Blogs' improvement over webpages is that it's amazingly simple to build and maintain the page
Which is to say that we suddenly have blogs now because someone finally figured out a good way to get an idiot-proof web-page package to the general population without making them learn anything about the technology they're using... again...
meaning that nearly anyone with half a brain can get a "write-mode" Internet presence that looks good.
You say this like it's a good thing. No wonder blogs are becoming a snicker almost as quickly as a buzzword.
You can start this blog without asking permission of anyone and you won't be punished by the government. Can you really say the same about China?
Does it matter? The US loves to let people vent their personal frustrations on the network because it makes the people feel better and then they go back to work and back to paying taxes. The reason why we're afforded so many freedoms of speech here in the US is because the ruling authorities know that it'll never make a dime's bit of difference. Let them eat cake. Let them blog their little hearts out. The government still walks away with the power of the purse. At the end of the workday, what really matters?
AM: So there's acetylene rain from the sky that's produced by the breakdown of methane</i>
SSG: Actually it's the other way around. Methane is formed by the breakdown of acetylene. Acetylene is formed by the dehydrogenation of two molecules of methane DG: By ultraviolet light and also by interactions with Saturn's magnetosphere. There's a lot of energy up there. Then the acetylene is raining down and getting buried....
Other than that small confusion in the heads of the interviewers, I find the concept of acetylene based life very intriguing.
I, for one, welcome our new acetylene metabolizing overlords.
Private funding for research on fetal stem cells is not restricted
Of course you disregard my post where I note that Federal subsidy for their preferred industries saps the life out out of private funding for superior technology such as artificial skin.
You can stick your head like an ostrich in the sand. Your loss
So you can continue to argue on at your leisure. I'll let you know up front that, due to my ACTUAL EXPERIENCE (which you have none of) and my education (which you're lacking), I'll watch this thread for weeks and you can kiss my ass.
Barbaric cadaver grafting for facial reconstruction should be boycotted in favor of more delicate and acceptable techniques.
Currently researchers are unable to fine tune the differentiation of the cells to match these criteria</i>
On the contrary, pores and follicles can be well preserved by deep skin grafts. We are talking about artificial tissue, though, so I'll grant you a moment's glory while I say: I don't think anyone with a severely burned face is worried about their ability to grow a beard.
the mind is quick to notice that subtle differences between authentic faces and not-quite-there faces
Again, it's still a vast improvement over a disfigured face. At the same time it's very probable that, using this same line of logic, people will be able to sense "something wrong" with a grafted cadaver face. Hollywood can do marvels with skin surfaces. A little bit of properly applied makeup and even a week old artificial skin can be made to look just as good as any actor in a movie.
Clearly the current state-of-the-art is inadequate
State of the art is completely adequate to leave cadaver grafting in the stone age. The only thing standing in the way are federal limitations on research which involve using stem cells and the relatively cheap price of a cadaver's face.
If these international doctors were really "quacks", they would be in jail, not debating the ethics and merits in public
Hahahaha! Have you ever listened to the sales pitch that these doctors give? How about political campaigns? Ethics and merits are so completely separated from jail it's sad that you would even try this argument.
If you really knew anything about tissue engineering, you would already know that allografts are taken from cadavers anyway and applied to burn victims.
Only true in older technologies, and only true 50% of the time. Most allografts are fashioned from foreskins of circumcized males. Others were fashioned from, primarily, motorcycle accident victims. In newer technology, though, allografts are not even necessary. As I stated originally, we now have the technology to construct a fibrin/collagen matrix into which existing endogenous cells will be attracted to grow into. Once the endogenous cells have grown into the matrix they will continue to remodel it. Estimations are that it would take the natural body about 4 years to completely remodel a 4x4" section of flesh. Sure beats the hell out of the immunosuppressant (with side-effects) therapy for the rest of life.
Your loss
You know what? As a troll, you're succeeding. I feel harassed by an imbecile and my ire is up. Piss off.
Technology has advanced sufficiently to make cadaver grafting obsolete and barbaric. Existing technologies include "farming" endogenous cells into neutral fibrin/collagen matrices.
