Although there are minor dosing issues, it has always impressed me on how similar foreign drugs. Omeprazole 20 mg (generic Prilosec) is the same thing in the UK and in Germany. The labeling issues are pretty silly. If you get a prescription of the same drug from two different pharmacies is will often have different warning labels. It's pretty random (and useless).
If the US hadn't adopted the metric system for drugs and remained on the 'grains' and teaspoon structure of the 1800's we might have a problem. Canadian drugs in particular are very, very close to American brands, strengths and formulations.
Here's an idea that's been floated before - allow drugs approved by a few other agencies to get imported. Agencies from large industrialized countries who appear to be doing at least as good a job as the FDA in weeding out counterfeit and poorly made drugs. Does anyone think that the Canadians or French or Germans are falling over left and right due to contaminated drugs? Does anybody think the FDA is perfect?
This sort of thing could be done in the space of a year or so. It would solve a number of problems but would never fly politically.
That product is long, long out of patent protection and available in generic form. No single company should be able to constrict demand. Even if that is the case, then they fall under antitrust laws and a suit should be filed.
Most of the drugs that have been subject to shortages have been generics. Cheap generics. Even after all of the hue and cry about the shortages (this is apparently a US only issue) it isn't very clear exactly WHY the drugs are in short supply. It may well be that they are too cheap - it's simply not profitable to make the drug, test it and deal with the various regulatory agents for the price the market will bear. It may be that the generic companies don't have their manufacturing acts together. It may be an evil conspiracy set in place by the Illuminati. It may be all of the above.
Antitrust has (likely) very little to do with this. In fact, most of the drugs that I've seen that are short supplied have numerous sources - at least from the pharmacy ordering end. Whether or not there are multiple manufacturers is harder to discern.
And further, even for generics, the inflation rate has tracked way past pretty much everything else for years.
I demand News for Nerds !! What nerd cares of peat and bogs ?? No nerd !! Only a hippie cares of peat and bogs !!
OK, here you go:
“Listen, lad. I built this kingdom up from nothing. When I started here, all there was was swamp. Other kings said I was daft to build a castle on a swamp, but I built it all the same, just to show 'em. It sank into the swamp. So, I built a second one. That sank into the swamp. So I built a third one. That burned down, fell over, then sank into the swamp. But the fourth one... stayed up! And that's what you're gonna get, lad: the strongest castle in these islands.”
Even though the researchers 'stripped' the vein, there certainly are proteins left and they may be antigenic (create an immune response, something you don't want in this instance). We use pig heart valves in humans without much problem so our little porcine friend might be a better fit.
That said, this is pretty investigational, they may have wanted to decrease the number of variables involved or may simply have had a better protocol for using a human substrate. If this turns out to work well, you can bet these sorts of things will be explored.
. The subscriber is forced to learn to operate a new application every single edition.
Huh? Never have used Newstand but how hard can it be on an iPad? You have a limited number of controls / activities. Once you've clicked and swiped you're done. Am I missing something?
At the end of the presentation, Elon took the time to add, "Just to make it clear, Congress, we're going into space whether you like it or not, so you can get NASA's funding back in order and try to follow us, or y'all can just stay down on earth and suck it" before flipping off the CSPAN camera.
This has been discussed many, many times. A handy reference for the [citation needed] crowd.
Cost per kg to LEO is, of course, the holy grail for SpaceX and other commercial companies. Drop if far enough and you open up LEO to more commercial activities.
That's an excellent point. I hate icons (I don't necessarily know what a squiggle and two dots mean) and some of the faux garbage in Lion is truly annoying.
But my big gripe with Metro is the wasted space. Yeah, you need some extra room on a 4 inch tablet. On a 27 inch monitor, not so much. Don't know how configurable this will be. But it's got to look better than 7. That 's just unnecessarily complex and busy.
While the politicians are upset over Wiki Leaks and the 99% here we have a situation that could be of real aid to an enemy during a sudden attack. This really is military information that needs to be restricted. Julian Assange was for liberty and justice whereas there can be no good motives for publishing locations of weapons of war.
Comrade General!
Not to be worried! This is America! Peoples have maps for everything. Not like old country.
Yes, I will admit that UAV's have caught the occasional nude sunbather in the backyard and such.
Given the average body mass index of a given America and the relative paucity of 'good looking' people in general I should think that scouring the ground for nude sunbathers might be more of a psychologicall hazard to the UAV operators than the putative 'victims' on the ground.
