Sony sells very nice computers that use Windows OS. They have stylish stores that also sell their other consumer items like TVs, video game systems, e-books, netbooks, etc. Yet, they don't do nearly as well as Apple stories. In the Pentagon City mall near DC, the Apple and Sony stores are right next to each other. Every time I've been there, the Apple store always has far more people in it than the Sony store.
Apple does three things very well in their stores. First, they have great products. That's where retail success starts. Second, they offer tech support and personal training, for reasonable prices, in the store. Third, they staff their stores very, very heavily. I think every time I've been in the Apple store there have been at least 8 employees on the floor, and that is in a store not much bigger than 1000 sq ft. That is ridiculously heavy staffing for retail. You can always get a question answered practically right away.
"The organizations themselves did not donate, rather the money came from the organization's PAC, its individual members or employees or owners, and those individuals' immediate families."
If you give money to a candidate, Open Secrets will count that toward the total for your employer, even if your choice to give had nothing to do with your employer.
PAC money is also made up only of individual contributions. Corporations can pay PAC administrative costs but cannot provide money that will pass through to a candidate.
Free is problematic for businesses because it does not create a relationship with balanced obligations. I would never put sensitive data on a hosted service that I accessed for free. The provider has no obligation to me whatsoever.
But if I am paying for a service, that creates a contractual relationship with duties on both sides. This makes the lawyers much more comfortable. Of course whether I use the service or not will still depend on the terms and conditions, as well as the due diligence and how much I trust the company.
From Microsoft's perspective, the most dangerous thing from Google is not the free Google Docs service, but the low-cost Google Apps for Your Business. It's cheaper than Microsoft, offers better collaboration, but is still a for-pay service with SLA and legal duties.
"The law also prohibits contributions from corporations and labor unions. This prohibition applies to any incorporated organization, profit or nonprofit."
Heart rate monitors have been sold in athletic equipment stores at least 20 years. My little brother, who runs on his high school track team, has used one since freshman year.
Doing serious exercise without one is like traveling without a map. You might get where you want to go, but it will be largely by chance.
That would only work if they also require everyone to buy health insurance. Otherwise adverse selection would put all the insurers out of business in a year.
With all due respect to your expertise on electronic data, I think you're out of your depth on the medical end of this question. I encourage you to read some of the other comments about the (lack of) medical usefulness of heart rate monitor data.
If there's one thing I'm taking away from this discussion, it's a strong confirmation of the Slashdot stereotype: most people here seem so unacquainted with exercise that they are completely unfamiliar with a piece of exercise equipment that has been in common use for well over 20 years.
Speaking of save the country! God forbid we should use technology to help improve our bodies rather than distract our minds.
But it would have the same status as any record generated in a gym class, thus why should a heart rate monitor, specifically, raise the question? That was my main point.
Except that they are an educational institution and thus subject to FERPA rules, which also prohibit disclosure of health information to third parties.
Heart rate monitors cannot detect heart defects. They're simple pieces of athletic equipment that are used to get good aerobic exercise. I think it's great that PE is introducing kids to the concept.
One of the signs of paranoia is a tendency to spin fanciful tales off the slimmest of evidence...it's not to look up what these things are if you're not familiar.
A gym teacher is already going to learn many health-related things about a child. The President's physical fitness test (or whatever it's called) produces a nice national fitness benchmark, for instance--one at least as good as a heart rate monitor.
The silliness is in reacting to what is a completely bog-standard piece of athletic gear, just because it is electronic. A stopwatch is also an electronic device for benchmarking students but it rarely produces these types of questions.
And to answer your question, educational health records are generally covered under FERPA not HIPAA.
Look at the terms of service for YouTube, Flickr, or Slashdot for instance. Copyright remains with the poster but a license is granted to the service so that it can do its publishing thing.
As far as I can tell there is only one new model. There were 8GB and 32GB models before this event...seems all they did was replace the 16GB model with the 64GB model and drop the prices a bit.
Anyway, I bought my 15" MacBook Pro on Black Friday of last year. That model has had at least 2 hardware changes and a major price reduction since then. Apple rarely seems worried about the implications for past purchases...the iPhone thing is the only counterexample I can think of.
I would think that if the issue really is a manufacturing problem, they would want to get the new models out on the market as soon as they iron that out--that's why I guessed holidays.
If they did not have a hard ship date for that product, I think they would pull it from the presentation rather than announce it was coming "sometime." I would look for an iTouch with camera and faster internals to be announced for the holidays.
Apparently there were problems with the cameras that were supposed to go into the iTouches, which delayed their manufacturing. Rather than announce a new product without a certain ship date, Apple pulled them from the presentation. That is why the ending seemed lackluster. Once the manufacturing issues are worked out the iTouch will be pushed out as its own product update; my guess is October or November for the holidays.
That's my take anyway, based on what I've read leading up to this announcement. Previous coverage of Apple has illustrated how presentations like this are changed almost up to the last minute. If it's not perfect and compelling according to The Steve, it's out.