Take your AC condescending BS elsewhere. You're 8 years behind the times--and I'm not even bleeding edge on this topic.
I appreciate your sentiment but this is not a legitimate cosmetic surgery. There are a few reasons why this cadaver grafting is being investigated, and none of them are very good:
1) The tissue engineering field, however well advanced, is hampered by lack of funding due to Wall Street concerns over federal restrictions on stem cell research and potential future prohibitions and moratoriums which could complete sink any investment they may want to make in the field. Only the most speculative of investors puts money into tissue engineering technologies. 2) Grafting and transplant techniques are still eligible for federal funding. 3) The doctors involved are not tissue engineering doctors. Rather than staying ethically in the field of grafting and transplantation, they've decided to pioneer a new technique for the purpose of career recognition. If they had an ounce of ethics, they would reject cadaver facial grafts and push for the more advanced and less hazardous methods using artificial skin tissue scaffolds.
There are many companies based in Research Triangle Parks around the nation (most notably in Texas, but I forget specifically where) which have worked on artificial skin and artificial scaffolding to encourage the ingrowth of endogenous skin cells for over a decade. Due to the insurance companies' refusal to fund necessary research (with the straw man fear of funding purely cosmetic pursuits--which could be easily differentiated by any competent doctor) the proper method of solving the facial disfiguration problem is being sorely ignored.
I doubt that donor tissue is permitted to be used for elective cosmetic procedures.
Unfortunately, due to the money-grubbing nature of insurance companies, you're wrong. Most health insurance providers won't cover reconstructive surgery so the vast majority of scientifically developed artifical skins end up being sold to the people who already have the money--primarily they go for lip augmentations for Hollywood actresses.
What's wrong with taking a small sample of viable tissue from the intended recipient, culturing it, and using the progenitor cells from the culture to seed a matrix of collagen and fibrin molded to the shape of the recipients face?
Oh! Oh! Mr. Cotter! I can answer this one.
Because you can't get federal grants for "stem-cell" (progenitor cell) related research but you can get federal money for research in transplant and grafting techniques, no matter how ill-suited the application is. To make it worse, since the Federal Gov't has this annoying habit of soaking up all available monies, people can't "vote with their wallet" and fund these endeavors on their own because the Federal Gov't has already sucked them dry. Without Federal backing or support, the Wall Street zombies won't dare invest any more heavily in tissue engineering research than they do in pacifiers.
It's not that it can't be done, it's that all the know-it-alls in Washington DC have decided to deep-six that entire industry.
maybe you can contact some local news people and become the subject of
I'm not much of one to quote hip-hop, but after as much crap as I've put up with from society over these scars, this applies: "I'll suffocate for respect before I breathe to collect the check."
I will not be a poster boy. Either someone wants to quietly help me on my way to a better life or they don't. I'll not help any bleeding heart liberal in their self-promotion quest. I don't say this with derision or scorn, I say this matter-of-fact with a wry smile. I know how it turns out for poster children. Frankly, I don't want the side-effects of public exposure.
Think... even if I could get my scars erased, but did so through a poster-child public campaign, any woman that I would eventually date would have to suffer the jibes of,"You're dating the former burned fellow out of pity." Whether or not her motives are true, she would hear this from someone at some point. I just don't need the hassle.
If this gets done, it gets done quietly, discreetly, and I end up moving someplace where no one really knows much about what was before I arrived.
You know, this might just be an option if I were a member of the priveleged self-employed class in society. As it is, I'm a member of the wage-slave class who has no choice but the company provided HMO. I think everyone knows just how eager HMOs are to "help" patients.
I've been having skin grafts to treat burn scar contractures over 40% of the front of my body--my full stomach, my full chest, the mutilation of two fingers on my right hand, and about 80% of the area of both arms, 1/2 the face, the complete loss of my left ear, and my full neck, since I was 3.
I'm just as qualified as any doctor pitching their practice. Please don't preach to me with web-links. I've been on the table. I've taken care of my own donor sites. I've taken care of my own skin graft sites.
I've consulted with both the Shriner's and private practitioners about advanced reconstructive surgery. Even including the complete reconstruction of my left ear, this is a procedure which was estimated at less than 5 visits.
