Oh, there are parts of "Big Pharma" that are 'good guys'. People who believe in the mission of making good pharmaceutical products to help people. And there certainly is a bit of hyperbole here (surprise!) on Slashdot. Not everything is an evil conspiracy and the drug companies are not holding back 'cures' in order to milk the system. Remember not to ascribe to malice what is best explained by incompetence - human biology, as I suspect you know from your nic - is hard. Very hard.
But, Big Pharma has an amply documented dark side. Because drug development is hard, it is much easier to manipulate the market and get higher returns through the whiles of advertising and marketing and manipulation of the patent and other legal systems. Big Pharma has taken this to new heights over the past couple of decades and shows no evidence of changing it's ways.
Yes, legal pressure is the only thing that is going to get any substantive changes done, but don't hold your breath.
If our firm had these laptops and they broke down, how am I suppose to remove/wipe the hard drive? I would have to take a Sludge Hammer to the laptop in the parking lot, just to be sure no sensitive data gets out.
Come on. You could make money by charging your Apple-hating employees (and you know you have a couple) to drive over the thing in an SUV. Back and forth.
It would be good for the wallet, the soul and the economy. What's not to like?
You do realize that your kind are just a small rowboat in the Sea of Potential Consumers? A small rowboat madly paddling against the tide, wind and current.
Apple knows it's market one hell of a lot better than you do.
Gotta love Slashdot though. Somebody could be making a lot of money on us taking the Slashdot Groupthink and shorting it hard.
Well, if Apple didn't go messing with things, they had a pretty good system with the 2011 - 2012 15 and 17 inchers:
I have a 17" with a 256GB SSD and a 1 TB spinning disk in the DVD caddy (aftermarket holder, takes 30 minutes to install, piece of cake). A great combo. I keep the OS, programs and media that I'm actively playing with on the SSD, dump the pictures or video files I'm not currently working with, but not ready to archive on the HD.
I also keep a hot backup of the OS partition on the HD so I can boot off that should the SSD go tits up during an inconvenient time.
But looks like this will be the last time I can get away with that. Might have to get an early 2012 model and store it for a while....
I'm curious about something with the pentalobe screws. Other than being used for tamper-resistance, I wonder if they allow for additional torque to be applied without camming out (a la Robertson or Torx.) If this were the case, it would make sense for Apple to use it.
I doubt it. The Torx specification was specifically designed for machine insertion with controlled torque. The big advantage of a Torx drive is that the driver tip can have a relatively acute angle to the screw without damage to the head and with the ability to control the screw easily. This makes it easier to design automated construction equipment. The Pentalobe, even if it had some of those properties is really unlikely to be any better.
Although it's nice to have this backing it up. I'm a med student and 10% of our course is dedicated to analysis of clinical trials, and the statistical tricks drug reps use to dupe you into prescribing their new drugs.
Protip: Learn your statistics well (and your English gooder). If you have a passably advanced knowledge you can 1) understand the lies and damned lies 2) have lots of fun twisting the drug rep at conferences and meetings. Always fine quality entertainment after a night up on call.....
You have been brainwashed by anti medical science FUD.
Not when it comes to Big Pharma. They are impressively consistent. About the only thing they've done of late is to get more subtle.
Even with all of the rules and regulations foisted on them to be more ethical, they will skirt the law and ethics are hard as they can. 'Unrestricted' educational grants to seminars who have speakers who get money from the very same company who inevitably have a positive spin for the drug or device the company is marketing. Yes, the spins are getting more nuanced - in the past they were just openly blatant about it, now they will discuss some positive data, a dribble of controversy and then come up with a positive recommendation.
And don't even get me started on Direct-to-Consumer Advertising.......
Time to cut back on that gaming all nighters once you hit 30 then. Need to get as many as possible until then!
But only if you have a normal Body Mass Index (BMI).
FTFA
In people who fell into normal weight categories -- a body mass index of 18.5 to nearly 25 -- those who reported sleeping less than six hours a night were at about 4.5 times greater risk of developing stroke symptoms than whose who slept seven and eight hours a night. Surprisingly, that increase wasn't apparent in overweight or obese people who slept less.
The increased stroke risk ONLY OCCURRED IN NORMALLY SIZED PATIENTS
The application of this study to the Slashdot population should be obvious. Not to worry.
That's why I lug around a 17 inch MacBook Pro. Good for the cardiovestubular system as well.
When you lightweights fall over due to heart failure because you've never picked up anything heavier than an latte and a MacBook Air I'm gonna run you over in my wheelchair.
Barnacles and mussels usually don't grow on trees.
Incorrect.
Barnacles and mussels will grow on anything that sits still long enough. Trees, houses, boats, stuff treated with chemicals that require hazmat suits to apply. Anything. Anything at all.
I believe the concern here is mostly due to the amount of man-made debris, thus increasing the odds of invasive species transfer to well beyond what would have been found in nature. Just because "survival of the fittest" is the way nature works, doesn't mean that trying to spur on a battle royal of all the world's species is a good thing.
