You may not agree with him, or think that there is a problem here. But he's not exactly a moron.
There may be many areas in which he in knowledgeable, but in these screeds he presents as a moron.
First, in his comparison of capped and uncapped markets, why does he ignore limit vs. no limit poker? This seems a good analogue in terms of the ability of deep pockets to affect one form of the game.
Second, what is his obsessions with the US presidential race? I don't think he addresses this above, but one of his previous postings suggested someone might affect the results of the presidential election to collect big in the prediction markets.
This is the plot of the worst Bond film ever. The ability to choose the next president of the US is huge. Who is going to waste that power on winning a bet? It's like having an all powerful weather control device, and only using it to make it snow on one day so you can have a snow day.
Third, he forgets he's dealing with people. I'm not usually one to go on about academia and ivory towers, but has this guy ever looked at an actual market? Could predictive markets be dominated by automated trading systems that instantly react to changes and shift money so all markets in the world are on sync? Sure. Is that likely to happen? No.
Why do new, commodity items sell in eBay auctions for higher than the currents prices from established retail outlets? Why do people spend $50 for HDMI cables from Best Buy when the same item can be had for $5 from monoprice? Why is best time to sell when everyone is buying, and the best time to buy when everyone else is selling?
People are irrational, news does not disperse equally to all corners of a systems, and markets reflect this.
Last, his selection of "winning" ideas makes no sense. Many are contradictory. "Make people place many small bets instead of one large bet. But publicize the names of anyone making a large bet." Wait...didn't you say you're not allowing any large bets? And how does that effect the manipulator anyway, since he's likely to want to make many small bets to hide his manipulation?
The trouble with that idea is that there are almost no entry level teaching positions. I have well over ten years of hardware experience, starting in Copier, and fax, repair and moving on to networked printers with a stint in network administration. I then went back to college and got my MBA with the intent of teaching. After that I spent four years teaching in a college in China so that I would have experience teaching college age students.
Why did you get your MBA? Why not Master of Education or something more related to teaching? And what sort of teaching jobs are you looking for? You say no jobs for teaching other than STEM. Are you looking at technology or engineering teaching jobs? You know, the T and E in STEM? Sounds like those would be a good fit for your background.
I mean, if you're a 45 year-old MBA with years of experience in copier and fax repair sending your resume out for kindergarden and elementary schools jobs, you are going to have a very tough time of it, no doubt. But if you're calling on the ITT Techs and DeVrys of the world--you know, the folks who teach subjects related to your actual experience--I'd think you'd have a better shot.
You don't even begin learning anything useful until after you get into the job market, and from there it is a long haul before one is actually qualified to teach. Sure, he could be an incompetent teacher, who thinks he is qualified, but he certainly won't actually be qualified.
I don't think the suggestion is change fields, then become a teacher in the new field. The suggestion is, rather than try to find an entry level programming position, leverage his experience by becoming a teacher in his current field.
Well, that's fine. The interns don't have any useful skills anyway, they're not even up to the level of entry-level fresh grad. And 99.9% of them think programming is all about social apps or other web sites. If they go somewhere else to get trained at someone else's expense then there's no problem. Interns are a major pain to hire, you have to hand hold them the entire time because they have little idea how a corporation works, how their computer works, how to work independently without bothering everyone else. Or you get an EE intern doing a job requiring some programming and you have to waste time telling them why their program doesn't compile.
Maybe the problem is not the intern. I've had some great experiences with interns, and have some great work to show for it. Part of that is luck--getting the right person to work with. But a lot of that is understanding the situation and handing out appropriate work. Yes, you're dealing with entry-level skills, so put the intern on an entry-level problem. Yes, they typically don't know about corporations and office politics and government regulations and all the other practical considerations that we deal with in the real world. So you put them on a problem that's part of a larger project, or have them work on a utility that will be used internally by your group, and so won't face corporate or regulatory review.
You typically have an intern for a short period of time (mine were 2 months over the summer) so it's up to you to provide a problem or project that is realistic for that time frame. You don't give them a project that interacts with a legacy system so they spend half the internship just trying to understand an obsolete platform they'll never see again.
