So you would rather that he should have stayed to be broken like Manning?
A safer, and more intellectually sound, option would be to become an anonymous whistleblower, like Deep Throat / Mark Felt. You don't get the notoriety, but then you also don't become Vladimir Putin's sock puppet when it becomes convenient.
"Kids these days can't even swipe a tablet, all wired-up as they are with these direct brain interfaces! It's terrible I tell you, terrible!"
In 2025, they probably will be stuck in their Buy 'N Large hover recliners, with drones delivering everything and informercials streamed directly to their heads-up or retinal displays. They won't need silly things like "interfaces" for antiquated notions like "choice".
And I cannot wait to see people who kick the shift out of glassholes facing legal consequences for thinking that they somehow have a right to enforce what they believe on others through violence.
And honestly, you may be waiting a while! For there are surely legal consequences for such things, but the police and judges are human and tend to view unexciting assault and battery cases as exactly that.
I mean, seriously, how many people as a percentage actually serve jail time for bar fights? Not many, and there are some serious injuries from those. And let's not forget extenuation - if Peter gets up in the face of the elderly mother of Paul and starts screaming at her for road rage and Paul punches his lights out, Paul may be congratulated by the arresting police officer after he's let off with probation. If Paul claims Peter was harassing him with his Glassholeness Sarah Slocum-style, Paul likely walks with community service.
And let's not forget, the police only have so much manpower and funding. Hell, they can't even muster up enough time here at my hometown to shut down any of the massage parlors for blatant sex trafficking of illegal immigrants. Robberies may take a while to investigate. Do you think police officers, who most likely already view Glassholes in a dim light, are going to be spending much time about finding out who Random Guy A was who punched the Glasshole recording him at a local bar?
And how about we quit acting like this is the end of privacy and not CCTVs or the NSA.
That's weird. I didn't realize because X and Y are worse on a continuum of bad things, it means Z is somehow A-OK!
I hate the NSA and it's intrusions. I hate CCTV and the casual police state. Oh, and I hate Google Glass and its commercialization of the surveillance state.
See? Is that so hard?
Where have you been for the past couple of decades? The US has gotten more blatant in it's actions. It is these very overt actions, without significant outcry from other countries, that is leading the other Big Powers to feel confident in making overt moves as well.
It will be interesting times ahead. The US used to get away with so much of it's foreign policy because of the mythic aura of the American-Dream that made it so palatable to poor developing countries.
No, the US used to get away with so much of it's foreign policy because the idea of foreign aid and economic trade with America made it very palatable to poor developing countries. See how everyone is starting to bend over backward to China as it begins to assert its economic weight.
With the recent constant revelations of just how hypocritical the US is, and the fact they're running out of countries that they haven't fucked over, they're losing their carefully built image and status as "policer-of-the-free-world".
What rock have *you* been living under for the last 100 years? Have you been paying any attention at all to US foreign policy in Latin America and the Middle East for, I don't know, the last century? Has there been a time when the US hasn't acted exactly as it has? Has there been one significant change in dipping their toes in other countries' affairs? The only change, ever, has been international press coverage of events. People interested in foreign policy have always seen the US for exactly what it is - it's just until 20 years ago there was a Soviet Union and a Warsaw Pact that made the US much more endearing.
It'll be fun to see just how far the bullies will go now that they realize there is no functional deterrent to their actions.
...unless you take out their gps...
Which is exactly as far as they would have gone before! Do you think bullshit brush wars are a new thing? Or that developed countries with strong militaries intervening in neighboring countries with weak ones is new, either? Wake up. The only international law worth a damn is the international law that's enforced at the point of a gun.
This is a game where you're constantly presented with a legion of things to do, numbers to increase, boxes to tick, things to collect, factions to impress, points to earn, monsters air-dropped in to battle without warning and/or preferably all of the above simultaneously.
So this is the most job-like game on the internet?? Awesome! Sign me up.
Less facetiously, I didn't think the answer to the common complaint of, "We're sick of killing 10 generic monsters to collect 5 generic trophies to advance a quest" was, "Here's more stuff to grind!"
There have been some successes along the way, like genetic tests for warfarin dosage, but for the most part our gains in understanding of basic biology haven't been matched by clinical advances.
If you're spending thousands of dollars for genetic testing for a $4 a month drug like warfarin, you're doing it way wrong. It's like the proverbial million dollar cure for the common cold. You could either use one of the newer warfarin alternatives with more consistent pharmacokinetic profiles at a higher price or use the old tried-and-true trial and error dosing.
Either way, you're still doing weekly to monthly lab testing for warfarin dosing. And your warfarin effectiveness (or bleeding risk) is still going to be thrown way off if you vary your diet significantly or start new medications.
A much better example of genomic medicine payoff would be targeting therapies to specific cancer types, like the EGFR receptor mutations in some varieties of lung cancer.
