They have no idea that its not so much about them having their stuff (which incidentally probably indeed doesn't matter much), but just people having access to accounts that they shouldn't. I usually tell them why its important after they give me an excuse like that. But most people just don't seem to care. But of course they care when something happens.
If what they've got isn't that important, then what is the problem with people having access to accounts they shouldn't? Is it just on principle, or would they really see things that shouldn't be seen? Because if it's that they can see stuff they really shouldn't see -- department payroll or something, maybe -- then they're wrong: what they've got is important. But if they're right about the importance, is it any worse of a problem than the fact that someone can just walk into your cube when you're gone and look at what's on your desk? Probably should lock those papers in a drawer when you go if it's secret.
If you use a second keyboard layout and switching, don't upgrade, this still isn't fixed and it's hell, at random points in time it starts rapidly changing the layout, leading to weird results in what you type.
I was actually pleased to find that my quite different keyboard-related problem was finally fixed. Every distribution upgrade since Intrepid (I think) has broken my Bluetooth keyboard and mouse. It's Dell-branded Logitech bundle with pre-paired Bluetooth dongle. Every distro upgrade has overwritten a config file causing the keyboard and mouse to not work (at least not as a keyboard and mouse). The devices actually look like standard USB devices to most OSes -- and even the BIOS setup -- but Ubuntu has wanted to recognize them as "real" Bluetooth peripherals.
So every six months I would kill the keyboard, not be able to log in, wonder if the batteries were dead, then remember this was a bug, then search the net to remind myself how I fixed it last time. Then I had to find the old USB keyboard in a closet or fire up another machine and SSH in to the unusable one. (For the record, the work-around is deleting a config line pertaining to Logitech devices.)
Of course something has to break to compensate. The thing I found is the new ubiquity installer (at least for Kubuntu) crashes on my hardware. Only applies to fresh installs of 10.04.1 and 10.10 Kubuntu, but it's not a good introduction to the product.
People try Ubuntu because of the hype, then tar all linux distros with the same brush.
So I read this and I think, "If you don't like it, just delete and install something else. Why would you bother archiving it? And what the hell is 'brush'?"
Exactly. Or more specifically, the lack thereof. Here we've got cable, DSL and wimax, but you can only get more than 10 Mbps with cable. All the others are limited to 1-2 Mb down. So when my cable internet bill goes up 25% this year my only recourse is to dump the TV. I guess I could call and bitch, but I'm more of a "just quietly do without" kind of guy.
DSL here is available from multiple providers, and prices from that are much more competitive.
The name "believer" doesn't tip you off that you're believing in something that has no provable basis in fact, ie a superstition?
I'm sorry to see this has been modded "flamebait". I don't think a "believer" would disagree that they are believing in something that they cannot see or prove, nor be incensed to read this statement to the point of flaming.
For example, from Christian scripture: "Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen." (Hebrews 11:1) This definition is not really at odds with the sentiment of the parent.
How can they possibly justify the need to monitor what children eat. When they are either eating what their parent gave them or what the school gives them. This is has no purpose other than to get kids used to being monitored. For crying out loud, if you're worried they're eating too much junk, stop giving it to them.
Iowa schools were profiting by selling the rights to provide school lunches to outside contractors, who found it more profitable to sell kids junk food. Parents got sick of this and demanded the legislature step in. Some administrator took this mandate a little too far, possibly on purpose.
When I was in public school we didn't even have a choice - everybody's meal was exactly the same. Other than outliers with food allergies, why aren't they doing that? No need for any of this technology crap (which, I'd be surprised if it weren't a sweet-heart corporate socialism deal for some company that is owned by a member of the school board) and they probably save money by streamlining preparation and purchasing too.
I was thinking that myself. I don't recall getting any choice in my cafeteria food until 7th grade, when I could choose lunch 1 or lunch 2. If I really caught a wild hare, I could buy a second milk or an ice cream sandwich.
There has been a great deal of publicity in Iowa recently about the amount of junk food available in the cafeterias and vending machines in schools. So much so that parents and other citizens have been demanding that the legislature do something to ensure that kids didn't eat only twinkies and potato chips for lunch. And I can understand that motivation. When I was in school, a parent sent a kid to school with lunch money and the worst thing that happened was they traded their spice cake for a lunchbox kid's ding dong. Unlike back then, until very recently, you sent the kid to school with lunch money and they could feast on snickers. And parents were annoyed at this.