You give them a problem they can understand and start researching immediately. Then in parallel you have them read up on things like regulations or corporate coding and testing standards. They start at maybe 80% background reading/researching and 20% work, but by halfway through the internship they're at 90% work and maybe 10% background. If you don't get that type of progress, maybe you have a bad intern. If that's your experience every time, the problem is not the interns, but the types and scopes of the problems you are giving them.
And let's be fair, very often the intern at a full corporation who continues on full time at the same place of employment will always be looked at as the junior employee. You often do better by going to a different place, or at least a different department. The only times I've seen an intern do well later in the same job is when the company was a threadbare startup initially.
That's so generically true as to be useless. Anywhere you go, at any level, you'll often always be perceived as in that role where people first met you. It's true whether you're always the intern, always the tech geek, always the executive.
However, I've seen many business where just the opposite is true of interns. Your mid-level employee with 5 to 10 years experience is always seen as mid-level, while interns are seen as "up and comers" on a fast track. There are places where those mid-level employees end up with the same title as or working for the interns they once supervised. Rather than threadbare start-ups, these are lumbering corporate behemoths, fat with layers of management, who can't figure out why those mid-level employees are unhappy.
The one thing I can think of that would be useful is a shopping list- scan a bar code when you use up an item, have it synch to the cloud, and be able to see the list on your phone when you shop.
You haven't thought that idea through. Or read TFS. Yes, it would useful when generating a shopping list. But no, it's not very useful when you have to scan every item as you unpack your purchases.
As is it, you can very easily do this now, with current technology. There are USB bar code scanners. There is software for inventories. In fact, I'm guessing you (and most of the/. audience) have all the hardware and software for this application now--on your smart phone. There are many bar code readers that use a cell phone camera as a scanner.
So why don't you do this? Why don't you scan the bar code of every item in your kitchen to create an inventory. And scan every item as you use it. (For most items, you'd want to trigger the item to appear on your shopping list before you run out.) And scan every item as you unpack after shopping?
There's no (technological) reason you couldn't do this today. You don't because it's a huge pain in the butt.
The first character that came to MY mind in this question is Doctor Who. A good chunk of storylines start off with the local populace being terrorized by ghosts/vampires/curses/etc. and the Doctor always shrugs off these ridiculous superstitions in order to find out what's really going on.
I think you're confusing Doctor Who with Scooby Doo.
Mental modeling is a funny thing. We used to think of electricity as a liquid. You could substitute voltage for pressure, amperes for gallons, do the math and come up with the right answer. The theory had remarkable predictive power. Was it "wrong?"
That's some of the most ridiculous mumbo-jumbo I've ever read. Electricity as a liquid? Preposterous.
Electricity is a gas. After all, a circuit stops working after the magic smoke escapes. There is no magic liquid.
As another testement to the power of fiction, George Bush read one of Stephen King's books and got $500 million in funding for protection against Plymouth Furies.
"I think people had their fingers crossed that it was a battery fault... it looks more systemic and serious to me. I suspect it could be difficult to identify the cause," [Keith Hayward, head of research at the Royal Aeronautical Society] said.
I would hope the folks in change of designing and building aircraft would depend on measurements and calculations, not crossed fingers. Did they also consult a Ouija board?
This sounds too much like, "it's OK to rob a bank, because you're just taking the bank's money. You're not stealing from any people."
the ISP can quite truthfully claim that they don't have any hard evidence to disconnect any particular users or turn over their identities
Does it work that way? I mean, my ISP can tell I'm sharing something that under current law I do not have a right to share. Is my 'get out of jail' card really as simple as, yes, but I don't know who I'm sharing it with?
On the other end, my ISP can tell I'm downloading something that under current law I do not have a right to download, but it's all good, because no one can say for sure who I'm downloading from?
To go back to the bank robbing analogy--and I don't mean to equate copyright infringement with stealing,but--let's say I bust my way in to a bank, crack open the safe, and the next day money is missing. Would I feel comfortable going to court with the defense, "yes, I got in to the bank, and in to the safe, and the money is missing, but you can't prove I took the money?" I don't think I like that defense.
So in this case, "yes, I uploaded your movie, but you can't prove who I uploaded it to." I don't think so. I also don't think not being able to prove who received the bits I sent is the same as not being able to prove that someone received those bits.