If he's saying that it's already been scaled back, then what's he ranting about?
This has got to be begging the question. I can't tell if you're purposely wearing blinders to avoid the glimmer of understanding or not.
He's ceding that the claims have been scaled back, he's asserting that the problem today isn't as rabid as it has been in the past. Kinda like we no longer have Gentoo fanboys posting "Try Gentoo!" to every topic where someone has a problem with Linux. It's very clear from context that he still feels that the claims are there (though now less vocalized) and still inaccurate.
And the translation between the German "have been" and the English "are" is common in the English of native German speakers. If you didn't know this, you do now. Spend a few years talking with the older folks in Milwaukee. Spend a few years working with coworkers who are native Germans who didn't come to the US until their late 20s.
I would love to have you testify to that at a hearing with my insurance company when I ask for the benefits of long-term disability and bill coverage to have reconstructive surgery. Or with the Labor board when I tried to ask for protection from (and compensation for past) workplace harassment. Sadly, people who are physically disfigured by tragic injury just don't seem to be covered by the same laws that shield other minorities from derision and harassment. The only prayer is to be disfigured in a situation where an insurance policy can be held liable for a claim. Which, most often, isn't the case.
People who are physically disfigured suffer from the "fat and ugly" syndrome. People who are not physically disfigured automatically put them on a lesser social level. It's the ages old fight of who's on top. No "normal" person ever wants to cede even a minute amount of power in a relationship with someone who's physically disfigured.
Sometimes life just irks me. Seeing articles like this, where some Quack Doctor is trying a get-famous-quick scheme by exploiting people who have suffered tragic injuries, makes me sick.
Re:Anti-Rejection drugs?
on
The New Face Lift
·
· Score: 5, Informative
I have the feeling that someone that has had a large part of their face burned off in a bad fire isn't going to be too worried about having to take drugs for the rest of their lives
Speaking as someone who does have 3rd degree burns over 40% of his body, including 1/2 of the face and the full neck, I really have to say...
NOT A FSCKING CHANCE IN HELL would I ever go for a transplant from a cadaver. Traditional techniques have been available, and improving, for 30 years which can do a much nicer job without having to take immune blockers for the rest of my life and which use my own skin. There's also just the creepy bit about wearing a cadaver's face... Kinda like Slayer's old tune,"Dead Skin Mask".
The only reason why anyone may volunteer for this is that the doctors involved are (unethically, I might add) attempting to bait patients in by offering the first few operations free of charge. This is such a lowlife technique. How about, instead, we fix the medical and insurance obstacles for people who would like to have genuine reconstructive surgery?
For example, in my case, I can't afford to go for reconstructive surgery even though I actually NEED it. The scar tissue doesn't stretch as I grow, and the mobility of my arms, hands, and neck is severely limited. My waist is the same way. Imagine wearing an ultra-tight girdle 24/7/365 with no chance to take it off, ever. Do you know what that does to digestion after any meal larger than a Triscuit? Can you imagine what it's like to put on weight and not be able to adjust the girdle size? The waist size for my scar-tissue girdle is about a 32-34 (180 lbs). My current waist size is 36 @ 210 lbs. I'm 6'1", I'm not overweight... but I cannot convey to you that daily life is, at best, uncomfortable.
Why don't I go in for surgery? Who will pay my bills for the 30 days that I'm completely incapacitated and the 4 months to relatively complete recovery? Donor sites for skin grafts are EXTREMELY painful and take a long time to heal. My insurance company won't... this is a "preexisting condition" which, according to them, doesn't directly affect my Quality of Life or my ability to do my job.
The problem is not reconstructive technology. The problem is money-grubbing insurance agencies and the predominant wage-slave status of anyone making less than $100k/year.
Anyone know where this link went? I get document contains no data.
From the fine article:
This applies also to the code which is written by the presumed professionals paid by the OpenGroup to write tests. Want an example? Look at this. This is no isolated incident, I've found this kind of problems on many occasions.
The idea certainly isn't new but the field of fiberoptics has come a long way in the last ten years. With advances in material design and more experience with the behavior of light and modulation of a light signal maybe we finally have the real technology to make this work.
da Vinci designed a flying machine in 1500, some 400 years before the Wright brothers took off.