But humans have been doing this since we wandered off the Savannah. Other animals have been doing this since life developed cell membranes.
Nothing to see, move along.
I really, really wish the various governmental departments involved in this would stop tarting this up as some Godzilla-spawned catastrophe. The hundreds of thousands of ship hulls that have discharged ballast water in foreign ports for the past 5 centuries have done more to speed this sort of thing than one tsunami. Not everything is the end of the world, even if you can get more funding that way.
It seems that a lot of people are trying to pin Stuxnet firmly on the US Government, current administration. So far it seems to be mostly "unnamed knowledgable sources" which could be BS - but things could get more credible.
Somebody lock you in the closet again? It's been out for weeks.**
Possibly as a retalitory cyber attack, possibly something as crude as blowing up a few buildings full of people. Something that is assured to cost the US more than a few million dollars. Obviously there is very little that can be done to stop such an attack - especially if it came in the form of something like Weather Bug with people clamoring to figure out how to install it in spite of what ever controls, warning and blocks put in their way. Ever seen someone in a business with all locked-down users (no Admin rights) call the help desk to ask if they could have someone install Weather Bug for them? Yeah, like that.
You do realize that there are many, many folks - in the US, in Israel, in Saudi Arabia and all over the world who are simply drooling with pleasure over the mere thought of an Iranian first strike. That opens the floodgates for all sorts of nastyness and it will be all the fault of the Iranians. In fact, if one were so disposed, one could argue that all of the posturing and bluffing we're doing is largely to get Iran to frizzle bad enough to lash out.
** random citation - do a quick search and find this and more including some really entertaining counter-counter-conspiracy tales
Slashdot Mirror
Oh, there are parts of "Big Pharma" that are 'good guys'. People who believe in the mission of making good pharmaceutical products to help people. And there certainly is a bit of hyperbole here (surprise!) on Slashdot. Not everything is an evil conspiracy and the drug companies are not holding back 'cures' in order to milk the system. Remember not to ascribe to malice what is best explained by incompetence - human biology, as I suspect you know from your nic - is hard. Very hard.
But, Big Pharma has an amply documented dark side. Because drug development is hard, it is much easier to manipulate the market and get higher returns through the whiles of advertising and marketing and manipulation of the patent and other legal systems. Big Pharma has taken this to new heights over the past couple of decades and shows no evidence of changing it's ways.
Yes, legal pressure is the only thing that is going to get any substantive changes done, but don't hold your breath.
If our firm had these laptops and they broke down, how am I suppose to remove/wipe the hard drive? I would have to take a Sludge Hammer to the laptop in the parking lot, just to be sure no sensitive data gets out.
Come on. You could make money by charging your Apple-hating employees (and you know you have a couple) to drive over the thing in an SUV. Back and forth.
It would be good for the wallet, the soul and the economy. What's not to like?
You do realize that your kind are just a small rowboat in the Sea of Potential Consumers? A small rowboat madly paddling against the tide, wind and current.
Apple knows it's market one hell of a lot better than you do.
Gotta love Slashdot though. Somebody could be making a lot of money on us taking the Slashdot Groupthink and shorting it hard.
Well, if Apple didn't go messing with things, they had a pretty good system with the 2011 - 2012 15 and 17 inchers:
I have a 17" with a 256GB SSD and a 1 TB spinning disk in the DVD caddy (aftermarket holder, takes 30 minutes to install, piece of cake). A great combo. I keep the OS, programs and media that I'm actively playing with on the SSD, dump the pictures or video files I'm not currently working with, but not ready to archive on the HD.
I also keep a hot backup of the OS partition on the HD so I can boot off that should the SSD go tits up during an inconvenient time.
But looks like this will be the last time I can get away with that. Might have to get an early 2012 model and store it for a while....
I'm curious about something with the pentalobe screws. Other than being used for tamper-resistance, I wonder if they allow for additional torque to be applied without camming out (a la Robertson or Torx.) If this were the case, it would make sense for Apple to use it.
I doubt it. The Torx specification was specifically designed for machine insertion with controlled torque. The big advantage of a Torx drive is that the driver tip can have a relatively acute angle to the screw without damage to the head and with the ability to control the screw easily. This makes it easier to design automated construction equipment. The Pentalobe, even if it had some of those properties is really unlikely to be any better.
Just different.
Why else do you think there are more than a dozen different normalization tests?
Multiple choice tests?
Although it's nice to have this backing it up. I'm a med student and 10% of our course is dedicated to analysis of clinical trials, and the statistical tricks drug reps use to dupe you into prescribing their new drugs.
Protip: Learn your statistics well (and your English gooder). If you have a passably advanced knowledge you can 1) understand the lies and damned lies 2) have lots of fun twisting the drug rep at conferences and meetings. Always fine quality entertainment after a night up on call.....
tl;dr
The vast majority of the time it is.
You have been brainwashed by anti medical science FUD.
Not when it comes to Big Pharma. They are impressively consistent. About the only thing they've done of late is to get more subtle.