When the Nazis came for the communists,I remained silent;I was not a communist. When they locked up the social democrats,I remained silent;I was not a social democrat. When they came for the trade unionists,I did not speak out;I was not a trade unionist. When they came for the Jews,I remained silent;I wasn't a Jew. When they came for me, there was no one left to speak out.
Horse feathers. If there's a slippery slope over the Bill of Rights, we've been sliding down it for a long time and I don't see enough folks up in arms (figuratively and literally) about it. Anyone who thinks their second amendment firearms will protect them against the government's tanks and aircraft is "nuts".
They came for the 1st amendment, and the 2nd amendment folks were silent. They came for the 4th amendment, and the 2nd amendment folks were silent. They came for the 5th amendment, and the 2nd amendment folks were silent. They came for the 6th amendment, and the 2nd amendment folks were silent. They came for the 10th amendment, and the 2nd amendment folks were silent.
The NRA is an industry lobbying group, like any other. They don't care about your rights, they only care about their market and profit.
(For the record, I am a licensed firearm owner, and NOT a member of the NRA.)
So now in addition to all the women are strong, all the men are good looking, and all the children are above average, all communities have above normal incidents of mental health issues?
The things you describe, there's a lot of that everywhere.
AKA, there is no evidence. (There is such a thing as anecdotal evidence, but I don't see any in this case.)
The news is biased. A high profile hacker commits suicide. How many hackers didn't commit suicide that day? That doesn't get covered.
We're also biased for our group. It's like how you buy a car, and suddenly that model of car is everywhere. Those cars were there before, you just didn't notice them because they weren't your car. You noticed the story about the hacker committing suicide, but do you remember the other high profile suicide reported that day? The one from the community you don't associate yourself with? Of course not.
We could just as easily talk about the connection between (American) football and depression and suicide. We could discuss whether the recent high profile suicides are related to head trauma and brain injuries, or the transition from being part of a team to being alone in retirement, or any number of other factors.
Except retired football players have a lower rates of suicide than the general population. So whatever factors played a part in those few high profile cases, the evidence doesn't support the idea that this is a high risk group.
It's good if the community can become tighter and help each other out, but that's true of any community. The summary and phrases like "internet freedom fighters" make me think of precious little snowflakes battling the tyranny of society from their parents' basement.
You misunderstand my post. I am not saying that we shouldn't have these devices, but if the risk from the software, or somebody hacking the software is so great that homeland security has to take it over, then maybe the very benefits and tradeoffs you mention should be looked at again.
Why update the software? Pacemakers and insulin pumps were available long before you could wirelessly update them. If it is such a threat, then don't enable wireless updates. Plain and simple. My God, how did we exist before computers did everything for us!?
This discussion isn't about having computers do anything for us. It's about how we use computers as tools to do things. How did we have conversations before computers? Well, we did, and yet here you are using a network of computers to have a conversation.
As for the ability to update the software in a medical device, it's about trade-offs and compromises. ObCarAnalogy: computers in cars have made maintenance more complicated, so why not take the computers out of cars? Sure, if you also want to remove the improvements in fuel efficiency, traction control, ABS, GPS, mp3-player interfaces, and all the other things those computers are doing.
Ability to wirelessly communicate with an implanted medical device is a risk? Well, so is having to perform surgery to update that devices configuration or to retrieve data. Maybe the risk (a product of the potential effects of a negative event and the likelihood of that event) of wireless communications is greater than the risk of the extra surgery. Maybe not.
My point is, it's not as simple as "all medical information systems should have updates as soon as they are available from the vendor" or "no implanted devices should have wireless communications."
I could be misinterpreting your message because I can read your words, but not the tone of your voice or body language. So rather than posting a message on/. why don't you come over to my office and tell me face to face? Plain and simple, right?
manufacturers need to let os updates and AV software to be install on there systems if they want / need to be on the hospital network.
Because running untested software is a bad idea. Heath care systems and medical device software should get the benefits of updates and patches, but only after those updates have been tested for those specific systems and software. Whatever the vendor does prior to release is insufficient.
When entire hospital processes come to a halt because the latest AV update mistakenly identifies a core OS file as a trojan, you'll come back and say, why are manufactures letting updates to be installed on their systems?
As with many things, the best path is in the middle. Critical systems should be updated as preventative maintenance, but administrators cannot rely on vendor testing alone.