All particles have wavefunctions, even electrons. It's the derivation of the math for the particle-in-a-box which yields that wavefunction. I suppose you'll probably continue to argue until I pull "Quantum Chemistry and Molecular Spectroscopy" off the shelf and start quoting lines and lines from the derivation.
Amplitude is meaningless when speaking about a single photon.
This is about photonic computing, not quantum computing. Just as in fiberoptics we're not talking about single photons. We're talking about a signal based on the characteristics of a stream of photons. Just like electronic processors work with the signal of a stream of a electrons.
A processor, greatly simplified, is a collection of logic gates. These logic gates, greatly simplified, are nothing more than modulators. In hardware design, the modulation of the electrical signal indicates the result of the logical function of the circuit. Electrical impulses are measured in cycles/second.
Photons can achieve frequencies in vast excess of current processor speeds. The function of a photonic logic gate would be measured by simple amplitude modulation. A photon has a frequency and an amplitude. Using a photon with the energy of a gamma ray would be _FAST_, have negligable heat loss due to the friction which plagues electronic processors, and the amplitude of the photon could be easily modulated by passing through different materials. Different materials of different refractive indeces and transparencies (see fiberoptics) would be the photonic equivalent of electronic resistors and capacitors.
I can only wait for the development of photonic processors.:)
Slashdot Mirror
You say this like it's a good thing. No wonder blogs are becoming a snicker almost as quickly as a buzzword.
For the most part I agree...
:)
But dayum, man. Are you having a bad day? We usually pad the truth a least a little bit. You might have hurt someone's feelings.
I'm going to read your post again just to chuckle.
DG: By ultraviolet light and also by interactions with Saturn's magnetosphere. There's a lot of energy up there. Then the acetylene is raining down and getting buried....
Other than that small confusion in the heads of the interviewers, I find the concept of acetylene based life very intriguing.
I, for one, welcome our new acetylene metabolizing overlords.
See? You're such a hopeless 'tard that you've gotten me agitated to the point where I make mistakes on the links.
Pictures available at:
Here
Here
Here
You fsckin' trolling twit.
Tell you what, dickhead. I anticipated your trollish response, so I've prepared a few little pictures of a bonified burn victim who has an education from a premier private engineering school from which some of the original inventors of the most successful heart valve and also premier members in the field of tissue engineering currently teach or are former faculty members. Most of whom I studied under.
So you can continue to argue on at your leisure. I'll let you know up front that, due to my ACTUAL EXPERIENCE (which you have none of) and my education (which you're lacking), I'll watch this thread for weeks and you can kiss my ass.
Barbaric cadaver grafting for facial reconstruction should be boycotted in favor of more delicate and acceptable techniques.
Again, it's still a vast improvement over a disfigured face. At the same time it's very probable that, using this same line of logic, people will be able to sense "something wrong" with a grafted cadaver face. Hollywood can do marvels with skin surfaces. A little bit of properly applied makeup and even a week old artificial skin can be made to look just as good as any actor in a movie.
State of the art is completely adequate to leave cadaver grafting in the stone age. The only thing standing in the way are federal limitations on research which involve using stem cells and the relatively cheap price of a cadaver's face.
Hahahaha! Have you ever listened to the sales pitch that these doctors give? How about political campaigns? Ethics and merits are so completely separated from jail it's sad that you would even try this argument.
Only true in older technologies, and only true 50% of the time. Most allografts are fashioned from foreskins of circumcized males. Others were fashioned from, primarily, motorcycle accident victims. In newer technology, though, allografts are not even necessary. As I stated originally, we now have the technology to construct a fibrin/collagen matrix into which existing endogenous cells will be attracted to grow into. Once the endogenous cells have grown into the matrix they will continue to remodel it. Estimations are that it would take the natural body about 4 years to completely remodel a 4x4" section of flesh. Sure beats the hell out of the immunosuppressant (with side-effects) therapy for the rest of life.
You know what? As a troll, you're succeeding. I feel harassed by an imbecile and my ire is up. Piss off.
