Unfortunately, this is the problem with experimental therapies intended to be used on emergency patients in extremis, where most of which will be unable to give meaningful consent. It's a common issue in severe trauma and stroke trials. While implied consent for standard emergency treatment can be assumed, this does not hold for experimental therapies.

In such cases, the researchers will most likely ask a surrogate decision maker (the patient's family) for permission -- as you would for any other non-competent patient who needed a medical decision, and who did not leave written directives beforehand. There will also be an ethics board monitoring the whole thing (as with all human trials, but these types of trials more closely than most).

Oh hey, it's nice to bump into a physician on Slashdot. I'm about to start my internship, ok if I add you to my friend list?

Actually, let me amend my previous post, on second thought I don't think it's really the end-users that are the true targets of this acquisition.

It's would be the game devs. Imagine a world where all commercial Oculus games are required to be developed in such a way that they have some sort of social-media tie into Facebook. It won't happen at the official public release of course -- that would scare too many people off. I imagine they'll play nice until the Oculus achieves market dominance. Then, Facebook will start to creep into the arrangement, as devs find out they need to jump through more and more hoops to maintain access to the Oculus ecosystem.

So, who wants to bet whether or not the basic Oculus Rift will be permanently tied-into the Facebook ecosystem somehow?

Maybe some "cloud" features (required to access support forums, firmware updates, online configuration page, etc) that will be tied to your Facebook account -- none of which will make much sense, but somehow it will get shoe-horned in there.

I think you may want to put in an exception for pediatric patients. And, if you allow last-minute-converts, such a rule would mostly be symbolic.

Predictions of Global Malthusian Collapse have been proven wrong repeatedly, but only because many intelligent and hardworking humans have labored to prevent it. We defer a certain amount of gratification now, to invest in technologies, infrastructure, and institutions; we use our foresight to plan and avoid inauspicious outcomes.

My fear is that at some point, society as a whole will come to take all these things for granted. We'll pat ourselves on the back and say, "Malthus was and always is wrong because, uhh -- reasons", and we'll stop investing in the future. Because hey, I really need more shinies right now, and my voters are going to the polls right now, and the boss wants better numbers right now. And that's when tomorrow gets Fucked.

Malthusianism is only wrong because we work hard to make it wrong.

And ironically enough, we're now at the point where further developments in technology have meant that DC is now superior for high-power transmission over long distances, thanks to lower power losses and the ability to run high-voltage cables underground/underwater (no capacitive coupling losses).

That's because USB connectors have a quantum spin of 1/2!

Oh, and http://www.smbc-comics.com/?id...

Right, it's the sort of schmaltzy emotion-based argument I expect from some politician or tabloid rag. Timothy, I am disappoint.

Professor Bob Nagele (from the med school I'm attending now) has had a blood-based Alzheimer's test since 2011: http://www.plosone.org/article...

I didn't understand the seemingly poor cost-benefit trade-off either, until I realized it was the European Union that pushed for this. In Europe, they incinerate a much larger portion of their trash than we do -- thus, the lead in the garbage stream was actually a big problem for them.

Although, there's been quite a push in recent times to increase consumption of dairy products, coming from several different directions. From the government, who would like to introduce a new revenue source to farming (the urban-rural income gap is an increasing problem), as well as a new protein source to their citizens; from consumers with increasing exposure to Western influences (and the advertisers that would like to sell to them); from parents wishing their children would grow up taller than the previous generation. Even from young girls hoping to grow bigger boobs.

The most successful cheeses thus far seem to be the milder-tasting types. Things like mozzarellas, or soft cheeses suitable for desserts and cheesecakes. Unfortunately, these are also the cheeses highest in lactose -- the great majority of Chinese are lactose intolerant.

Definitely. Get a cheap Bluetooth OBD reader, pair it with a smartphone, then add one of several OBD Smartphone Apps out there -- I use Torque Pro for Android -- and you have a decent reader that will also do logging, although the information that you can get out of it varies with your reader, and the make and model of car.

I recently made emergency use of my reader just a few months ago, when my light came on. Some idiot-light problems can be post-poned for later, while others would have destroyed the the engine if I had kept driving. With a reader in the car, I was able to just pull over to the side of the road and make a quick determination that it was safe to finish my trip.