It has been suggested you keep a small 375ml bottle of booze in your car. When you get pulled over, step out of the car, throw your keys on the ground, open the bottle and drink all of it. Make sure they see you break the seal on their dash cam. Now they can't prove you were drunk before you got pulled over.
Um..yeah. And then what? Hope you're not in a hurry, because as soon as you get in your car and put the keys in the ignition, you're popped. So that suggestion only works if you're prepared to then sit on the side of the road until sober (or at least until you're sure there are no cops around).
I guess it's better than going to jail, losing your license, etc. I also guess rather than just going "aw shucks, you got us," the cops are going to say "tell it to the judge," and arrest you and impound your car anyway.
So how about just not dirivng drunk? You could try that.
Because lots of drunk drivers would use the loophole of claiming not to be driving the vehicle when the police found them to try to escape prosecution.
You want loopholes? My google-fu fails ATM, but there was a case in Massachusetts where a guy under the influence drove his car into a house. He was aquited on the DUI change because the MA law is specifically for driving on public roads.
While the police could prove he was drunk, they couldn't prove he was driving on the public road. The law in MA doesn't cover driving drunk on someone's yard and in to their house. (I hope he (or his insurance) at least had to pay for damages. But he got off on DUI charge.)
I had a similar thing going on with a clueless manager. He wanted an explanation why projects weren't getting completed on time. I suggested I could do one better and show him why. He agreed. I downloaded I think it was a sample SAT math test. Where ever I got it, it was one of those four or five hour timed math tests.
Dern. I've already posted in this thread, so I won't moderate, but that is genius.
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You may not agree with him, or think that there is a problem here. But he's not exactly a moron.
There may be many areas in which he in knowledgeable, but in these screeds he presents as a moron.
First, in his comparison of capped and uncapped markets, why does he ignore limit vs. no limit poker? This seems a good analogue in terms of the ability of deep pockets to affect one form of the game.
Second, what is his obsessions with the US presidential race? I don't think he addresses this above, but one of his previous postings suggested someone might affect the results of the presidential election to collect big in the prediction markets.
This is the plot of the worst Bond film ever. The ability to choose the next president of the US is huge. Who is going to waste that power on winning a bet? It's like having an all powerful weather control device, and only using it to make it snow on one day so you can have a snow day.
Third, he forgets he's dealing with people. I'm not usually one to go on about academia and ivory towers, but has this guy ever looked at an actual market? Could predictive markets be dominated by automated trading systems that instantly react to changes and shift money so all markets in the world are on sync? Sure. Is that likely to happen? No.
Why do new, commodity items sell in eBay auctions for higher than the currents prices from established retail outlets? Why do people spend $50 for HDMI cables from Best Buy when the same item can be had for $5 from monoprice? Why is best time to sell when everyone is buying, and the best time to buy when everyone else is selling?
People are irrational, news does not disperse equally to all corners of a systems, and markets reflect this.
Last, his selection of "winning" ideas makes no sense. Many are contradictory. "Make people place many small bets instead of one large bet. But publicize the names of anyone making a large bet." Wait...didn't you say you're not allowing any large bets? And how does that effect the manipulator anyway, since he's likely to want to make many small bets to hide his manipulation?
The trouble with that idea is that there are almost no entry level teaching positions. I have well over ten years of hardware experience, starting in Copier, and fax, repair and moving on to networked printers with a stint in network administration. I then went back to college and got my MBA with the intent of teaching. After that I spent four years teaching in a college in China so that I would have experience teaching college age students.
Why did you get your MBA? Why not Master of Education or something more related to teaching? And what sort of teaching jobs are you looking for? You say no jobs for teaching other than STEM. Are you looking at technology or engineering teaching jobs? You know, the T and E in STEM? Sounds like those would be a good fit for your background.
I mean, if you're a 45 year-old MBA with years of experience in copier and fax repair sending your resume out for kindergarden and elementary schools jobs, you are going to have a very tough time of it, no doubt. But if you're calling on the ITT Techs and DeVrys of the world--you know, the folks who teach subjects related to your actual experience--I'd think you'd have a better shot.
Just wondering.
You don't even begin learning anything useful until after you get into the job market, and from there it is a long haul before one is actually qualified to teach. Sure, he could be an incompetent teacher, who thinks he is qualified, but he certainly won't actually be qualified.