Technology has advanced sufficiently to make cadaver grafting obsolete and barbaric. Existing technologies include "farming" endogenous cells into neutral fibrin/collagen matrices.
Take your AC condescending BS elsewhere. You're 8 years behind the times--and I'm not even bleeding edge on this topic.
I appreciate your sentiment but this is not a legitimate cosmetic surgery. There are a few reasons why this cadaver grafting is being investigated, and none of them are very good:
1) The tissue engineering field, however well advanced, is hampered by lack of funding due to Wall Street concerns over federal restrictions on stem cell research and potential future prohibitions and moratoriums which could complete sink any investment they may want to make in the field. Only the most speculative of investors puts money into tissue engineering technologies.
2) Grafting and transplant techniques are still eligible for federal funding.
3) The doctors involved are not tissue engineering doctors. Rather than staying ethically in the field of grafting and transplantation, they've decided to pioneer a new technique for the purpose of career recognition. If they had an ounce of ethics, they would reject cadaver facial grafts and push for the more advanced and less hazardous methods using artificial skin tissue scaffolds.
There are many companies based in Research Triangle Parks around the nation (most notably in Texas, but I forget specifically where) which have worked on artificial skin and artificial scaffolding to encourage the ingrowth of endogenous skin cells for over a decade. Due to the insurance companies' refusal to fund necessary research (with the straw man fear of funding purely cosmetic pursuits--which could be easily differentiated by any competent doctor) the proper method of solving the facial disfiguration problem is being sorely ignored.
As tasteless as this is, even I can laugh at it. :)))
I pay taxes too, you insensitive clod!
Because you can't get federal grants for "stem-cell" (progenitor cell) related research but you can get federal money for research in transplant and grafting techniques, no matter how ill-suited the application is. To make it worse, since the Federal Gov't has this annoying habit of soaking up all available monies, people can't "vote with their wallet" and fund these endeavors on their own because the Federal Gov't has already sucked them dry. Without Federal backing or support, the Wall Street zombies won't dare invest any more heavily in tissue engineering research than they do in pacifiers.
It's not that it can't be done, it's that all the know-it-alls in Washington DC have decided to deep-six that entire industry.
I will not be a poster boy. Either someone wants to quietly help me on my way to a better life or they don't. I'll not help any bleeding heart liberal in their self-promotion quest. I don't say this with derision or scorn, I say this matter-of-fact with a wry smile. I know how it turns out for poster children. Frankly, I don't want the side-effects of public exposure.
Think... even if I could get my scars erased, but did so through a poster-child public campaign, any woman that I would eventually date would have to suffer the jibes of,"You're dating the former burned fellow out of pity." Whether or not her motives are true, she would hear this from someone at some point. I just don't need the hassle.
If this gets done, it gets done quietly, discreetly, and I end up moving someplace where no one really knows much about what was before I arrived.
Cue the meat market assembly line music...
I've been having skin grafts to treat burn scar contractures over 40% of the front of my body--my full stomach, my full chest, the mutilation of two fingers on my right hand, and about 80% of the area of both arms, 1/2 the face, the complete loss of my left ear, and my full neck, since I was 3.
I'm just as qualified as any doctor pitching their practice. Please don't preach to me with web-links. I've been on the table. I've taken care of my own donor sites. I've taken care of my own skin graft sites.
I've consulted with both the Shriner's and private practitioners about advanced reconstructive surgery. Even including the complete reconstruction of my left ear, this is a procedure which was estimated at less than 5 visits.
He's ceding that the claims have been scaled back, he's asserting that the problem today isn't as rabid as it has been in the past. Kinda like we no longer have Gentoo fanboys posting "Try Gentoo!" to every topic where someone has a problem with Linux. It's very clear from context that he still feels that the claims are there (though now less vocalized) and still inaccurate.
And the translation between the German "have been" and the English "are" is common in the English of native German speakers. If you didn't know this, you do now. Spend a few years talking with the older folks in Milwaukee. Spend a few years working with coworkers who are native Germans who didn't come to the US until their late 20s.
It's not as bad as you make it out to be.