You realize the Scientific American article that you point to backs up the OP's point? Let me quote the article summary directly:
"whereas female brains are more connected between hemispheres to combine analytical and intuitive thinking"
So, women are supposedly more wired to perform analytical and intuitive thinking? And what is coding and software engineering, exactly? It's certainly not a showcase for men's supposedly superior motor skills!
I don't believe many parents (there are a few) who directly point their children away from STEM. But I know a lot of parents and family and friends who indulge all day in Disney Princesses and makeover parties and introduce their peers to the wonders of staying connected all day to social media.
It's not malignant, but there is a social bias present. It may not have been in your immediate family, but taken as an aggregate, social pressure does steer little girls' interests away from STEM. And interests often turn into exploration for careers.
No one told him there was an issue and he'd been doing it for months. I would have at least expected a manager to ask him politely at first. What makes his glasses any different from a regular cell phone? Aside from the fact that he also requires them to see and they're actually on his face instead of in his hand.
Hey, guess what? Just because you get away with going 100 mph on the highway for the first few months doesn't mean you get to avoid the speeding ticket when the cop does pull you over later.
"Well, gee, officer, I've been doing this for months now, and no one's bothered to stop me before!! It must be OK then, right?"
As an object lesson in expected social etiquette, you should hold up your cell phone the next time you're in a movie theater (preferably on opening night), leave it pointed at the screen with the camera/camcorder app on without actually taking pictures, and see what happens.
You guys need to get over the word "apologists", frankly it makes you sound like your parroting some right and/or left wing extremest political view. I've mostly gotten in the habit of as soon as I read that word I shutdown and ignore everything else as been completely off base and out side of normal reality. Actually I just had a good laugh because after typing all that I read your user name (reality impaired).
Fine, how about this? I'm not the original poster, but I'll amend what he said. It boggles the mind that an idiot wore a wearable videocamera to a movie theater and pointed it at the screen, and some people are beyond themselves that the idiot got into trouble for it. There, no need for the word "apologist".
Is there anything more arbitrary than the line drawn between "human" and "animal"?
Is there anything more arbitrary than the line drawn between "animal" and "plant"?
See, I can do this too!
Drawing a line between humans and everything else is easy. Are you a member of homo sapiens, or not?
Because of the legalities, the automated cars will drive like grandmas.
Quite possibly true...but it's also quite possible that they would still reduce average trip time.
perfect merges at all on-ramps.
I rarely encounter an on-ramp slow-down that wasn't due to multiple lanes of busy traffic converging into a single lane, as opposed to panicky driver hitting the brakes too much. 2 flows merging into a single flow of the same size will result in a slowdown, no matter how perfect the computers are at scheduling.
No need for stop lights / signs.
Yes, because nothing else, like pedestrians, needs a traffic break to cross the street, ever.
Automatic routing of traffic to use the most optimal routes based on current volumes.
I don't think "optimal" means what you think it means. If every car can read the traffic and select routes, there will be no "optimal" route, since traffic will be evenly congested everywhere. It may be faster than taking Highway 555 now at rush hour, but all your shortcuts of taking little traveled street X or trying to save on time by using a more roundabout route will disappear.
...I will Do No Evil(tm).
Laws and pledges will inevitably be broken inversely proportional to the enforcement and proportional to the benefits of breaking your word and how many people are involved. So Bitcoin is good, no one involved is trying to make money for nothing.
cocaine typically can't be detected past 3 days.
And yet, the doctor seems to have determined that it had nothing to do with the current stuff and moved on:
There, on MugShots.com, was a younger version of my patient's face, with details about how she had been detained for cocaine possession more than three decades earlier. I looked away from the screen, feeling like I had violated my patient's privacy. I resumed our medical exam, without bringing up the finding on the Internet, and her subsequent hospital course was uneventful.
So, depending on the kinds of tests he was doing, he apparently concluded it was a red herring.
Let me give you some insight as a doctor.
Patient comes in, lies, is actually abusing cocaine. Cocaine is a stimulant, and can cause overexertion of the heart through either chronic use or acute overdose, leading to shortness of breath and weakness, which the patient came in with. Additionally, smoking cocaine and all its impurities can damage the lungs.
It had everything to do with the "current stuff", as the patient lying and abusing cocaine as an elderly person ties everything together logically. Medical mystery solved, the doctor goes about his day. Seeing gramps come into the hospital after shooting up or smoking some dope is uncommon, but not unheard of.
Now, elderly person comes in, unknown care situation at home or what passes for home. Tests positive for drugs in their system. This explains why they came in with their symptoms, but not how it got there. That possibility requires further investigation, and may be cause for a call to adult protective services.
TL,DR: Not a red herring. The doctor reacting as they did was because they got the answers they needed, not because it wasn't relevant.
The problem is that they didn't get any answers at all -- just because she used Cocaine 30 years ago doesn't mean she still does. I used a number of drugs 20 years ago that I literally haven't touched in decades.
