I sympathize with your point. I like having my email available on multiple devices too. Along with bookmarks, notes, tasks, pictures, rss feeds, calendar appointments, shared documents, music and video. Basically I want to share my data with all my devices, and I don't want to have to surrender it to Google or some other cloud provider to get that functionality. I think Eben Moglen's idea of a local wall-wart style server that can be plugged in the the outlet and provide all your device's cloud services from your own home is the way forward. We know that the mainframe, centralized control of data and applications puts its own interests ahead of the rights of the users. That's why we all wanted our own PC so many decades ago when they hit the scene. I feel that if we need a server, it should be our own, and it should just work and be open for us to modify as needed. After all, it is our own data, and much like our thoughts their can be no greater claim of ownership.

It's not so clear cut. I wouldn't want my daughter to be a guinea pig for these vaccines, would you really pull the trigger if the gun was pointed at your child? http://truthaboutgardasil.org/

I think the best analogy would be along the lines of using a lawyer to review a contract before signing it. If you had to depend on a medical device and you could have it code reviewed before it went in you, wouldn't you feel safer? I know I would.

I think that a key point is missed here. No one questions that each device has a thorough and voluminous trail of testing. What they question are the standards that the tests are held to. As the fine article stated, most if not all devices are only tested against in house developed criteria. And while the device in question may have been found compliant to all internally generated requirements, it can still fail in life threatening ways that may not have been tested. The point is that the FDA largely defers judgement on just what to test in a device to the manufacturer itself, which amounts to self-regulation. And we all know that corporate psychology does not possess the capability to regulate any action other than pursuit of profit.

I contracted as a software requirements test writer once, and although the company was very thorough and rigorous, the requirements and tests for the versions prior to my time were not adequate to inspire my confidence as an long time programmer. In many cases, the requirements were inconsistent or missing. Missing requirement were not tested. Tests in many cases were written by trained writers, not programmers or testers. Many of these tests would pass as written because the test procedure was wrong. Of course the process is long, and most companies including this one eventually find and correct these types of issues. I would still have to say that leaving it up to each manufacturer to determine just what is to be tested is a recipe for device failure. At the end of the day, the product I worked on was considered compliant because all of the self-determined software requirements passed the V&V tests they wrote themselves.

I think that most people see the value of getting a second opinion in medical decisions, so it wouldn't be far fetched to think that people might want a third party to review medical devices too. If the FDA's ruling acts force them to defer testing to the manufacturers, then the public deserves the right to seek that second opinion. It seems that these days, the FDA is little more than a source of get out of jail free cards to the industry it is supposed to regulate. The point this article tried to make is do you want decisions about the quality of a device implanted in your body to be influenced by reputation or profit motives? I think we can all safely answer no to that question.

Yes, but can it play Duke Nukem?

Used my Delorian to find the link for you. http://www.ded.uscourts.gov/JJF/Opinions/Recent/Apr2010/06-726.pdf

Licensing professionals is another method large corporate / old wealth interest use to limit competition. The original industrialists, like Ford and Carnegie do not want independent producers to compete with them. It happened to every tradesperson since the mid 1800s. Requirements for professional licensing cuts the supply of labor, raises the market prices for those still participating and increases the demand for those skills and products. With the market primed, a corporation with near unlimited capital and fully limited liability comes in with mass produced and cost minimized solutions that undercut any professionals left in the market. The result is few if any licensed professionals remain sole proprietors or partners for long. Eventually they take the work at the nearby factory for less money, paying more for "professional" services like doctors and accountants (death and taxes). Those company benefits come out of their wages and most of their annual raises will go towards maintaining their health insurance.

Take the early Mini / Personal Computer days for programmers. Very little off the shelf software existed. Business had little choice but to hire free-lance programmers to write custom software. Most needed to keep these programmers on retainer in order to make quick alterations of code to meet new market conditions and all were worried about long term support. The independent programmer could have made a career at one or two firms just as a lawyer or accountant might today if they have large clients.

But in order for off the shelf software to have a serious market in large enterprises, the independent programmer would have to go. So they get the "professional" treatment just like all other tradespeople have received. Certifications are issued and packaged software professionals are the replacement for highly skilled and familiar free-lance custom designers. Business adjusts to an inferior product and less competent labor in order to perpetuate the idea that bigger is better and a piece of paper is more important that practical know-how. Everyone is expected to get back in line, the wild frontier is now closed to the general public, come back in fifty years for the grand opening of the hacker museum were we celebrate how much better it now that nanny Micro-Mac-Bm provides all our "trusted" information needs with new titillating models coming next month.

In some cases the odds stated on those sheets of adverse or fatal reactions are greater than the odds of not surviving the disease. So no, looking at the statistics doesn't always lead one to see that vaccines are the safest choice of action.

From 1923 to 1953, before the Salk killed-virus vaccine was introduced, the polio death rate in the United States and England had already declined on its own by 47 percent and 55 percent, respectively. Statistics show a similar decline in other European countries as well. And when the vaccine did become available, many European countries questioned its effectiveness and refused to systematically inoculate their citizens. Yet, polio epidemics also ended in these countries. In fact only about 1 in 1000 people were "paralyzed" by the virus, most just had flu-like symptoms and stiffness, then recovered just fine with permanent immunity afterwards.

All of these vaccines are given to children at two months of age, please read the vaccine schedule before you post.

My personal experience has been that pediatricians in three states have done little to explain any risk, and many times a nurse is administering the vaccine long after the doctor has left the room. Most hand you the papers after they've injected your child and leave it up to you to ask questions. From your rant it appears that you do not have any children.

Pissed that all their maps will be wrong after this.

Electronic degredation isn't the problem in record-keeping. The reliability of retreival and permanance of paper keeps trumping electronic records in the critical arena. A physical chart attached to a hospital bed keeps a permanent record of check-in, tracks changes (scribbles out), is always accessible, and can provide enough information to allow simple questions to verify identity. The chart could even be e-ink, as long as it had persistent storage. Telemedicine, like the telephone, requires a human on both ends to be useful, so let it bluetooth the monitors, infusers, and a nursePod, and stay off the EHR network altogether. When the patient checks out, the chart goes to the checkout desk with the patient, and everything dumps into billing/EHR, chart is cleaned, and goes back to an empty bed.

The writer states in section 0 that proprietary software will stay indefinately. Had he looked at the industrial revolution an even paid much attention to the computer revolution he would have seen that published standards endure and proprietary standards are starved off from the market.

Linux needs open standards and specifications so that end users can retain their data and devices. Microsoft did that with standard device driver models, PlugandPlay protocols, and read access to as many competing data formats as they could buy. I think that until the models changed in Vista, most people could get their hardware to "just work" with Windows from version to version. In fact, I think DOS users had more open and complete device interface documentation than Linux enjoys today. But without agreed upon industry standards to build critical power applications and device drivers, Linux will struggle to provide for the needs of the average desktop user.

...of Windows 7 so they can claim it is a resounding success of a product launch. And Gartner is just the cheerleader they pay to get the "message" out. Nothing to see here.