And yet we are living examples that complex things can arise from less complex things. We can solve problems our ancestors from 100,000 years ago could not.
There is much about Apple's computer products that are very geek-friendly. For instance the OS X kernel is based on Unix and Mach and is open source. Portions of OS X are closed, making it less geek-friendly than Linux or BSD, but it is more geek-friendly than Windows. I can go tinker around in the core of the kernel if I want to.
In addition Apple provides their full development environment--Xcode--with every single copy of their OS. That does not strike me as being anti-tinkering. My copy of Windows XP did not include Visual Studio. I'm no developer but I've fired up Xcode a few times and messed around for fun.
Apple is much more restrictive on their phone platform than their computing platform. But even there, they have not gone after a single jail-breaker. They won't support it but they don't attack it. If I want to hack my own phone I am confident I'm not going to get sued or something.
Where they are restrictive is in the officially supported SDK and distribution for the phone platform. They may think they have good reasons, but it is frustrating. But, I do not think it is fair to let that frustration escalate into a broad statements like "Apple hates geeks." There is a lot of ground between total freedom and "hate."
Placebo is a type of experimental control--would you agree with that statement?
While you make a good point that it is not the only type of control possible, it is the only type of control used in most clinical drug trials, which are the subject of the Wired article. Such trials rarely include a "no treatment" arm, as the author acknowledges in a separate comment.
Within the context of trials in which placebo is the only control, I do not see the problem with equating the terms.
To get back to your earlier statement, it seems to me that a placebo can only be measured as "strong" or "weak" if there is an additional control (no treatment for example) to make the measurement against. But according the Wired article, the drug companies are instead measuring "strong" or "weak" placebo effect against the performance of the drugs under study, which in my mind conflates experiment and control.
My point is that most of that data they are pooling is of limited use since asking questions about the placebo was not in the experimental design in the first place.
The best test of the chemical effectiveness of a drug is a double blind study with placebos, because it is the test that eliminates the most number of free variables. I am glad that the FDA mandates such a test. Any other test, while revealing "interesting data," is not well-enough controlled to draw a strong conclusion. In that respect, I'd say that ScienceBlogs had it right.
Slashdot Mirror
Sony sells very nice computers that use Windows OS. They have stylish stores that also sell their other consumer items like TVs, video game systems, e-books, netbooks, etc. Yet, they don't do nearly as well as Apple stories. In the Pentagon City mall near DC, the Apple and Sony stores are right next to each other. Every time I've been there, the Apple store always has far more people in it than the Sony store.
Apple does three things very well in their stores. First, they have great products. That's where retail success starts. Second, they offer tech support and personal training, for reasonable prices, in the store. Third, they staff their stores very, very heavily. I think every time I've been in the Apple store there have been at least 8 employees on the floor, and that is in a store not much bigger than 1000 sq ft. That is ridiculously heavy staffing for retail. You can always get a question answered practically right away.
From your link, in red:
"The organizations themselves did not donate, rather the money came from the organization's PAC, its individual members or employees or owners, and those individuals' immediate families."
If you give money to a candidate, Open Secrets will count that toward the total for your employer, even if your choice to give had nothing to do with your employer.
PAC money is also made up only of individual contributions. Corporations can pay PAC administrative costs but cannot provide money that will pass through to a candidate.
Free is problematic for businesses because it does not create a relationship with balanced obligations. I would never put sensitive data on a hosted service that I accessed for free. The provider has no obligation to me whatsoever.
But if I am paying for a service, that creates a contractual relationship with duties on both sides. This makes the lawyers much more comfortable. Of course whether I use the service or not will still depend on the terms and conditions, as well as the due diligence and how much I trust the company.
From Microsoft's perspective, the most dangerous thing from Google is not the free Google Docs service, but the low-cost Google Apps for Your Business. It's cheaper than Microsoft, offers better collaboration, but is still a for-pay service with SLA and legal duties.
527s cannot donate to campaigns either. In fact, they are forbidden from coordinating with campaigns at all.
"The law also prohibits contributions from corporations and labor unions. This prohibition applies to any incorporated organization, profit or nonprofit."
http://www.fec.gov/pages/brochures/citizens.shtml
Heart rate monitors have been sold in athletic equipment stores at least 20 years. My little brother, who runs on his high school track team, has used one since freshman year.
Doing serious exercise without one is like traveling without a map. You might get where you want to go, but it will be largely by chance.
You're drawing a false analogy between a specific medical test and a piece of exercise equipment.
That would only work if they also require everyone to buy health insurance. Otherwise adverse selection would put all the insurers out of business in a year.
Just because data is saved into a computer, doesn't mean it can be used nefariously.
By the way, did you know that your IP address is being recorded right now?
With all due respect to your expertise on electronic data, I think you're out of your depth on the medical end of this question. I encourage you to read some of the other comments about the (lack of) medical usefulness of heart rate monitor data.
