Every molecule has a unique absorption frequency. So long as you can identify what absorbption bands are present - very very accurately - you're 99% of the way there. The other 1% requires you to create a catalog of such frequencies by scanning pure samples of pathogens.
Huh? What kind of "absorption frequency" are we talking about here? IR spectroscopy (doesn't work well in complex samples), NMR (ditto), UV (ditto). Taking a human body and disassembling it into component molecules would give you 1) and enormous amount of static data that wouldn't help you much in a living organism 2) a pissed off sample, er, patient and 3) a big mess.
Problems in biology are rarely as simple as the presence or absence of something. It's how things interact.
A second approach would require nanotech and would be extremely slow. Basically, the idea would be to build a device that mimics the cell's mechanism for reading DNA strands and to maintain some sort of internal state that acted in the manner of a cryptographic hash. Once it has calculated the hash, you'd need some way of reading the value. Not sure how you'd do that part, or how you'd even retrieve the device. But again you're getting a value and hunting through a dictionary to see if it is present. If it is, the pathogen is there. If it isn't, it isn't.
Again, you seem to think that medicine is all about 'pathogens'. It's not. Lots of times the nasty little pathogens live happily ever after in your body. Occasionally they become pathogenic. Having a particular molecular ID isn't very helpful. You're also missing epigenetic phenomena (Covalent attachment to DNA from non genomic sources), the poorly understood but likely very important small RNA molecule interactions and a host of other things. Again the complex interactions between the organism, it's internal machinery, the external environment and time make reductionism in biology rather difficult. We really don't understand anything more complex than the tobacco mosaic virus and sub molecular detail.
No, the trick is understanding that different imaging modalities give different, and incomplete, pictures. The current level of technology in imaging currently precludes any sort of device like this. Decent MRI scanners still fill an entire room, ultrasound scanners with good resolution still take a trolley that has to be wheeled, not carried. X-rays don't bounce, they penetrate or are absorbed, so would need a two-part system (and a lead apron for the user). No one of these modalities will cover every possible diagnosis (for instance, ultrasound is good for abdomens, but useless for brains except in babies). I'm not saying that a 'medical tricorder' will never be possible, but at the moment there is no way to miniaturise and combine all those different technologies into one device. Something like the GE Vscan is amazing, but that sort of device would be for crude imaging, like am I going to hit the artery with this introducer, is there fluid around the heart, is there a fetal heartbeat present. You'd be crazy to use a handheld scanner for detailed imaging and diagnosis.
That's correct - with the OTHER caveat is that interpreting the data is hard. Which is why we make radiologists sit in darkened rooms all day and night and it takes about 10 years to grow one.
There are limited areas where computer analysis has helped humans interpret radiological data (ie mammograms) but they aren't all good and typically just help out with the part of the analysis that humans are terrible at (looking at large quantities of boring data) rather than figuring out things on their own.
You realize that Israel has one International Airport and maybe 50 regional airports. Smaller than New Jersey. Israeli techniques, while effective don't scale. Further, ask anyone with an passport from any one of a number of countries with less than cozy relationships with Israel how they like going through Israeli security. It would likely not pass muster in the US - not that what we're doing now is particularly constitutionally sound....
That said, ChromeOS isn't useful for me. It might be useful for my mother, though. All she does is read email and browse the Internet. The only reason her machine, an HP laptop, isn't a reeking virus-infested spyware-riddled useless pile of plastic is because my brother does all the administrative stuff for her. Otherwise it'd be useless.
Yes. Exactly this. For some bizarre reason, Slashdotters haven't really come to grips that 'they' are but a small fraction of the computer market. Your mom's (and mine) demographic is much bigger. And computers-as-an-appliance is precisely the model you need to sell stuff to them. Ipads / ChromeOS / Android Brainless is just what these folks need. They don't have an IS department running AD for them. They wouldn't have a clue what that sentence meant in the first place. They just want to DO something.
Come on folks, just calm down and play with your CLI's. Leave marketing to professionals.
I am not anti-nuclear, I am just realistic about the ability of my fellow humans to fuck up, which seems to happen all the time. Anyone who thinks that nukes are safe has an unfounded faith in humanity.
"Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former". Albert.
If the company has to pay (unlikely as hell) the mess when the plant blows you will very likely choose the second. But as the government (AKA tax payers) usually come to the rescue...
But to be fair, it's is funded by the nuc industry, so the hypothetical power company with an old nuc has been paying into the fund. But they have to do that, so it's a fixed expense.
What server from 1981 do you have running?
It must be a very small data warehouse.
You know, not everything is a computer. I have a 34 year old boat and am part owner of a nearly 40 year old plane. They're both fine. Neither has much to do with nuclear reactors since decommissioning the things would only cost several thousand dollars and have little environmental impact but the truth is that there are lots of big, expensive things that are 30 - 100 years old.
Keeping old reactors on line is a complex endeavor. Fukashima worked fine until it didn't. Had the planners thought out of the box a bit more they might have taken some steps to deal with a higher than expected tsunami - the plant actually survived an earthquake well over design specs but the fact that it's old (other than design issues of needed power during a scram) didn't really enter into it.