I don't think the suggestion is change fields, then become a teacher in the new field. The suggestion is, rather than try to find an entry level programming position, leverage his experience by becoming a teacher in his current field.
Well, that's fine. The interns don't have any useful skills anyway, they're not even up to the level of entry-level fresh grad. And 99.9% of them think programming is all about social apps or other web sites. If they go somewhere else to get trained at someone else's expense then there's no problem. Interns are a major pain to hire, you have to hand hold them the entire time because they have little idea how a corporation works, how their computer works, how to work independently without bothering everyone else. Or you get an EE intern doing a job requiring some programming and you have to waste time telling them why their program doesn't compile.
Maybe the problem is not the intern. I've had some great experiences with interns, and have some great work to show for it. Part of that is luck--getting the right person to work with. But a lot of that is understanding the situation and handing out appropriate work. Yes, you're dealing with entry-level skills, so put the intern on an entry-level problem. Yes, they typically don't know about corporations and office politics and government regulations and all the other practical considerations that we deal with in the real world. So you put them on a problem that's part of a larger project, or have them work on a utility that will be used internally by your group, and so won't face corporate or regulatory review.
You typically have an intern for a short period of time (mine were 2 months over the summer) so it's up to you to provide a problem or project that is realistic for that time frame. You don't give them a project that interacts with a legacy system so they spend half the internship just trying to understand an obsolete platform they'll never see again.
You give them a problem they can understand and start researching immediately. Then in parallel you have them read up on things like regulations or corporate coding and testing standards. They start at maybe 80% background reading/researching and 20% work, but by halfway through the internship they're at 90% work and maybe 10% background. If you don't get that type of progress, maybe you have a bad intern. If that's your experience every time, the problem is not the interns, but the types and scopes of the problems you are giving them.
And let's be fair, very often the intern at a full corporation who continues on full time at the same place of employment will always be looked at as the junior employee. You often do better by going to a different place, or at least a different department. The only times I've seen an intern do well later in the same job is when the company was a threadbare startup initially.
That's so generically true as to be useless. Anywhere you go, at any level, you'll often always be perceived as in that role where people first met you. It's true whether you're always the intern, always the tech geek, always the executive.
However, I've seen many business where just the opposite is true of interns. Your mid-level employee with 5 to 10 years experience is always seen as mid-level, while interns are seen as "up and comers" on a fast track. There are places where those mid-level employees end up with the same title as or working for the interns they once supervised. Rather than threadbare start-ups, these are lumbering corporate behemoths, fat with layers of management, who can't figure out why those mid-level employees are unhappy.
The one thing I can think of that would be useful is a shopping list- scan a bar code when you use up an item, have it synch to the cloud, and be able to see the list on your phone when you shop.
You haven't thought that idea through. Or read TFS. Yes, it would useful when generating a shopping list. But no, it's not very useful when you have to scan every item as you unpack your purchases.
As is it, you can very easily do this now, with current technology. There are USB bar code scanners. There is software for inventories. In fact, I'm guessing you (and most of the /. audience) have all the hardware and software for this application now--on your smart phone. There are many bar code readers that use a cell phone camera as a scanner.
So why don't you do this? Why don't you scan the bar code of every item in your kitchen to create an inventory. And scan every item as you use it. (For most items, you'd want to trigger the item to appear on your shopping list before you run out.) And scan every item as you unpack after shopping?
There's no (technological) reason you couldn't do this today. You don't because it's a huge pain in the butt.
That's because the liquid electricity has evaporated and become a gas (smoke). Ha!
Do you have any idea the pressures required at room temperature to condense magic smoke in to a liquid?
Hmmm, that might explain exploding capacitors.
The first character that came to MY mind in this question is Doctor Who. A good chunk of storylines start off with the local populace being terrorized by ghosts/vampires/curses/etc. and the Doctor always shrugs off these ridiculous superstitions in order to find out what's really going on.
I think you're confusing Doctor Who with Scooby Doo.
Mental modeling is a funny thing. We used to think of electricity as a liquid. You could substitute voltage for pressure, amperes for gallons, do the math and come up with the right answer. The theory had remarkable predictive power. Was it "wrong?"
That's some of the most ridiculous mumbo-jumbo I've ever read. Electricity as a liquid? Preposterous.
