Most test strips are one time use. The big issue here isn't that they can monitor the levels, but that they can do it accurately. Even now there is a variance of about 10% in the current models. Accuracy also goes down over usage and the last thing you want is to send some poor sap into hypoglycemia because the pump got a wrong reading.

Being diabetic I have looked into some of these gen 1 devices that either monitor glucose or deliver insulin (not both). They are designed to network with each other but you can turn those features are off, and some don't have any networking at all.

Except this is all bullshit because the courts have already ruled that the Patriot Act does not authorize snooping. It was a generous reading that let this happen in the first place. For those wondering this was probably the biggest reason that the EFF pulled their support: because if an amendment to the Patriot Act was to acknowledge that snooping was restricted then it would also implicitly acknowledge that snooping was legal when not violating those restrictions. Not passing the extension would actually do more to kill snooping than the proposed changes being made. (in the legal sense they will obviously find some other bullshit from 50+ years ago to justify this crap)

Also something about the Canadian medical industry that most people don't know is that their funding for you medical care is limited to a cap every month and when that cap is used up you are on your own. Want to know where the most Canadian hip replacements are done? Cleveland, OH.

I have heard that there can be degradation between the squishy bits and the electronic interfaces for these kinds of prosthetics. Any word on whether these limbs suffer the same problem? From the sound of it, it seems like the interface isn't directly connected to the tissue.

This has already happened. On of the major justifications for the LA school district program was that providing an iPad to everyone made it more fair for lower income students who couldn't afford the toys the rich kids had.

They is a very good reason: emergency communication. If my child gets in a car crash I want them to be able to call me without having to hike to the nearest shop to borrow a landline. In the same vein if you know you are going to have to work late you can call your child and let them know to try and get a ride/generally coordinate in the face of unforeseen circumstances. I agree that smartphones are wholly unnecessary.

I agree with part of this, but cell phones are just too useful for organizing said face to face meetings. I plan to buy my kids basic flip phones for calls, texts, and the odd emergency communication. If they get in a car crash, stuck at x location, it would be nice if they had a way to get help, but a smart phone is overkill. Its just a 700$ Facebook delivery device to most kids and they can spend their own money on that.

Freaking Moldova can put a banker in jail, why can't we?

That doesn't work either as has been found out in many cities because when people lose their licenses they also tend to lose their jobs and then everything else. I think it's Sweden that has a system where you ticket amount is determined by your ability to pay. Essentially they take a half a days wage and multiply that out based on how sever the infraction is. It got quite funny when a rich guy was on the hook for a 50k speeding ticket.

Really. It's not possible to extrapolate anything from that number. After all one of the biggest abuses of policing is the way that they deliver routine tickets in such volume that it financially cripples a community. Ferguson has more warrants for arrest than people and almost all of them are for failure to pay traffic fines. Living in fear of a police officer pulling you over for being over the limit by a single MPH (Yes this does happen) and giving you a ticket that will put you in debt for years (and possibly prison) is the very definition of abuse.

Granted not all of that rests on the heads of cops. Most of it resides on the government and court system that allow loan sharks to take over the collections of tickets in a way that traps the people in debt. These agencies offer to take over collections for free but then add a service charge to ticket payed by the person cited. All of the money that the person pays goes towards that fee until it is payed off, but the fee keeps increasing with missed payments. The result is that these people are stuck in a cycle of payments until a warrant goes out for their arrest for failing to pay a ticket and then they are sent to prison.

As the Ferguson report on policing practices said: when the city mayor asked the police chief to deliver 10% more revenue he responded "we can try."

I'm sure that most of these stops were perfectly routine. Doesn't mean that the police aren't being abusive.

There was an interesting article on the BBC about the US and UK's refusal to pay hostage ransoms. They showed that It resulted in far less hostage taking for those two countries compared to the other European nations that did pay the ransoms, but they also showed that it also made the situations for those who were kidnapped far worse than the other countries.

I apologize the age of an enemy is 18 and 65. I correct myself now.

Drones and people are not the same thing. Drones get their targets overwhelmingly from SIGINT provided by the NSA.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=UdQiz0Vavmc

Oftentimes drones are sent to kill based only on a cell phone signature with no other verification. Its how you get circumstances like a hellfire missile being fired at a group of people going to a wedding.

http://www.democracynow.org/20...

The people pushing those buttons have no idea who is being killed by what gets fired. Furthermore all of those enemy combatants killed by drones are only as a result of the government redefining the definition of "enemy combatant" to mean a male between the ages of 13 and 55 in a warzone. Drones kill civilians by an overwhelming majority and the person pushing the button never knows the difference.

Ironically the Italians are the worst at this sort of stuff. Ever catch a glimpse of the Ferrari agreements? They actually prohibit you from selling your car to anyone that Ferrari doesn't approve for two years after purchase.

Apparently it's to keep the collector's value high.