Personally, I'm looking forward to our ubiquitous drone overlords.
I can see this as a total win -
1. Target practice - better than trap or skeet. I'll bet.22 bird shot would take down the little ones. For the bigger guys, it's always goose season around here.... 2. Spare parts - the local Radio Shack doesn't carry UAV stuff yet. I'd love to pick up a couple of those little guys when the batteries run down or they hit a tree. 3. Cat practice for the ones in your backyard. Better than having the stupid animals chew up the bird population.
And you folks think the Federal Government doesn't want to help the average guy.....
Further, firing pins are really not hard to make. A lathe, some good steel and a knowledge of metal hardening (the most difficult part of the procedure) and you're rocking.
And if the insurance company (especially Medicare / Medicaid) finds out that you're discounting cash customers, they will use that discounted rate as the new base rate so they can discount further.
The way a lot of doctor's offices get around this is to offer a substantial discount for cash-at-time-of-service. Supposedly (according to our CFO), this is pretty legit as we would offer the same deal to the insurers should they ever manage to pay as soon as the patient leaves (Satan gets a pair of ice skate time).
Of course, that means the office has to be organized enough to be able to drop the bill as soon as the patient shows up to the window. That's actually bizarrely difficult.
Slashdot Mirror
I have the 512 GB SSD in the main drive slot of my MBP and a 1 TB Magnetic drive in the space where the super drive used to be.
Hard to beat in a laptop. A few years ago, I would have killed for that kind of storage in a desktop.....
Wow. Where the hell do you work? I've been on a tour of 8 hospitals in the West - NOBODY is running IE6 although half of them were running XP SP3.
Everybody is using IE 7/8 and / or Firefox.
Even McKesson, that dinosaur of a company has finally become browser agnostic.
No excuses. None at all.
Yes, I'm referring to the little label stuck on the bottle "may cause drowsiness", etc. The actual USP patient data should be pretty much the same.
The question should be, whether these moles will lead to skin cancer, and if Microsoft should limit's exposure to the sun to counter balance them.
Why do you think Microsoft is headquartered in the Seattle area?
Coincidence? I should think not.
Although there are minor dosing issues, it has always impressed me on how similar foreign drugs. Omeprazole 20 mg (generic Prilosec) is the same thing in the UK and in Germany. The labeling issues are pretty silly. If you get a prescription of the same drug from two different pharmacies is will often have different warning labels. It's pretty random (and useless).
If the US hadn't adopted the metric system for drugs and remained on the 'grains' and teaspoon structure of the 1800's we might have a problem. Canadian drugs in particular are very, very close to American brands, strengths and formulations.
Here's an idea that's been floated before - allow drugs approved by a few other agencies to get imported. Agencies from large industrialized countries who appear to be doing at least as good a job as the FDA in weeding out counterfeit and poorly made drugs. Does anyone think that the Canadians or French or Germans are falling over left and right due to contaminated drugs? Does anybody think the FDA is perfect?
This sort of thing could be done in the space of a year or so. It would solve a number of problems but would never fly politically.
That product is long, long out of patent protection and available in generic form. No single company should be able to constrict demand. Even if that is the case, then they fall under antitrust laws and a suit should be filed.
Most of the drugs that have been subject to shortages have been generics. Cheap generics. Even after all of the hue and cry about the shortages (this is apparently a US only issue) it isn't very clear exactly WHY the drugs are in short supply. It may well be that they are too cheap - it's simply not profitable to make the drug, test it and deal with the various regulatory agents for the price the market will bear. It may be that the generic companies don't have their manufacturing acts together. It may be an evil conspiracy set in place by the Illuminati. It may be all of the above.
Antitrust has (likely) very little to do with this. In fact, most of the drugs that I've seen that are short supplied have numerous sources - at least from the pharmacy ordering end. Whether or not there are multiple manufacturers is harder to discern.
And further, even for generics, the inflation rate has tracked way past pretty much everything else for years.
I demand News for Nerds !! What nerd cares of peat and bogs ?? No nerd !! Only a hippie cares of peat and bogs !!
OK, here you go:
“Listen, lad. I built this kingdom up from nothing. When I started here, all there was was swamp. Other kings said I was daft to build a castle on a swamp, but I built it all the same, just to show 'em. It sank into the swamp. So, I built a second one. That sank into the swamp. So I built a third one. That burned down, fell over, then sank into the swamp. But the fourth one... stayed up! And that's what you're gonna get, lad: the strongest castle in these islands.”