Certainly the PIN solution sounds silly, but I have a feeling that some school administrator is just trying to stick it to the parents a little for horning in on his racket. After all, it had been profitable for school districts to sell concession concessions. And now that money is drying up.
Obviously the fnord agency is trying to get our youth preprogrammed and conditioned to accept monitoring as a normal part of membership in our society.
And this is certainly the first time a school has done anything like that . . .
If you like this sort of cookbook
on
Cooking For Geeks
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
For anyone interested in this sort of book, I'd also recommend Cookwise: The Hows & Whys of Successful Cooking by Shirley O. Corriher. Not nearly as geeky as this book sounds, but it does incorporate a great deal of science into nearly every recipe. And it does it in a way that probably won't scare off non-geeks, either.
My in-laws recently had to evacuate a seriously -- and possibly terminally -- ill expatriate grandfather, an operation that has saddled grandpa's children with considerable debt.
I take it you live in a nation with no universal health care.
In Australia or the UK, this would have required a ticket to Australia or the UK.
Seeing that in print looks heartless, but the man moved voluntarily, aware of his worsening health.
Yes it does, but not in the way you think. The old man just wanted to spend some of his life living in paradise, to be happy which is what this thread is all about. I dont think it is fair to begrudge him for that.
As for the children's debt, I blame that squarely on the society that requires you to go into debt for life saving surgery.
Ya, we're in the US, so no universal health care. He qualifies for medicare because of his age, but this doesn't cover 100% of hospital expenses. And he didn't "buy-in" to the medicare drug plan, since he wasn't planning to come back. Rx drugs were affordable there.
And he did have a ticket home, but couldn't travel alone. So a son and daughter went to fetch him and settle his affairs and pack his stuff.
And I agree it's a failing of our country to not provide vital health care for all citizens, but at the same time, Grandpa was aware that this was the situation. So basically, his plan was what Rep. Alan Grayson called the "Republican Health Plan": "Don't get sick. And if you do, die quickly."
I don't begrudge him the desire to move to his dream home for his final years, but I do feel that he failed to plan adequately for a very likely event (long-term illness and disability). And compound that with the fact that he's a conservative Republican, so he at least tacitly approves of the status quo in health care. If his decision and beliefs were merely to his own detriment, that could be ironic, or poetic justice or being "hoisted on his own petard". But he left his family on the hook. So that's more of what makes me so ambivalent about feeling sorry and begrudging him.
How old are you? If you're over 55, congratulations. If you're under 55, get a job you lazy bastard.
I'm guessing from the mention of SSI, that the GP is in the US. Social Security is available to retirees and also to young people who have become disabled and unable to work. If he's under 55, then he would be getting the disability benefit.
I would add the number of people you accept to care for can go up with increased income. When I passed an amount I felt secure with I accepted increased responsibility for helping parents and siblings. That extra load seems to be a wash emotionally: there is some extra worry balanced by increased happiness at being able to help.
Count among your blessings the fact that you had a choice in the matter. Taking on a big responsibility is easier when done voluntarily, as I'm sure you've seen. So much serious stuff gives us little say. My in-laws recently had to evacuate a seriously -- and possibly terminally -- ill expatriate grandfather, an operation that has saddled grandpa's children with considerable debt. It really wasn't a viable option for them to leave their dad to die in his newly adopted tropical home. And the non-insured medical expenses are not going to make things better, either. Right now I'm hoping that my wife and I don't get touched to help out. Seeing that in print looks heartless, but the man moved voluntarily, aware of his worsening health.
Terminally careless, stupid people remove themselves from the gene pool, in the process putting themselves forward for a Darwin Award and this is bad because???
One reason might be that they could harm other people in the process. Getting hit by a vehicle can damage the vehicle, injure or even kill the driver and passengers. And the vehicle could be a motorcycle, scooter, bike, etc., not just a car or truck. Getting almost hit by a vehicle can result in the vehicle getting in an accident with other vehicles while swerving or braking to avoid the pedestrian. So while the pedestrian is probably in the most peril in these situations, they're not the only one.
"Society has many laws designed specifically to 'nanny' people"
This is not necessarily a good thing.
But it's also not necessarily a bad thing, either. It should be consistent with the society's values without excessively trampling an individual's right to self-determination. And certainly not every individual will draw that line at the same place.
Darn - Australia has gone to goodie two shoes fascists. Seems like all the news coming from there is about less freedom.
The story suggests "Authoritarianism" rather than "Fascism" per se, although Fascists are usually Authoritarian, not all Authoritarians are fascists. "Fascism" is a more specific term, implying palingenetic ultra-nationalism, a desire to return to a (probably non-existent) previous "purity" by purging "degenerate" social, cultural and racial contaminants -- among other things.