Even with all of the rules and regulations foisted on them to be more ethical, they will skirt the law and ethics are hard as they can. 'Unrestricted' educational grants to seminars who have speakers who get money from the very same company who inevitably have a positive spin for the drug or device the company is marketing. Yes, the spins are getting more nuanced - in the past they were just openly blatant about it, now they will discuss some positive data, a dribble of controversy and then come up with a positive recommendation.
And don't even get me started on Direct-to-Consumer Advertising.......
Its just a fucking laptop.
Well, in some circumstances, that would be considered a big plus, even if it doesn't quite rise (ahem) to the level of an engineering marvel.
I'm not advocating for either candidate, I just remembered this article from the Atlantic and am passing it along because I think the whole idea is pretty funny: "The Uncanny Valley: What Robot Theory Tells Us About Mitt Romney."
Damnit. I friggin' knew it
Romney is a robot. It explains it all. I'm going to have to pass, however.
Maybe they can try for an improved version in 2016.
Time to cut back on that gaming all nighters once you hit 30 then.
Need to get as many as possible until then!
But only if you have a normal Body Mass Index (BMI).
FTFA
In people who fell into normal weight categories -- a body mass index of 18.5 to nearly 25 -- those who reported sleeping less than six hours a night were at about 4.5 times greater risk of developing stroke symptoms than whose who slept seven and eight hours a night. Surprisingly, that increase wasn't apparent in overweight or obese people who slept less.
The increased stroke risk ONLY OCCURRED IN NORMALLY SIZED PATIENTS
The application of this study to the Slashdot population should be obvious. Not to worry.
That's why I lug around a 17 inch MacBook Pro. Good for the cardiovestubular system as well.
When you lightweights fall over due to heart failure because you've never picked up anything heavier than an latte and a MacBook Air I'm gonna run you over in my wheelchair.
You mean a product that is released every year is going to be released again this year? This is very exciting and unexpected news.
You must be new here.
Somebody is going to come across this whole friggin web site, sit down and go
What the Holy Hell was exactly going on at that time?
No wonder the whole civilization collapsed.
So lighten up.
Oh, they probably say that. We just stare at them like they're insane.
Works out well most of the time, no matter what they're saying, so the dialect is kinda immaterial.
They do this in Australia? Really?
Not the Muzak-lounge lizard trumpet version?
I'd move there if you would only learn how to drive on the correct side of the road.
OK, everybody who thinks this a new phenomena go out and read Charles Mann's book 1491.
tl;dr this sort of thing (human introduction of foreign species) has been going on for tens of thousands of years.
Nothing to see here, move along.
Barnacles and mussels usually don't grow on trees.
Incorrect.
Barnacles and mussels will grow on anything that sits still long enough. Trees, houses, boats, stuff treated with chemicals that require hazmat suits to apply. Anything. Anything at all.
but any different than floating tree trunks or coconut shells?
Have you ever tried to tie a boat up to a floating coconut?
Adapting to new environments isn't just for other species.
It's the law.
I believe the concern here is mostly due to the amount of man-made debris, thus increasing the odds of invasive species transfer to well beyond what would have been found in nature. Just because "survival of the fittest" is the way nature works, doesn't mean that trying to spur on a battle royal of all the world's species is a good thing.
But humans have been doing this since we wandered off the Savannah. Other animals have been doing this since life developed cell membranes.
Nothing to see, move along.
I really, really wish the various governmental departments involved in this would stop tarting this up as some Godzilla-spawned catastrophe. The hundreds of thousands of ship hulls that have discharged ballast water in foreign ports for the past 5 centuries have done more to speed this sort of thing than one tsunami. Not everything is the end of the world, even if you can get more funding that way.
we live in a VERY SCARY world
You're just coming to this conclusion now?
Did your doctor stop one of your meds or something?
It seems that a lot of people are trying to pin Stuxnet firmly on the US Government, current administration. So far it seems to be mostly "unnamed knowledgable sources" which could be BS - but things could get more credible.
Somebody lock you in the closet again? It's been out for weeks.**
Possibly as a retalitory cyber attack, possibly something as crude as blowing up a few buildings full of people. Something that is assured to cost the US more than a few million dollars. Obviously there is very little that can be done to stop such an attack - especially if it came in the form of something like Weather Bug with people clamoring to figure out how to install it in spite of what ever controls, warning and blocks put in their way. Ever seen someone in a business with all locked-down users (no Admin rights) call the help desk to ask if they could have someone install Weather Bug for them? Yeah, like that.
You do realize that there are many, many folks - in the US, in Israel, in Saudi Arabia and all over the world who are simply drooling with pleasure over the mere thought of an Iranian first strike. That opens the floodgates for all sorts of nastyness and it will be all the fault of the Iranians. In fact, if one were so disposed, one could argue that all of the posturing and bluffing we're doing is largely to get Iran to frizzle bad enough to lash out.
** random citation - do a quick search and find this and more including some really entertaining counter-counter-conspiracy tales
They all copied the code from Oracle. They'd better be prepared for a huge fine or a sales ban.
No they didn't. Stuxnet and Flame actually work.
QED.