Electricity is a gas. After all, a circuit stops working after the magic smoke escapes. There is no magic liquid.
As another testement to the power of fiction, George Bush read one of Stephen King's books and got $500 million in funding for protection against Plymouth Furies.
From the BBC story:
"I think people had their fingers crossed that it was a battery fault... it looks more systemic and serious to me. I suspect it could be difficult to identify the cause," [Keith Hayward, head of research at the Royal Aeronautical Society] said.
I would hope the folks in change of designing and building aircraft would depend on measurements and calculations, not crossed fingers. Did they also consult a Ouija board?
This sounds too much like, "it's OK to rob a bank, because you're just taking the bank's money. You're not stealing from any people."
the ISP can quite truthfully claim that they don't have any hard evidence to disconnect any particular users or turn over their identities
Does it work that way? I mean, my ISP can tell I'm sharing something that under current law I do not have a right to share. Is my 'get out of jail' card really as simple as, yes, but I don't know who I'm sharing it with?
On the other end, my ISP can tell I'm downloading something that under current law I do not have a right to download, but it's all good, because no one can say for sure who I'm downloading from?
To go back to the bank robbing analogy--and I don't mean to equate copyright infringement with stealing,but--let's say I bust my way in to a bank, crack open the safe, and the next day money is missing. Would I feel comfortable going to court with the defense, "yes, I got in to the bank, and in to the safe, and the money is missing, but you can't prove I took the money?" I don't think I like that defense.
So in this case, "yes, I uploaded your movie, but you can't prove who I uploaded it to." I don't think so. I also don't think not being able to prove who received the bits I sent is the same as not being able to prove that someone received those bits.
When the Nazis came for the communists,I remained silent;I was not a communist.
When they locked up the social democrats,I remained silent;I was not a social democrat.
When they came for the trade unionists,I did not speak out;I was not a trade unionist.
When they came for the Jews,I remained silent;I wasn't a Jew.
When they came for me, there was no one left to speak out.
Horse feathers. If there's a slippery slope over the Bill of Rights, we've been sliding down it for a long time and I don't see enough folks up in arms (figuratively and literally) about it. Anyone who thinks their second amendment firearms will protect them against the government's tanks and aircraft is "nuts".
They came for the 1st amendment, and the 2nd amendment folks were silent.
They came for the 4th amendment, and the 2nd amendment folks were silent.
They came for the 5th amendment, and the 2nd amendment folks were silent.
They came for the 6th amendment, and the 2nd amendment folks were silent.
They came for the 10th amendment, and the 2nd amendment folks were silent.
The NRA is an industry lobbying group, like any other. They don't care about your rights, they only care about their market and profit.
(For the record, I am a licensed firearm owner, and NOT a member of the NRA.)
The format is well documented and surely you have backups.
He said they were in The Cloud. Why would he need backups?
"Real Men don't make backups. They upload it via ftp and let the world mirror it." - Linus Torvalds
And don't call him Shirley.
So now in addition to all the women are strong, all the men are good looking, and all the children are above average, all communities have above normal incidents of mental health issues?
The things you describe, there's a lot of that everywhere.
AKA, there is no evidence. (There is such a thing as anecdotal evidence, but I don't see any in this case.)
The news is biased. A high profile hacker commits suicide. How many hackers didn't commit suicide that day? That doesn't get covered.
We're also biased for our group. It's like how you buy a car, and suddenly that model of car is everywhere. Those cars were there before, you just didn't notice them because they weren't your car. You noticed the story about the hacker committing suicide, but do you remember the other high profile suicide reported that day? The one from the community you don't associate yourself with? Of course not.
We could just as easily talk about the connection between (American) football and depression and suicide. We could discuss whether the recent high profile suicides are related to head trauma and brain injuries, or the transition from being part of a team to being alone in retirement, or any number of other factors.
Except retired football players have a lower rates of suicide than the general population. So whatever factors played a part in those few high profile cases, the evidence doesn't support the idea that this is a high risk group.
It's good if the community can become tighter and help each other out, but that's true of any community. The summary and phrases like "internet freedom fighters" make me think of precious little snowflakes battling the tyranny of society from their parents' basement.
Oh good. I was concerned I was the only person bothered by this.