If there's enough power in the environment to power useful electronic devices above the level of a watch or a remote (that's used maybe twice a day), then we'd be on fire.
I used to have a pocket calculator that was powered by a small solar panel. The power requirements of something like a central heating control are similar. Even the parts are similar: small LCD, simple microcontroller, just the addition of a valve or two to control the water flow.
Speaking of controlling water flow, I've been seeing "solar" powered automatic faucets in public restrooms for a while now. Good call there, to keep from having to replace the batteries every few months, I think.
I'm not trying to make a point, here. I'm just interested in your experience and if it lines up with the 6 to 12 month lifespan mentioned above.
Never. By the time the batteries are dead they're either degraded by exposure to the elements or broken by the lawnmower or the mailman or your kids or something. The longest surviving one I've had had batteries that would have needed replaced after about 2 years, but it was in such bad shape I didn't.
It's Ryanair, a lot of these suggestions are never intended to be put into service or even investigated. It's a way of getting free publicity for always looking for ways of cutting costs. And the press falls for it just about every time.
Oh yeah. They also floated the idea of pay toilets.
Let me get this straight, the solution to federal agencies giving corporate interests what they want in preference to what the citizens want is solved by abolishing them? I'm sorry, but there's something about that which I clearly don't understand. That seems like the solution to getting a bit wet in the rain from puddles is to cut holes in ones umbrella.
I took it to mean something more like throwing away a broken umbrella. I am personally in favor of trying to fix it, rather than disposing of it.
There are two things that work in medicine. Surgery and antibiotics. Everything else treats symptoms or confirms you need either surgery or antibiotics.
I don't mean this as an insult, but you sound like an orthopedic surgeon. I suppose your statement is true for a sufficiently narrow definition of medicine. Like "physical therapy isn't part of medicine, it's just moving around." And only "treatment counts, not diagnosis". And only curative measures, nothing palliative or compensating, etc.
If you'd said "cefuroxime" instead of "antibiotics", we'd have known for sure.
Being color-blind doesn't mean what you think. Red-green color-blindness doesn't mean you can't tell the difference between a red light and a green light, or between a stop sign and grass.
Or maybe it does. My dad had that problem. Sure he could tell red green traffic lights apart. Red was on top. Except when traveling to a city where the lights were mounted horizontally. Then he just did what the other cars did. He thought that all squirrels were red, despite that fact that we had both grey and red species where he lived.
I think colour coding alone would be enough, and way more cost effective than having different types of tubes for everything. Well apart from for the male nurses, who are far more likely to be colour blind..
And darkened patient rooms, making color recognition harder for everyone. And probably some other stuff too. But it's a good start.
If you're connecting an air hose to an IV, there is something really wrong. Any nurse who does something like this is purely incompetent. I know several RNs and talk to a few on a daily basis. It is a somewhat stressful and fast-paced job, but you cannot ethically exceed your working pace. Every nurse should physically trace each tube to its receptacle. If there are two tubes in the vicinity but not even in proximity, extra care should be taken to trace the tube tactilely. The government-protectionist tone here ("Critics say the tubing problem, which has gone on for decades, is an example of how the FDA fails to protect the public.") is absurd and gives you NO excuse to shed the responsibility for your actions.
If these devices can be designed so this can't happen, then designers, manufacturers, etc. are also not taking responsibility for their actions. It's all well and good to point fingers at the end user, but if you built this stuff and you could have made it more foolproof and didn't, you failed too. It is not necessary of even advisable to have a device with only one layer of defense against misuse. This is a design flaw.
For an excellent example of this sort of design failure, see the Therac-25 case. Therac-25 case used to be taught in just about every system design class for a while. Unfortunately, this happened so long ago that programmers and s/w engineers forgot the lesson and a similar problems have happened again.
Everyone who designs anything that gets used by anyone should read The Design of Everyday Things to disabuse themselves of the notion that it's always the fault of the stupid, incompetent, careless, rushing, undertrained user.
Yes, it's harder. No, you can't anticipate everything. But every problem you can prevent is a person not frustrated, something not broken, money not wasted or even a life saved. So even if you can't do it 100% foolproof, it doesn't mean you don't try your damnedest. Because real users are human, frail, imperfect and subject to many, many pressures.
