$10 got me a legit copy of Windows 7 ultimate edition through my university. Can't get much hardware (or even incremental improvement) for that amount of money. As someone who has made good $$$ off of software development, I don't think that $10 is too much to help support other developers. I've contributed more cash o FOSS projects than $10 over the years, that's for sure!

I have a kindle fire and read PDF's (medical textbooks) on it all the time. I do have to zoom in, but that "sticks" from page to page so I just have to do it once. Note -- this is with the Mantano reader (free version) which handles pdf better than the native kindle app (e.g. allows highlighting, freehand notes, etc..)

I have tried converting the PDF to mobi/epub with calibre (which works) but the layout gets really crappy -- especially with respect to the legends of figures/images/tables.

From my understanding, storing documents with patient identifying information on the 3rd party mainframe...errr..THE CLOUD...would constitute a HIPAA violation, unless that 3rd party had some kind of agreement about privacy and the like. Anyone know if these cloud document storing solutions such as Skydrive, Google Docs, etc... are liable for HIPAA violations (which can be $10k in fines a pop, IIRC)?

As other sib posters of mine have pointed out, this is in fact wrong. Historically (as in Ancient Greece), tasting urine for sweetness was how the disease got its name (it's not called 'mellitus' for nothing!). These days the diagnosis is through measuring levels of sugar in the blood, although most recently, measuring the surrogate marker of HbA1c can now be used to make a formal diagnosis. Before this you could either do a fasting blood sugar level, a glucose tolerance test, or having a rip roaring single glucose level with evidence of end organ damage (among other ways of diagnosis, which I am sure there some).

Testing of urine is done routinely (guideline is once per year) to look for microalbuminemia -- essentially damage to the renal apparatus caused by high blood sugar. If someone is in DKA, they would have high urine ketones, but this is not what is looked for in routine urine testing.

Once the diagnosis is made, it can be categorized (e.g. Type I, Type II, iotragenic, neoplastic, etc...).

This was one of my thoughts as well as I started reading Piers Anthony in 5th or 6th grade. The Xanth novels are great for puns. Many of his other series or short stories have decidedly more mature themes (Minnie's Crew...I remember reading THAT in 8th grade. Yikes!). Still, I remember reading (and re-reading) Cthon, the Bid of a Space Tyrant series, the Blue Adept/Phase series, and the Greek mythology based ones (forget the name of those books) with fondness.

And I'm not completely screwed up (although opinions on this may vary). :)

Basal cell carcinomas are locally invasive but do not metastasize. Excision with negative margins is curative. Where I can see this beneficial is with larger tumors that are more difficult to resect without severe disfigurement, or as neoadjuvant therapy to shrink tumor size prior to surgery (as is done with other tumors in other body locations).

However, unnecessary radiation to the head and neck has historically proven to cause more harm than good (e.g. treatment of acne with x-rays which then was linked to papillary thyroid carcinoma). So...not sure how I excited I would be personally to do this without getting more data.

Ultimately we (as a society, or, in the US, insurance companies) make that decision. For a given treatment, there is a number of people needed to treat to either prevent one new case of the disease (number needed to treat -- NNT) or the number of people needed to treat to cause harm (number needed to harm). This is a calculated number based on the risk reduction the treatment provides for the given disease. Theoretically, you could add all the numbers up and make an economic calculation and say either we (as a society or insurance company) are willing or not willing to pay this. Of course, this hits up against the inelastic demand of medical treatments and also the crazy rationing of health care (in the US) based on class and wealth. And of course, it is easy to say that some stranger should not have some care since it is too expensive, but if it comes to yourself or someone you love, it all of a sudden doesn't seem so bad.

For diagnostic tests this calculation may be harder, as the "harm" in a test may include emotional suffering (e.g. finding out you have an untreatable disease like Huntington's disease) as well as the cost of any additional testing.

BTW - this is why the USPSTF has changed guidelines for certain screenings (such as mammograms). Namely, the (meta)analyses they have done indicate that the harm of early/often testing in terms of radiation doses, lost time, wages, emotional toll, unnecessary surgeries, etc...) outweighs the benefits of GENERAL screening (a point seemingly lost on the talking heads) of the population. Oh well.

11th on micocenter. I used to live around the corner from one and enjoyed browsing their used/returned aisle. They redecorated and got rid of that and distributed it around the store (and then seemed to disappear completely for a while -- which was a bummer) but it was always fun to browse through.

I built my last machine up using them. It was maybe $10-20 more expensive than I could have done online, but as an occasional system builder (who doesn't always get the compatibility right), it was great to be able to take stuff back if I got the wrong or incompatible part (read: memory). They took the returns no questions asked. Salespeople are not 100% clueless too and don't hassle you, unlike BB.

I upped my offer...

...now up yours.

Hmmm...The Elven Centipede. I suspected that some crazy s*** went down in that Keebler tree house...

Philip K dick had a story where this was essentially part of the plot line -- a man from the past arrives in the future and is able to actually...fix things (The Variable Man)

In one scene, children are playing with a toy and it gets broken. The main character starts to fix it and the kids are wondering what he is doing and why he doesn't just throw it out and get a new one.

The book is free on Project Gutenburg here

From the referenced PDF:

Not quite: FTFA:

From something a little less...mainstream:

Usually FSGS is thought to be acquired (e.g. HIV or heroin use) rather than genetic. Of course, underlying genetics or haplotypes may play a role, but I too lazy to look that up :).

This is one thing that has always puzzled me: if Ellison is "borrowing" the money (against hist stock portfolio) presumably at some point he needs to pay the "loan" back....Is it just how double ledger accounting is done that people are okay with having an outstanding loan on their books to Ellison (which in the intricacies of the double ledger counts as an asset for the entity giving the loan -- In which case the "loan" never really needs to be payed back?).