Besides, I'm over thirty and this hits a little close to home....
What do people think drives up decommissioning cost? The actual safety measures needed are a factor, but the Chicken Little Brigade is always involved, too.
How about radiation? Remember, the big glowy thing in the middle of the plant. That takes time and effort to safely dismantle.
Their point that the photos document an event of enormous historical significance is 100% on the mark.
Then they can wait a bit. History will still be around. Give it a year or so when all of the dust has settled and the Middle East is upset about something else. Historical photographs don't have to be released on the same time line as editorial photographs and in fact are often delayed for years.
In all seriousness, I'm wondering what we're supposed to do if we find out that dolphins are sentient creatures. We have, whether we always honor it or not, created an array of international accords on human rights. Do we open that up to them? Does that mean that we would have to demand Japan and other nations that have killed them pay compensation? What kind of compensation would a dolphin want? What about territorial issues?
They probably ARE sentient (depends on your definition). This issue has been a problem for mankind for a long time. The more we know about biology, the more we realize that we're not all that different from Everything Else. The big problem, IMHO, is that treating dolphins or whales (or dogs, cats, politicians) like humans doesn't get them all that far. We're pretty ill behaved critters towards everything and everybody, sentience be damned.
Symmetricon has been buying up all the other precision clock makers, and is now a monopoly. They can and do charge whatever they like for such products.
Goddamnit. Do you have to go do this? Here we have an interesting, techy article and you go rain on everybody's parade by trotting out some little factoid that either makes the tech responsible for the imminent demise of the planet or at the very least points out some totally unsavory bit about the company that manufacturers it. Can't you just leave it at Apple, Microsoft and Google?
Slashdot Mirror
Don't you have to reverse the tachyon pulse phase to get it to work right?
Every molecule has a unique absorption frequency. So long as you can identify what absorbption bands are present - very very accurately - you're 99% of the way there. The other 1% requires you to create a catalog of such frequencies by scanning pure samples of pathogens.
Huh? What kind of "absorption frequency" are we talking about here? IR spectroscopy (doesn't work well in complex samples), NMR (ditto), UV (ditto). Taking a human body and disassembling it into component molecules would give you 1) and enormous amount of static data that wouldn't help you much in a living organism 2) a pissed off sample, er, patient and 3) a big mess.
Problems in biology are rarely as simple as the presence or absence of something. It's how things interact.
A second approach would require nanotech and would be extremely slow. Basically, the idea would be to build a device that mimics the cell's mechanism for reading DNA strands and to maintain some sort of internal state that acted in the manner of a cryptographic hash. Once it has calculated the hash, you'd need some way of reading the value. Not sure how you'd do that part, or how you'd even retrieve the device. But again you're getting a value and hunting through a dictionary to see if it is present. If it is, the pathogen is there. If it isn't, it isn't.
Again, you seem to think that medicine is all about 'pathogens'. It's not. Lots of times the nasty little pathogens live happily ever after in your body. Occasionally they become pathogenic. Having a particular molecular ID isn't very helpful. You're also missing epigenetic phenomena (Covalent attachment to DNA from non genomic sources), the poorly understood but likely very important small RNA molecule interactions and a host of other things. Again the complex interactions between the organism, it's internal machinery, the external environment and time make reductionism in biology rather difficult. We really don't understand anything more complex than the tobacco mosaic virus and sub molecular detail.
No, the trick is understanding that different imaging modalities give different, and incomplete, pictures. The current level of technology in imaging currently precludes any sort of device like this. Decent MRI scanners still fill an entire room, ultrasound scanners with good resolution still take a trolley that has to be wheeled, not carried. X-rays don't bounce, they penetrate or are absorbed, so would need a two-part system (and a lead apron for the user). No one of these modalities will cover every possible diagnosis (for instance, ultrasound is good for abdomens, but useless for brains except in babies). I'm not saying that a 'medical tricorder' will never be possible, but at the moment there is no way to miniaturise and combine all those different technologies into one device. Something like the GE Vscan is amazing, but that sort of device would be for crude imaging, like am I going to hit the artery with this introducer, is there fluid around the heart, is there a fetal heartbeat present. You'd be crazy to use a handheld scanner for detailed imaging and diagnosis.
That's correct - with the OTHER caveat is that interpreting the data is hard. Which is why we make radiologists sit in darkened rooms all day and night and it takes about 10 years to grow one.
There are limited areas where computer analysis has helped humans interpret radiological data (ie mammograms) but they aren't all good and typically just help out with the part of the analysis that humans are terrible at (looking at large quantities of boring data) rather than figuring out things on their own.
You realize that Israel has one International Airport and maybe 50 regional airports. Smaller than New Jersey. Israeli techniques, while effective don't scale. Further, ask anyone with an passport from any one of a number of countries with less than cozy relationships with Israel how they like going through Israeli security. It would likely not pass muster in the US - not that what we're doing now is particularly constitutionally sound....
I don't know, I heard some kids at the same fair got a pig and an elephant to make love.