I would love to have you testify to that at a hearing with my insurance company when I ask for the benefits of long-term disability and bill coverage to have reconstructive surgery. Or with the Labor board when I tried to ask for protection from (and compensation for past) workplace harassment. Sadly, people who are physically disfigured by tragic injury just don't seem to be covered by the same laws that shield other minorities from derision and harassment. The only prayer is to be disfigured in a situation where an insurance policy can be held liable for a claim. Which, most often, isn't the case.
People who are physically disfigured suffer from the "fat and ugly" syndrome. People who are not physically disfigured automatically put them on a lesser social level. It's the ages old fight of who's on top. No "normal" person ever wants to cede even a minute amount of power in a relationship with someone who's physically disfigured.
Sometimes life just irks me. Seeing articles like this, where some Quack Doctor is trying a get-famous-quick scheme by exploiting people who have suffered tragic injuries, makes me sick.
NOT A FSCKING CHANCE IN HELL would I ever go for a transplant from a cadaver. Traditional techniques have been available, and improving, for 30 years which can do a much nicer job without having to take immune blockers for the rest of my life and which use my own skin. There's also just the creepy bit about wearing a cadaver's face... Kinda like Slayer's old tune,"Dead Skin Mask".
The only reason why anyone may volunteer for this is that the doctors involved are (unethically, I might add) attempting to bait patients in by offering the first few operations free of charge. This is such a lowlife technique. How about, instead, we fix the medical and insurance obstacles for people who would like to have genuine reconstructive surgery?
For example, in my case, I can't afford to go for reconstructive surgery even though I actually NEED it. The scar tissue doesn't stretch as I grow, and the mobility of my arms, hands, and neck is severely limited. My waist is the same way. Imagine wearing an ultra-tight girdle 24/7/365 with no chance to take it off, ever. Do you know what that does to digestion after any meal larger than a Triscuit? Can you imagine what it's like to put on weight and not be able to adjust the girdle size? The waist size for my scar-tissue girdle is about a 32-34 (180 lbs). My current waist size is 36 @ 210 lbs. I'm 6'1", I'm not overweight... but I cannot convey to you that daily life is, at best, uncomfortable.
Why don't I go in for surgery? Who will pay my bills for the 30 days that I'm completely incapacitated and the 4 months to relatively complete recovery? Donor sites for skin grafts are EXTREMELY painful and take a long time to heal. My insurance company won't... this is a "preexisting condition" which, according to them, doesn't directly affect my Quality of Life or my ability to do my job.
The problem is not reconstructive technology. The problem is money-grubbing insurance agencies and the predominant wage-slave status of anyone making less than $100k/year.
My advice: cut the losses {and run}. To some extent, I think, the claims are scaled back. Meanwhile, if I understood Art correctly...
Anyone know where this link went? I get document contains no data.
From the fine article:
This applies also to the code which is written by the presumed professionals paid by the OpenGroup to write tests. Want an example? Look at this. This is no isolated incident, I've found this kind of problems on many occasions.
The idea certainly isn't new but the field of fiberoptics has come a long way in the last ten years. With advances in material design and more experience with the behavior of light and modulation of a light signal maybe we finally have the real technology to make this work.
da Vinci designed a flying machine in 1500, some 400 years before the Wright brothers took off.
This is about photonic computing, not quantum computing. Just as in fiberoptics we're not talking about single photons. We're talking about a signal based on the characteristics of a stream of photons. Just like electronic processors work with the signal of a stream of a electrons.
A processor, greatly simplified, is a collection of logic gates. These logic gates, greatly simplified, are nothing more than modulators. In hardware design, the modulation of the electrical signal indicates the result of the logical function of the circuit. Electrical impulses are measured in cycles/second.
:)
Photons can achieve frequencies in vast excess of current processor speeds. The function of a photonic logic gate would be measured by simple amplitude modulation. A photon has a frequency and an amplitude. Using a photon with the energy of a gamma ray would be _FAST_, have negligable heat loss due to the friction which plagues electronic processors, and the amplitude of the photon could be easily modulated by passing through different materials. Different materials of different refractive indeces and transparencies (see fiberoptics) would be the photonic equivalent of electronic resistors and capacitors.
I can only wait for the development of photonic processors.