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They have no idea that its not so much about them having their stuff (which incidentally probably indeed doesn't matter much), but just people having access to accounts that they shouldn't. I usually tell them why its important after they give me an excuse like that. But most people just don't seem to care. But of course they care when something happens.
If what they've got isn't that important, then what is the problem with people having access to accounts they shouldn't? Is it just on principle, or would they really see things that shouldn't be seen? Because if it's that they can see stuff they really shouldn't see -- department payroll or something, maybe -- then they're wrong: what they've got is important. But if they're right about the importance, is it any worse of a problem than the fact that someone can just walk into your cube when you're gone and look at what's on your desk? Probably should lock those papers in a drawer when you go if it's secret.
If you use a second keyboard layout and switching, don't upgrade, this still isn't fixed and it's hell, at random points in time it starts rapidly changing the layout, leading to weird results in what you type.
I was actually pleased to find that my quite different keyboard-related problem was finally fixed. Every distribution upgrade since Intrepid (I think) has broken my Bluetooth keyboard and mouse. It's Dell-branded Logitech bundle with pre-paired Bluetooth dongle. Every distro upgrade has overwritten a config file causing the keyboard and mouse to not work (at least not as a keyboard and mouse). The devices actually look like standard USB devices to most OSes -- and even the BIOS setup -- but Ubuntu has wanted to recognize them as "real" Bluetooth peripherals.
So every six months I would kill the keyboard, not be able to log in, wonder if the batteries were dead, then remember this was a bug, then search the net to remind myself how I fixed it last time. Then I had to find the old USB keyboard in a closet or fire up another machine and SSH in to the unusable one. (For the record, the work-around is deleting a config line pertaining to Logitech devices.)
Of course something has to break to compensate. The thing I found is the new ubiquity installer (at least for Kubuntu) crashes on my hardware. Only applies to fresh installs of 10.04.1 and 10.10 Kubuntu, but it's not a good introduction to the product.
People try Ubuntu because of the hype, then tar all linux distros with the same brush.
So I read this and I think, "If you don't like it, just delete and install something else. Why would you bother archiving it? And what the hell is 'brush'?"
Competition.
Where I live I can have dial-up, or cable.
Exactly. Or more specifically, the lack thereof. Here we've got cable, DSL and wimax, but you can only get more than 10 Mbps with cable. All the others are limited to 1-2 Mb down. So when my cable internet bill goes up 25% this year my only recourse is to dump the TV. I guess I could call and bitch, but I'm more of a "just quietly do without" kind of guy.
DSL here is available from multiple providers, and prices from that are much more competitive.
The name "believer" doesn't tip you off that you're believing in something that has no provable basis in fact, ie a superstition?
I'm sorry to see this has been modded "flamebait". I don't think a "believer" would disagree that they are believing in something that they cannot see or prove, nor be incensed to read this statement to the point of flaming.
For example, from Christian scripture: "Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen." (Hebrews 11:1) This definition is not really at odds with the sentiment of the parent.
How can they possibly justify the need to monitor what children eat. When they are either eating what their parent gave them or what the school gives them. This is has no purpose other than to get kids used to being monitored. For crying out loud, if you're worried they're eating too much junk, stop giving it to them.
Iowa schools were profiting by selling the rights to provide school lunches to outside contractors, who found it more profitable to sell kids junk food. Parents got sick of this and demanded the legislature step in. Some administrator took this mandate a little too far, possibly on purpose.
When I was in public school we didn't even have a choice - everybody's meal was exactly the same. Other than outliers with food allergies, why aren't they doing that? No need for any of this technology crap (which, I'd be surprised if it weren't a sweet-heart corporate socialism deal for some company that is owned by a member of the school board) and they probably save money by streamlining preparation and purchasing too.
I was thinking that myself. I don't recall getting any choice in my cafeteria food until 7th grade, when I could choose lunch 1 or lunch 2. If I really caught a wild hare, I could buy a second milk or an ice cream sandwich.
There has been a great deal of publicity in Iowa recently about the amount of junk food available in the cafeterias and vending machines in schools. So much so that parents and other citizens have been demanding that the legislature do something to ensure that kids didn't eat only twinkies and potato chips for lunch. And I can understand that motivation. When I was in school, a parent sent a kid to school with lunch money and the worst thing that happened was they traded their spice cake for a lunchbox kid's ding dong. Unlike back then, until very recently, you sent the kid to school with lunch money and they could feast on snickers. And parents were annoyed at this.
Certainly the PIN solution sounds silly, but I have a feeling that some school administrator is just trying to stick it to the parents a little for horning in on his racket. After all, it had been profitable for school districts to sell concession concessions. And now that money is drying up.
