What the F***!

[the_leander]

Even if they do things perfectly from here on out some of us won't give them another chance.

Agreed. Worse though was their "cease and desist" letter to OSNews, at least in terms of broader public opinion.

Although I must admit I did laugh hard at the reaction it generated in some of the comments, especially the dissection of the letter's origin.

[the_leander]

using leeches as a remedy for all diseases...

Actually it is precisely because of standards that medicine moved on. Standardised testing for the effectiveness of treatments using scientific methodology, standardisation of remedies in tablet forms so as to provide a consistent dosage, standardised training for medical practitioners.

People improve on those standards obviously, but without them, well you can always visit a naturapathic or homoeopathic "doctor" and see how well that works for anything remotely serious.

[the_leander]

Cell processors found in some consoles are not available on the free market. The end.

There are no words...

Just cards

And they are available for purchase, massively expensive, but still available and have been for quite a while.

[the_leander]

Are you really trying to twist the meaning of what I have said?

Are you really trying to dismiss all standards?

You bloody well know that is nobody as the courage to go against the flow then nothing changes. It has nothing to do about the standard size of a pill or either you shove a suppository up yours ...

You need to chill the hell out sunbeam. It was precisely because of public demand for better, more effective medicines that brought about standardisation. Just another thing the Victorians did for us.

[the_leander]

So ok, we all roll over and die then.

BTW it wouldn't be that hard doing better than NVidia and Ati lately considering how their overpriced card consumed more power than my space heater and they are so buggy as to necessitate weekly drivers updates.

Do you have any concept of just how powerful and capable a modern GPGPU is? How complex they have become? How many billions are involved in their development? How much middleware is included in those drivers?

It would be easier today. The tools needed to design them are more powerful today than they were in 1985, and engineer are better trained today in that field. The manufacture plants are also better and more efficient.

Right, all you need now is a few hundred billion to get your idea off the ground, as well as enough capital to maintain that pace for some time to come. Because until you do, all I'm seeing from you is

[the_leander]

Actually Leander,
I agree with you on most of this, but I'll nit pick one point. Standardized dosages (in medecine) aren't the greatest idea. Why would you give the same dose of medecine to an anorexic 100 pound woman that you would to a 250 lb football player?

With respect, it doesn't work like that, and there are standards to cover differences in weight too. All part of NICE.

[the_leander]

Who is actually using it as a desktop?

As far as I can see they're used as coprocessors only for a variety of very specialised tasks as well as blade systems.

But no one is using it as the basis for a desktop processor again, afaik.

[the_leander]

With all respect to you man, it DOES work just like that.

You might want to tell NICE and the hpa that they should stop ignoring your claims. And that was just one example of a specific set of drugs.

if they were properly given, would be calculated on a per lb body weight basis.

They are.

Having taken both physiology and anatomy, I'd feel more comfortable with many Vets (as opposed to the average doctor).

If standards are as low as you imply, I don't blame you.

And having grown up with a significant part of my family employed in the medical profession, I worry when I see too many people blindly following their doctors suggestions.

There are NICE guidelines specifically spell out dosage ranges for given patients weights on a per drug basis. They're there if you look for them. Apparently just another way our evil socialist death panel system beats the US one...

[the_leander]

Actually, I just don't place my faith or my well being in the hands of others as casually as you (or many others) do.

Casually? Pfft.

I'm glad your so impressecd with NICE and the concept of dosage "ranges".

As with engineering there is always a certain tolerance to work within. Why should the human body be any different?

The reason there are ranges is because people are different, what might be enough for one person might not be for another of the same body weight.

The point is it completely blows out of the water your initial claim, at least for the UK.

It still looks like a way of dumbing down a concept of dosage control to me.

NICE guidelines are written by panels of experts who trawl through research papers and put together more readily accessible documentation for people on the front line, who for the most part really don't have the time to spend months at a time getting the latest research into a given medicine and weighing it up against previous research any time they want to give someone a shot.

And, no, I don't think the standards of my education were that low. Most of you wouldn't have been able to pass those courses. I had a GPA of 3.89 at the time and still felt relieved to get out of Physiology with a low B.