If there's one thing I'm taking away from this discussion, it's a strong confirmation of the Slashdot stereotype: most people here seem so unacquainted with exercise that they are completely unfamiliar with a piece of exercise equipment that has been in common use for well over 20 years.
Speaking of save the country! God forbid we should use technology to help improve our bodies rather than distract our minds.
But it would have the same status as any record generated in a gym class, thus why should a heart rate monitor, specifically, raise the question? That was my main point.
Except that they are an educational institution and thus subject to FERPA rules, which also prohibit disclosure of health information to third parties.
Heart rate monitors cannot detect heart defects. They're simple pieces of athletic equipment that are used to get good aerobic exercise. I think it's great that PE is introducing kids to the concept.
One of the signs of paranoia is a tendency to spin fanciful tales off the slimmest of evidence...it's not to look up what these things are if you're not familiar.
A gym teacher is already going to learn many health-related things about a child. The President's physical fitness test (or whatever it's called) produces a nice national fitness benchmark, for instance--one at least as good as a heart rate monitor.
The silliness is in reacting to what is a completely bog-standard piece of athletic gear, just because it is electronic. A stopwatch is also an electronic device for benchmarking students but it rarely produces these types of questions.
And to answer your question, educational health records are generally covered under FERPA not HIPAA.
Learn more:
http://www.ed.gov/policy/gen/guid/fpco/doc/ferpa-hippa-guidance.pdf
Look at the terms of service for YouTube, Flickr, or Slashdot for instance. Copyright remains with the poster but a license is granted to the service so that it can do its publishing thing.
As far as I can tell there is only one new model. There were 8GB and 32GB models before this event...seems all they did was replace the 16GB model with the 64GB model and drop the prices a bit.
Anyway, I bought my 15" MacBook Pro on Black Friday of last year. That model has had at least 2 hardware changes and a major price reduction since then. Apple rarely seems worried about the implications for past purchases...the iPhone thing is the only counterexample I can think of.
I would think that if the issue really is a manufacturing problem, they would want to get the new models out on the market as soon as they iron that out--that's why I guessed holidays.
Because they are apparently having manufacturing problems with it.
http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/09/09/07/technical_issues_could_delay_ipod_camera_upgrade.html
If they did not have a hard ship date for that product, I think they would pull it from the presentation rather than announce it was coming "sometime." I would look for an iTouch with camera and faster internals to be announced for the holidays.
Apparently there were problems with the cameras that were supposed to go into the iTouches, which delayed their manufacturing. Rather than announce a new product without a certain ship date, Apple pulled them from the presentation. That is why the ending seemed lackluster. Once the manufacturing issues are worked out the iTouch will be pushed out as its own product update; my guess is October or November for the holidays.
That's my take anyway, based on what I've read leading up to this announcement. Previous coverage of Apple has illustrated how presentations like this are changed almost up to the last minute. If it's not perfect and compelling according to The Steve, it's out.
And yet we are living examples that complex things can arise from less complex things. We can solve problems our ancestors from 100,000 years ago could not.
Thanks for responding--good discussion.
There is much about Apple's computer products that are very geek-friendly. For instance the OS X kernel is based on Unix and Mach and is open source. Portions of OS X are closed, making it less geek-friendly than Linux or BSD, but it is more geek-friendly than Windows. I can go tinker around in the core of the kernel if I want to.
In addition Apple provides their full development environment--Xcode--with every single copy of their OS. That does not strike me as being anti-tinkering. My copy of Windows XP did not include Visual Studio. I'm no developer but I've fired up Xcode a few times and messed around for fun.
Apple is much more restrictive on their phone platform than their computing platform. But even there, they have not gone after a single jail-breaker. They won't support it but they don't attack it. If I want to hack my own phone I am confident I'm not going to get sued or something.
Where they are restrictive is in the officially supported SDK and distribution for the phone platform. They may think they have good reasons, but it is frustrating. But, I do not think it is fair to let that frustration escalate into a broad statements like "Apple hates geeks." There is a lot of ground between total freedom and "hate."
Placebo is a type of experimental control--would you agree with that statement?
While you make a good point that it is not the only type of control possible, it is the only type of control used in most clinical drug trials, which are the subject of the Wired article. Such trials rarely include a "no treatment" arm, as the author acknowledges in a separate comment.
Within the context of trials in which placebo is the only control, I do not see the problem with equating the terms.
To get back to your earlier statement, it seems to me that a placebo can only be measured as "strong" or "weak" if there is an additional control (no treatment for example) to make the measurement against. But according the Wired article, the drug companies are instead measuring "strong" or "weak" placebo effect against the performance of the drugs under study, which in my mind conflates experiment and control.
My point is that most of that data they are pooling is of limited use since asking questions about the placebo was not in the experimental design in the first place.
The best test of the chemical effectiveness of a drug is a double blind study with placebos, because it is the test that eliminates the most number of free variables. I am glad that the FDA mandates such a test. Any other test, while revealing "interesting data," is not well-enough controlled to draw a strong conclusion. In that respect, I'd say that ScienceBlogs had it right.