Obviously the fnord agency is trying to get our youth preprogrammed and conditioned to accept monitoring as a normal part of membership in our society.
And this is certainly the first time a school has done anything like that . . .
For anyone interested in this sort of book, I'd also recommend Cookwise: The Hows & Whys of Successful Cooking by Shirley O. Corriher. Not nearly as geeky as this book sounds, but it does incorporate a great deal of science into nearly every recipe. And it does it in a way that probably won't scare off non-geeks, either.
I take it you live in a nation with no universal health care. In Australia or the UK, this would have required a ticket to Australia or the UK.
Yes it does, but not in the way you think. The old man just wanted to spend some of his life living in paradise, to be happy which is what this thread is all about. I dont think it is fair to begrudge him for that. As for the children's debt, I blame that squarely on the society that requires you to go into debt for life saving surgery.
Ya, we're in the US, so no universal health care. He qualifies for medicare because of his age, but this doesn't cover 100% of hospital expenses. And he didn't "buy-in" to the medicare drug plan, since he wasn't planning to come back. Rx drugs were affordable there.
And he did have a ticket home, but couldn't travel alone. So a son and daughter went to fetch him and settle his affairs and pack his stuff.
And I agree it's a failing of our country to not provide vital health care for all citizens, but at the same time, Grandpa was aware that this was the situation. So basically, his plan was what Rep. Alan Grayson called the "Republican Health Plan": "Don't get sick. And if you do, die quickly."
I don't begrudge him the desire to move to his dream home for his final years, but I do feel that he failed to plan adequately for a very likely event (long-term illness and disability). And compound that with the fact that he's a conservative Republican, so he at least tacitly approves of the status quo in health care. If his decision and beliefs were merely to his own detriment, that could be ironic, or poetic justice or being "hoisted on his own petard". But he left his family on the hook. So that's more of what makes me so ambivalent about feeling sorry and begrudging him.
How old are you? If you're over 55, congratulations. If you're under 55, get a job you lazy bastard.
I'm guessing from the mention of SSI, that the GP is in the US. Social Security is available to retirees and also to young people who have become disabled and unable to work. If he's under 55, then he would be getting the disability benefit.
I would add the number of people you accept to care for can go up with increased income. When I passed an amount I felt secure with I accepted increased responsibility for helping parents and siblings. That extra load seems to be a wash emotionally: there is some extra worry balanced by increased happiness at being able to help.
Count among your blessings the fact that you had a choice in the matter. Taking on a big responsibility is easier when done voluntarily, as I'm sure you've seen. So much serious stuff gives us little say. My in-laws recently had to evacuate a seriously -- and possibly terminally -- ill expatriate grandfather, an operation that has saddled grandpa's children with considerable debt. It really wasn't a viable option for them to leave their dad to die in his newly adopted tropical home. And the non-insured medical expenses are not going to make things better, either. Right now I'm hoping that my wife and I don't get touched to help out. Seeing that in print looks heartless, but the man moved voluntarily, aware of his worsening health.
As long as they're eradicated before they breed I see no reason to interfere in this natural and culturally benevolent phenomenon.
The downside is all the perfectly good cars that might get damaged. I guess failing to account for that is why you were marked "Troll".
Perfectly good motorcycles could get damaged, too. Along with their riders.
Terminally careless, stupid people remove themselves from the gene pool, in the process putting themselves forward for a Darwin Award and this is bad because???
One reason might be that they could harm other people in the process. Getting hit by a vehicle can damage the vehicle, injure or even kill the driver and passengers. And the vehicle could be a motorcycle, scooter, bike, etc., not just a car or truck. Getting almost hit by a vehicle can result in the vehicle getting in an accident with other vehicles while swerving or braking to avoid the pedestrian. So while the pedestrian is probably in the most peril in these situations, they're not the only one.
"Society has many laws designed specifically to 'nanny' people"
This is not necessarily a good thing.
But it's also not necessarily a bad thing, either. It should be consistent with the society's values without excessively trampling an individual's right to self-determination. And certainly not every individual will draw that line at the same place.
Darn - Australia has gone to goodie two shoes fascists. Seems like all the news coming from there is about less freedom.
The story suggests "Authoritarianism" rather than "Fascism" per se, although Fascists are usually Authoritarian, not all Authoritarians are fascists. "Fascism" is a more specific term, implying palingenetic ultra-nationalism, a desire to return to a (probably non-existent) previous "purity" by purging "degenerate" social, cultural and racial contaminants -- among other things.