You might want to go back and read what I actually said, I didn't aim the comment at you, in fact I'm fairly certain it was aimed at your medical profession, again, if your claims about the US system are correct. Which I'm sorry to say I really doubt, since a lot of the papers that are sourced to put together NICE guidelines come from the US.

[the_leander]

Alan, I have no interest in disputing your apparent faith in the medical profession or its "experts". Although one of the people who I trust most in that field once defined expert to me as "anyone who makes three correct guesses in a row".

I wouldn't really be bothered if you did tbh, but medical science and it's practical application works for the most part, it's really not up for discussion. The whole point was about a single claim you made, which it turns out is incorrect. That's all.

Nor do I want to compare the health care systems in our respective countries as I already know the US has the best health care no one can afford.
Our opinions, our points of view just vary.

And I'll imagine they'll vary still more over time, at least on this one particular issue. But it's all good and part of life's rich tapestry.

I remember (growing up) my father coming home one day from work angrier than I'd ever seen him.
Initially he would tell me what was bothering him, although through the night I'd occasionally hear him make comments like "son of bitch should have retired long ago".
the next day I asked my mother what had happened. She told me that during surgery an elderly doctor's hand had slipped and he had punctured the patient's aorta with his thumb. "And your father is particularly upset because all he said was 'whoops'", my mother told me.

"Whoops!", your dead. Doctors are human, and this is not the only horrors story I got to find out about growing up.

So take it whatever way you want. I am very careful who I place my life in the hand off.

Whilst I fully respect the above may well have been a powerful influence on your view of the entire medical profession, I think perhaps you might want to look further afield to develop a broader view of it all. I don't do anecdotal evidence. Nor do I base my views on individual incidents, bad choices are made that way. YMMV

[the_leander]

Well, we will just have to agree to disagree on that point.

I can live with that.

Generally, I'll give someone in the profession the benefit of the doubt, but I temper that with a healthy skepticism about placing my faith in any mere mortal.

Fair enough.

BTW - What do you think of CUSA and their website?

Honestly? A bit "meh". I neither like nor dislike it, when I saw the revamp I realised that after all the nonsense that had gone on, I really didn't care about them. Their product range if it ever ships on some fronts looks mildly interesting, although I'll be blunt and say that an all in one keyboard style unit simply doesn't do it for me, it never did even when I had a wedge 1200. The case for their big box system looks the business however.

That said my next computer purchase is likely going to be something like an older shoebox pc (like a first gen AMD64) that I can use a media server/nas/mucking around. For "desktop" use I'll likely stick with my Asus F5 and replace it with another 17ins laptop when the day arrives, for portable I have my EeePC 701 which goes everywhere with me which I'll again get another netbook when it gets retired.

[the_leander]

Perhaps you're campaigning to be their marketing director?

Plaz

Hey don't knock it, it worked for the other guy :lol:

[the_leander]

: D AROS NOT ready on prime time? HAHAHAHA ....

By no measure that I'm aware of could AROS be said to be "ready for prime time". AFAIK it's still considered an Alpha release.

even if AROS uses only one Core of the ATOM it is faster than Ubuntu.

Ubuntu != Linux. And you might be right about it being more responsive than Ubuntu is initially, and that's fine but the moment you attempt to do anything remotely processor intensive that second core that Ubuntu can tap will leave AROS standing. Also there are lightweight versions of both Linux and Ubuntu that negate much of your complaint.

 Linux sucks in terms of performance.. it is a secure modular OS but no multimedia system.

Depends on the distro as far as "speed" goes. And as far multimedia is concerned, there's very little I can't play quite comfortably, even on an EeePC 701 using Kubuntu 10.04.
 

Oh and Linux crashes also. Start experimenting and it will crash too.

Sure I can make Linux crash, I can make any OS crash, the difference is that lacking things like system wide memory protection, an application crashing is highly unlikely to cause the rest of the system to croak. All in all I find Linux to be rock solid when put on well supported hardware.