That was the senior prom.
(I'm sorry, I'll shut up now)
Hell, I used to embed Active-X controls in Excel docs, mixed up with a good bit of VB. My way of paying back that employer for sub-par wages ;)
Hell, Active-X alone would be a reasonable payback for lousy wages. I'd only use VB if they kicked my dog. You're a hard, cruel and nasty man.
WTF is wrong with you? Reading TFA is gonna get you in a world of hurt around here. You'll stand out. It won't be pleasant.
Instead of Damn You Autocorrect, we will have a new site called Damn You Precognitive Keyboard!
No, it would be called the "You will be Damned" precognitive keyboard.
That said, ChromeOS isn't useful for me. It might be useful for my mother, though. All she does is read email and browse the Internet. The only reason her machine, an HP laptop, isn't a reeking virus-infested spyware-riddled useless pile of plastic is because my brother does all the administrative stuff for her. Otherwise it'd be useless.
Yes. Exactly this. For some bizarre reason, Slashdotters haven't really come to grips that 'they' are but a small fraction of the computer market. Your mom's (and mine) demographic is much bigger. And computers-as-an-appliance is precisely the model you need to sell stuff to them. Ipads / ChromeOS / Android Brainless is just what these folks need. They don't have an IS department running AD for them. They wouldn't have a clue what that sentence meant in the first place. They just want to DO something.
Come on folks, just calm down and play with your CLI's. Leave marketing to professionals.
Congratulations! You win the Internet Politics Award for irrelevantly bringing the Bush Administration into a discussion.
We could call it 'Wingodding'.
That's the fun thing about conspiracy theories: you can recurse as many times as you want!
To understand conspiracy, you must first understand conspiracy.
What do you mean "this time"?
I am not anti-nuclear, I am just realistic about the ability of my fellow humans to fuck up, which seems to happen all the time. Anyone who thinks that nukes are safe has an unfounded faith in humanity.
"Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former". Albert.
It depends on the consequences.
If the company has to pay (unlikely as hell) the mess when the plant blows you will very likely choose the second. But as the government (AKA tax payers) usually come to the rescue...
Not usually. Always.
But to be fair, it's is funded by the nuc industry, so the hypothetical power company with an old nuc has been paying into the fund. But they have to do that, so it's a fixed expense.
What server from 1981 do you have running? It must be a very small data warehouse.
You know, not everything is a computer. I have a 34 year old boat and am part owner of a nearly 40 year old plane. They're both fine. Neither has much to do with nuclear reactors since decommissioning the things would only cost several thousand dollars and have little environmental impact but the truth is that there are lots of big, expensive things that are 30 - 100 years old.
Keeping old reactors on line is a complex endeavor. Fukashima worked fine until it didn't. Had the planners thought out of the box a bit more they might have taken some steps to deal with a higher than expected tsunami - the plant actually survived an earthquake well over design specs but the fact that it's old (other than design issues of needed power during a scram) didn't really enter into it.
Besides, I'm over thirty and this hits a little close to home....
What do people think drives up decommissioning cost? The actual safety measures needed are a factor, but the Chicken Little Brigade is always involved, too.
How about radiation? Remember, the big glowy thing in the middle of the plant. That takes time and effort to safely dismantle.
Their point that the photos document an event of enormous historical significance is 100% on the mark.
Then they can wait a bit. History will still be around. Give it a year or so when all of the dust has settled and the Middle East is upset about something else. Historical photographs don't have to be released on the same time line as editorial photographs and in fact are often delayed for years.
In all seriousness, I'm wondering what we're supposed to do if we find out that dolphins are sentient creatures. We have, whether we always honor it or not, created an array of international accords on human rights. Do we open that up to them? Does that mean that we would have to demand Japan and other nations that have killed them pay compensation? What kind of compensation would a dolphin want? What about territorial issues?
They probably ARE sentient (depends on your definition). This issue has been a problem for mankind for a long time. The more we know about biology, the more we realize that we're not all that different from Everything Else. The big problem, IMHO, is that treating dolphins or whales (or dogs, cats, politicians) like humans doesn't get them all that far. We're pretty ill behaved critters towards everything and everybody, sentience be damned.
Yes, Nietzsche is a 'little late' for the mainstream news. Also a little much. We're talking Ronald McDonald here.
Symmetricon has been buying up all the other precision clock makers, and is now a monopoly. They can and do charge whatever they like for such products.
Goddamnit. Do you have to go do this? Here we have an interesting, techy article and you go rain on everybody's parade by trotting out some little factoid that either makes the tech responsible for the imminent demise of the planet or at the very least points out some totally unsavory bit about the company that manufacturers it. Can't you just leave it at Apple, Microsoft and Google?
Give us a break for just a bit, will you?
WTF is a 'watch', gramps?
is signalling the CIA
We told you not to go and load Debian on it, but would you listen? No, of course not.
She's not that friendly. Calm down.
I was with you until you mentioned Cmdr Taco. Then you lost me ....
"He doesn't like you."
"I don't like you either. You just watch yourself. We're wanted men. I have the death sentence on twelve systems.