If he suspects abuse, then he shouldn't dismiss that suspicion just because she once used the drugs. If she associated with people 30 years ago that had access to cocaine, there's a good chance that she still comes into contact with people today that have access to cocaine, so if anything, the fact that she once used the drug makes it more likely that someone may be giving it to her now.
Which is a valid point, too. But the response to that is complicated. It may have been an incomplete story given to us - when I ask a social history on substance use, I usually ask a variation of, "Are you using any illegal or street drugs? Have you done so in the past?"
Most people who are steadfastly lying about current use will say no to both. People who have fallen off the wagon may lie about the first question in the beginning and tell the truth on the second, but if you come around again the patient will usually admit to it when directly asked and they know it's pertinent to treatment. If this patient had lied to the doctor about using before, I wouldn't blame them for thinking they're lying about both the past and now.
So, what then? Usually it comes down to conversations with the patient and his/her family or caretakers, and talking with adult protective services. If you aren't satisfied with the patient's safety at home, you tell them you're locking them in the hospital as a matter of patient safety until you're done investigating. The drug abusers will usually confess after this, because they want to get out of the hospital, after they're feeling better, to go back to using.
Further examples of HIPAA violations and nonviolations and why.
Doctor X discusses Patient Y's case with Doctor Z, also involved in the case, at the supermarket. This is a HIPAA violation, as long as there are bystanders and he used specific identifying information. The Doctor intended to have the conversation in a place where he could have reasonably assumed there were unrelated people overhearing.
Now, Doctor X discussing Patient Y as a generic stroke case in public that could be one of a million just like it, with no identifying information, and debating the best ways to treat it? Not a HIPAA violation. Happens all the time during teaching rounds and medical conferences.
Doctor X leaving Patient Y's information up on a public console in a hospital? HIPAA violation. Doctor X could reasonably know that other people are going to walk by and either incidentally or purposefully look at the information he left up.
Doctor X looking up Patient Y's information on a public console in the hospital, and then taking it down before leaving. If an investigator or spy comes by with a USB drive of cracking tools and reconstructs Patient Y's information? Not a HIPAA violation. Doctor X took reasonable precautions with intent to protect Patient Y's privacy.
Doctor X opening Patient Y's chart to write a note and orders, and unrelated person sneaking behind him and sneaking a quick peek over the shoulder at Patient Y's information without anyone seeing? Not a HIPAA violation on the Doctor's part. No intent to share. Reasonable protection. Doctors shouldn't have to hire armed security guards to watch their back while they're focusing on treating patients.
I am a doctor.
Wouldn't doctors googling their patients essentially violate HIPAA rules?
No.
Because you've now let the fact that you are a doctor treating a specific patient bleed out around the corners, and since Google is keeping track of who you are and what you searched for, they know it too.
Unless you are doing this in such a way that you can guarantee you're not causing patient confidentiality to be breached (which Google sure as hell isn't), I'm of the opinion you've demonstrated a lapse in ethics, and a breech of the law.
Violating HIPAA takes intent. And you're taking the doctor's responsibility to protect patient information way too far.
For example, Doctor X discusses Patient Y's case with Friend Z, with specific identifying information. HIPAA violation.
Doctor X discusses Patient Y's case with consulting Doctor A in a suitably private conversation over the telephone. Unknown to the parties, the NSA / and/or the phone company is wiretapping the line, and just learned all about Patient Y. Not a HIPAA violation on either Doctor's part. Doctors have to take reasonable precautions to protect their patient's privacy. Guarding against every possible outlet that snooping intelligence agencies and snooping internet companies could use is too much, and we'd never get anything productive done.
And, even if you search in a manner you know was anonymous, if those searches come from something which is identifiable as being the anonymous search of doctors, the content of those searches can still leak information out.
Because when Google see that Dr. Joe Quack has searched for Bob Skippy Smith followed by a quick refresher on the symptoms of herpes
Doctors are not information theorists, and quite possibly not well educated enough about this technology to be using it in conjunction with their medical practice. Because clearly, if they understood this a little better, they'd realize they've more or less violated their ethics (and possibly the law) by doing this.
Doctors Googling their patients is a terrible idea, and has every possibility of violating the privacy of the patient, as well as the laws meant to protect it.
This would be an incredibly bad idea on Google's part to try to gather accurate information this way on patients. Because I assure you, doctors are neither linear nor subject related in their internet searching. Just because I google "gstoddart" and then a few minutes later "UpToDate: complications of inserting foreign objects in anus" does not mean the two are anywhere related, despite what you're thinking. I may have 20 different patients on my service at any given time, and I frequently have to be thinking about multiple cases at any given time during a workday. Hell, just to make things more confusing for google, maybe I googled "best place to order roses nearby" in between those two google searches, because I'm taking my girlfriend out to dinner after work.
Sorry, while I hate it, no one, not me, not you, has privacy anymore online or electronically. While we can fight against it, get used to it.
"Show business is just like high school, except you get paid." - Martin Mull