If there's enough power in the environment to power useful electronic devices above the level of a watch or a remote (that's used maybe twice a day), then we'd be on fire.
I used to have a pocket calculator that was powered by a small solar panel. The power requirements of something like a central heating control are similar. Even the parts are similar: small LCD, simple microcontroller, just the addition of a valve or two to control the water flow.
Speaking of controlling water flow, I've been seeing "solar" powered automatic faucets in public restrooms for a while now. Good call there, to keep from having to replace the batteries every few months, I think.
How often do you replace the batteries in them?
I'm not trying to make a point, here. I'm just interested in your experience and if it lines up with the 6 to 12 month lifespan mentioned above.
Never. By the time the batteries are dead they're either degraded by exposure to the elements or broken by the lawnmower or the mailman or your kids or something. The longest surviving one I've had had batteries that would have needed replaced after about 2 years, but it was in such bad shape I didn't.
Until the pilot has a heart attack and dies, which happens periodically.
Then it looks like you picked the wrong week to stop having co-pilots.
It's Ryanair, a lot of these suggestions are never intended to be put into service or even investigated. It's a way of getting free publicity for always looking for ways of cutting costs. And the press falls for it just about every time.
Oh yeah. They also floated the idea of pay toilets.
Let me get this straight, the solution to federal agencies giving corporate interests what they want in preference to what the citizens want is solved by abolishing them? I'm sorry, but there's something about that which I clearly don't understand. That seems like the solution to getting a bit wet in the rain from puddles is to cut holes in ones umbrella.
I took it to mean something more like throwing away a broken umbrella. I am personally in favor of trying to fix it, rather than disposing of it.
There are two things that work in medicine. Surgery and antibiotics. Everything else treats symptoms or confirms you need either surgery or antibiotics.
I don't mean this as an insult, but you sound like an orthopedic surgeon. I suppose your statement is true for a sufficiently narrow definition of medicine. Like "physical therapy isn't part of medicine, it's just moving around." And only "treatment counts, not diagnosis". And only curative measures, nothing palliative or compensating, etc.
If you'd said "cefuroxime" instead of "antibiotics", we'd have known for sure.
Being color-blind doesn't mean what you think. Red-green color-blindness doesn't mean you can't tell the difference between a red light and a green light, or between a stop sign and grass.
Or maybe it does. My dad had that problem. Sure he could tell red green traffic lights apart. Red was on top. Except when traveling to a city where the lights were mounted horizontally. Then he just did what the other cars did. He thought that all squirrels were red, despite that fact that we had both grey and red species where he lived.
I think colour coding alone would be enough, and way more cost effective than having different types of tubes for everything. Well apart from for the male nurses, who are far more likely to be colour blind..
And darkened patient rooms, making color recognition harder for everyone. And probably some other stuff too. But it's a good start.
If you're connecting an air hose to an IV, there is something really wrong. Any nurse who does something like this is purely incompetent. I know several RNs and talk to a few on a daily basis. It is a somewhat stressful and fast-paced job, but you cannot ethically exceed your working pace. Every nurse should physically trace each tube to its receptacle. If there are two tubes in the vicinity but not even in proximity, extra care should be taken to trace the tube tactilely. The government-protectionist tone here ("Critics say the tubing problem, which has gone on for decades, is an example of how the FDA fails to protect the public.") is absurd and gives you NO excuse to shed the responsibility for your actions.
If these devices can be designed so this can't happen, then designers, manufacturers, etc. are also not taking responsibility for their actions. It's all well and good to point fingers at the end user, but if you built this stuff and you could have made it more foolproof and didn't, you failed too. It is not necessary of even advisable to have a device with only one layer of defense against misuse. This is a design flaw.
For an excellent example of this sort of design failure, see the Therac-25 case. Therac-25 case used to be taught in just about every system design class for a while. Unfortunately, this happened so long ago that programmers and s/w engineers forgot the lesson and a similar problems have happened again.
Everyone who designs anything that gets used by anyone should read The Design of Everyday Things to disabuse themselves of the notion that it's always the fault of the stupid, incompetent, careless, rushing, undertrained user.
Yes, it's harder. No, you can't anticipate everything. But every problem you can prevent is a person not frustrated, something not broken, money not wasted or even a life saved. So even if you can't do it 100% foolproof, it doesn't mean you don't try your damnedest. Because real users are human, frail, imperfect and subject to many, many pressures.