I figure it's just Ryan, like Cher or Teller.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/774%E2%80%93775_radiation_burst
The part about witness accounts to a red cross like image in the sky, meaning someone may have actually seen the event...
We'd have to treat that as hearsay as no one around in 774 would be updating wikipedia.
Better check MySpace.
You misunderstand my post. I am not saying that we shouldn't have these devices, but if the risk from the software, or somebody hacking the software is so great that homeland security has to take it over, then maybe the very benefits and tradeoffs you mention should be looked at again.
We agree there.
Why update the software? Pacemakers and insulin pumps were available long before you could wirelessly update them. If it is such a threat, then don't enable wireless updates. Plain and simple. My God, how did we exist before computers did everything for us!?
This discussion isn't about having computers do anything for us. It's about how we use computers as tools to do things. How did we have conversations before computers? Well, we did, and yet here you are using a network of computers to have a conversation.
As for the ability to update the software in a medical device, it's about trade-offs and compromises. ObCarAnalogy: computers in cars have made maintenance more complicated, so why not take the computers out of cars? Sure, if you also want to remove the improvements in fuel efficiency, traction control, ABS, GPS, mp3-player interfaces, and all the other things those computers are doing.
Ability to wirelessly communicate with an implanted medical device is a risk? Well, so is having to perform surgery to update that devices configuration or to retrieve data. Maybe the risk (a product of the potential effects of a negative event and the likelihood of that event) of wireless communications is greater than the risk of the extra surgery. Maybe not.
My point is, it's not as simple as "all medical information systems should have updates as soon as they are available from the vendor" or "no implanted devices should have wireless communications."
I could be misinterpreting your message because I can read your words, but not the tone of your voice or body language. So rather than posting a message on /. why don't you come over to my office and tell me face to face? Plain and simple, right?
Is this from the Australian equivalent of the Onion?
We've dropped exploits before on medical systems like Honeywell and Artridum...
Dropped? Is this serious security research or the latest mix tape?
manufacturers need to let os updates and AV software to be install on there systems if they want / need to be on the hospital network.
Because running untested software is a bad idea. Heath care systems and medical device software should get the benefits of updates and patches, but only after those updates have been tested for those specific systems and software. Whatever the vendor does prior to release is insufficient.
When entire hospital processes come to a halt because the latest AV update mistakenly identifies a core OS file as a trojan, you'll come back and say, why are manufactures letting updates to be installed on their systems?
As with many things, the best path is in the middle. Critical systems should be updated as preventative maintenance, but administrators cannot rely on vendor testing alone.
It has been suggested you keep a small 375ml bottle of booze in your car. When you get pulled over, step out of the car, throw your keys on the ground, open the bottle and drink all of it. Make sure they see you break the seal on their dash cam. Now they can't prove you were drunk before you got pulled over.
Um..yeah. And then what? Hope you're not in a hurry, because as soon as you get in your car and put the keys in the ignition, you're popped. So that suggestion only works if you're prepared to then sit on the side of the road until sober (or at least until you're sure there are no cops around).
I guess it's better than going to jail, losing your license, etc. I also guess rather than just going "aw shucks, you got us," the cops are going to say "tell it to the judge," and arrest you and impound your car anyway.
So how about just not dirivng drunk? You could try that.
Because lots of drunk drivers would use the loophole of claiming not to be driving the vehicle when the police found them to try to escape prosecution.
You want loopholes? My google-fu fails ATM, but there was a case in Massachusetts where a guy under the influence drove his car into a house. He was aquited on the DUI change because the MA law is specifically for driving on public roads.
While the police could prove he was drunk, they couldn't prove he was driving on the public road. The law in MA doesn't cover driving drunk on someone's yard and in to their house. (I hope he (or his insurance) at least had to pay for damages. But he got off on DUI charge.)
It's an 84" touchscreen. Hard to see why you'd want the touchscreen in a device you typically control from several arm lengths away.
I guess you could tie one of those capacitive styli to the end of a broom pole and use that as a remote...
Good news everyone!
I had a similar thing going on with a clueless manager. He wanted an explanation why projects weren't getting completed on time. I suggested I could do one better and show him why. He agreed. I downloaded I think it was a sample SAT math test. Where ever I got it, it was one of those four or five hour timed math tests.
Dern. I've already posted in this thread, so I won't moderate, but that is genius.