Happy now?
Even though the researchers 'stripped' the vein, there certainly are proteins left and they may be antigenic (create an immune response, something you don't want in this instance). We use pig heart valves in humans without much problem so our little porcine friend might be a better fit.
That said, this is pretty investigational, they may have wanted to decrease the number of variables involved or may simply have had a better protocol for using a human substrate. If this turns out to work well, you can bet these sorts of things will be explored.
. The subscriber is forced to learn to operate a new application every single edition.
Huh? Never have used Newstand but how hard can it be on an iPad? You have a limited number of controls / activities. Once you've clicked and swiped you're done. Am I missing something?
I dunno. I have terminal set up as white on green. It's very relaxing. Reminds me of fun times in the basement at college.
You know, Metro isn't all that far away from Retro.
Just sayin.
At the end of the presentation, Elon took the time to add, "Just to make it clear, Congress, we're going into space whether you like it or not, so you can get NASA's funding back in order and try to follow us, or y'all can just stay down on earth and suck it" before flipping off the CSPAN camera.
He's just taking a cue from Heinlein's old playbook. Nothing new here.
Cost per kg to LEO:
This has been discussed many, many times. A handy reference for the [citation needed] crowd.
Cost per kg to LEO is, of course, the holy grail for SpaceX and other commercial companies. Drop if far enough and you open up LEO to more commercial activities.
It's partially reusable...
That said, the first thing that came to mind when watching the simulations of Grasshopper was "was that the primary buffer coupling".
I need to get outside now....
I've never seen a company so eager to destroy their own user base though forced , unwanted, change.
Wander over to a discussion on Mountain Lion in the Apple forums. Remarkably similar rending of garments and gnashing of teeth.
That's an excellent point. I hate icons (I don't necessarily know what a squiggle and two dots mean) and some of the faux garbage in Lion is truly annoying.
But my big gripe with Metro is the wasted space. Yeah, you need some extra room on a 4 inch tablet. On a 27 inch monitor, not so much. Don't know how configurable this will be. But it's got to look better than 7. That 's just unnecessarily complex and busy.
Maybe wait for 9.....
If you look at my post history, I have *HAVE* been an avid supporter of Windows for my desktop OS
from an AC.
Slashdot is getting weirder all of the time.
Why?
It's like a step backwards to an old 80s OS where everything consisted of solid bars with no shading or variation.
Not bad. Next step will be text on a solid background starting with a pleasing, simple
C:>
While the politicians are upset over Wiki Leaks and the 99% here we have a situation that could be of real aid to an enemy during a sudden attack. This really is military information that needs to be restricted. Julian Assange was for liberty and justice whereas there can be no good motives for publishing locations of weapons of war.
Comrade General!
Not to be worried! This is America! Peoples have maps for everything. Not like old country.
Have vodka.
Yes, I will admit that UAV's have caught the occasional nude sunbather in the backyard and such.
Given the average body mass index of a given America and the relative paucity of 'good looking' people in general I should think that scouring the ground for nude sunbathers might be more of a psychologicall hazard to the UAV operators than the putative 'victims' on the ground.
Oh My Fucking God
Just when you think it's safe to go back in the water.....
Personally, I'm looking forward to our ubiquitous drone overlords.
I can see this as a total win -
1. Target practice - better than trap or skeet. I'll bet .22 bird shot would take down the little ones. For the bigger guys, it's always goose season around here....
2. Spare parts - the local Radio Shack doesn't carry UAV stuff yet. I'd love to pick up a couple of those little guys when the batteries run down or they hit a tree.
3. Cat practice for the ones in your backyard. Better than having the stupid animals chew up the bird population.
And you folks think the Federal Government doesn't want to help the average guy.....
OK, then go to a Brazilian wax parlor.
Further, firing pins are really not hard to make. A lathe, some good steel and a knowledge of metal hardening (the most difficult part of the procedure) and you're rocking.
And if the insurance company (especially Medicare / Medicaid) finds out that you're discounting cash customers, they will use that discounted rate as the new base rate so they can discount further.
The way a lot of doctor's offices get around this is to offer a substantial discount for cash-at-time-of-service. Supposedly (according to our CFO), this is pretty legit as we would offer the same deal to the insurers should they ever manage to pay as soon as the patient leaves (Satan gets a pair of ice skate time).
Of course, that means the office has to be organized enough to be able to drop the bill as soon as the patient shows up to the window. That's actually bizarrely difficult.
Sigh.