the pun) to determine the worst credible ground / water movement. They knew there were historical tsuanamis who's water lines were higher than the plant could handle.
TEPCO just couldn't be arsed to spend the money to build the system up because 'it wasn't likely to happen'.
Yeah, the engineers did their job. Management fucked up.
Most of us don't put poop in the land fill. That's what the sewage system is for. Of course, archeologists thousands of years from now will probably look at the dog poop, cat poop and diapers in the land fill and wonder just what the hell was going on.
Oops, didn't read you post completely. You're getting taken for a ride on your lakes. Not only are they charging you more, but you should get about a.25 / gallon break from Federal taxes. I guess you have to move somewhere more maritime.
Slashdot Mirror
No, accuracy and margin of error are different concepts.
First of all Theranos is FOS. All the stuff she is touting to do is available on the open market. We will see about their prices. Their 'accuracy' is test-to-test repeatability - NOT confirmation with a reference sample. You can be very accurate and very wrong. Theranos is probably not either, and for clinical laboratory work you don't need to be terribly precise. But all of their breathless hype is total BS.
Getting lab work a couple hours (even days) earlier isn't going to change things much unless you are so ill that you are in a place that can get such studies routinely. They still have to get CLIA waivers for any test that is done outside their central lab.
And we'll see about prices. If you look at the wholesale prices for 'standard' central labs like Quest it's pretty cheap. The problem comes after the several levels of markup. Theranos will be subject to the same issues. And it's not like the current labs have people making test tubes from recycled glass - it's incredibly automated. Much of the costs comes from quality control and Theranos is going to have the same issues.
Oh, and you can, with a prescription from a health care provider, buy a bunch of cute little point of care testing devices already. Have been able to do this for years. Works great in the field. At Walgreens, again, not so sure how useful it's going to be.
I'm not sure where this breathless PR piece is leading to. We've been using 'micro' samples in automatic lab analyzers for years. Just because you can get the results from Walgreen's doesn't change things.
I imagine that Walgreens is going to run only a few tests - cholesterol, pregnancy, HIV antibody. Tests where the FDA has approved patient education for point of care testing. I don't think you can order a whole lot more without 'practicing medicine' and for that you need some sort of license. Perhaps they will limit the testing to places where they have a mini clinic with a PA (physician's assistant) or NP (nurse practitioner).
Ordering tests without knowledge of some important things (like pretest probability / accuracy and sensitivity of the tests) is basically worthless.
But what the hell, it will make somebody some money. That's what counts.
That's from the trolls. They hide underneath the BIOS and wake everybody up at 3:00 AM (because they're trolls).
It's what you get for hanging around here.....
As has been pointed out, Facebook doesn't want the software, the want the victims^Husers.
Whether several million drunk college students are worth billions of dollars is another deep and unanswerable question.
What's not to love?
That I don't happen to be the founder of Instagram, that's what.
But changing rates changes evolutionary pressures and therefore morphology and organization. So, there may well be other effects than a stochastic slowing process.
Overall, life is going to be constrained by the physics of the organizing molecules - proteins and sugars can only do so much. Other chemistries are certainly possible, but we've yet to see them work.
No, it's guaranteed to divest some foolish people from spare bitcoins.
If it's one thing that lawyers are good at, it is coming up with more arguments.
In fact, they are rather professionally disposed to do so.
Congress is working on what exactly?
Fucking things up. What else?
But I like the idea of a 'larval' T. Rex falling down on some foreign planet or moon and reproducing. Jurassic Park in Space?
No, no Mr. Spielberg, that was a joke. Please don't do that. Don't write that down.
"isles and isles of documentation"
So you are saying that somewhere, in some distant and unexplored ocean there are islands filed with mouldering ancient texts that explain the origin of life, the universe and everything? Fascinating.
Have you considered pitching this idea to a video game company?
That, and his followers may have decided that since he was such an important personage, that having random crows nibble him to nothingness wasn't all that great of an idea. Some faction of his followers had to take the reigns of command and they may have felt that having an interred burial ground more advantageous.
"But I'm not happy just reading about it, or knowing about it. I need to have my feet on it.'"
Sounds liike somebody needs to double up on their meds.
Better Living Through Chemistry
Well, it may be more complex. "in case it ends up on the Internet" is clinically insane but may well be a poorly constructed argument by someone who doesn't really understand the issues or want to argue.
If it's a performance, there may well be reasons to limit photography ranging from the reasonable desire to have the production go on without 150 paparazzi parents standing up / using flash / tripods or RED1's in everyone elses face or they may be trying to capitalize on having one photog produce all the media so they can make some money on it.
Yes, there are better ways to handle this sort of thing but that doesn't require anybody to actually implement them.
Your local PD is getting outfitted like a SEAL team because it's trendy and fun and there is Federal "Homeland Security" money for same.
Would you rather wear some cheap polyester uniform or run around looking like you just found Bin Laden?
It's going to take on hell of a long time to 'lose a war' when damage consists of two minor injuries and some sheet metal work.
"What 'de do? Nibble your bum?"
Run Away! Run Away!
What? My iPhone is using a commie GPS?
I want a refund.
USA! USA! USA!
So very wrong.
Sometimes data is just garbage.
For every child that has been 'saved' by having a monitor go off when the child stopped breathing, thousands of parents have had the shit scared out of them for no reason whatsoever, have run the perfectly normal child to the ER (risking a serious automobile accident) or have simply been worn down staring at the display. And these are with kids who have some significant risk of apnea in the first place.
Placing these things in the general pediatric population is going to be fun. And the data will be so heterogeneous that it will be useless scientifically.
It's just a money grab, as usual.
They did not build the seawall to protection level suggested by their own geologists. They created a 'backup' system that had obvious holes in it. The groundwork had indeed been done (pardon the pun) to determine the worst credible ground / water movement. They knew there were historical tsuanamis who's water lines were higher than the plant could handle.
TEPCO just couldn't be arsed to spend the money to build the system up because 'it wasn't likely to happen'.
Yeah, the engineers did their job. Management fucked up.
Surprised?
Most of us don't put poop in the land fill. That's what the sewage system is for. Of course, archeologists thousands of years from now will probably look at the dog poop, cat poop and diapers in the land fill and wonder just what the hell was going on.
I really feel sorry for them.
Oops, didn't read you post completely. You're getting taken for a ride on your lakes. Not only are they charging you more, but you should get about a .25 / gallon break from Federal taxes. I guess you have to move somewhere more maritime.
If you have a marina or airport close by, you can get the real deal. Cheaper as well since you don't pay federal highway taxes.