Agree. Anyone willing to pull their head out of their arse and smell the ozone of the modern world cannot possibly believe the quality of Science has dropped over any deacde in the last 10. What has been displayed by the internet for all to see is a general ignorance of Science, how it works, and what questions it can tackle with our current technology. Previously this was only visable at newsagents and book stores where they insisted on putting ufologists, horoscopes, and ghost stories under the heading of "Science".

Bullshit, the group-think already exists, moderation mearely highlights it, that's it's fucking job! The higher the number you browse at the lower the resolution you have on slashdot's opinions. If you want to see what 'slashdot thinks' then browse at a high number, if you want to know what every troll and drunkard thinks, browse at -1. Unpopular posts are modded to hell because they are unpopular, not because they are wrong. Unpopular posts are often rated interesting if they're well written and there's is a grain of truth in them.

The comment system here is far from perfect, but it's a hell of a lot better than any other site I've visited in the past decade, part of that is the moderation performed by those " unusually intelligent commenters", plus the fact that it's difficult for "unintelligent commeters" to spam the moderation system with phoney up/down votes. If you still think your being treated unfairly then reword your argument or better still perform a bit of self-skepticisim on your own ideas to work out why everone else thinks your post sucks.

People see a windows front end and conclude it's running the entire ICU with an excel spread sheet. You'd think on Slashdot there would be less ignorance of the subject, ironically it's one of the few places I hear the meme repeated ad-nauseam.

My mum is in her late 70's and has a $6k hearing aid that is tuned on a PC. The FDA don't want to prevent people tuning their hearing aid with their mobile phone, they want to ensure they can't accidentally blast their brains out with a 130db screech in the pitch of a 6yo girl. They will also want to look at the hearing aid to ensure it can't be used as an audio torture device in the first place.

It's well known that principles are expensive. The majority of the $6k for the device and software represents the cost compliance with the "first do no harm" principle that has been central to western medical practice for over 2000yrs, money well spent IMHO.

Pre-emptive "free market" retort: Hearing aids and the software that interacts with them are tested, certified, and sold as a standalone "system". Everyone is "free" to play in that "market", although individuals and groups have varying degrees of influence on how the market works, they are not "free" to dictate the rules of trade that constitute the market itself, that's the role of government.

Yes, in many cases the only 'experts' are the people who wrote the code. All you can really do is minimise risks by erecting procedural walls and testers between the experts, the accountants, and the patients. Sure it slows things down, bumps up costs, and is still not 'failsafe'. But that's the price of working under the motto "first do no harm".

Aside from that, in most western nations if your software does kill or injure someone, your 'principle engineer' better be able to demonstrate due diligence such as adherence to government mandated standards, ie: adherence to the law. If not he will find himself charged with the local equivalent of "negligent homicide". Why do people think there was so much fuss over Y2K? Why would an insurer not cancel a public liability policy if the insured was not Y2K "compliant", who would the coroner hold responsible if there was an accident? Y2K was not a "beat up", it was proof that software engineers can and do act like real engineers when risks are identified.

To the rest of the world a software engineer that ignores mandated standards is just as criminally reckless as the (veteran) Italian train driver who recently crashed his passenger train into a concrete embankment because he took a bend at twice the posted speed.

Agree, just the fact the FDA have announced they are looking at them will deter some quacks from peddling their brand of crazy as an app. Also the FDA is used as a global standard, it's one of the few admirable institutions within your health system. You guys should reinvent it as a UN agency so that you're not the only ones paying for it.

Beats me, I haven't had a mobile for 5yrs now and I haven't missed it. It does however seem to annoy the shit out of other people who think I should be contactable 24x7 like everyone else.

Texting causes accidents, period. You may think you can do it safely, but the rest of us know you're a hazard on the road.

...and aim a small army of astroturfers and their sock-puppets at you.

Agree, but OTOH I've been a regular commenter on AGW stories for over a decade now and have outlasted every astroturfer thrown at me, the same basic facts and opinions that were regularly modded -1 troll/overrated are now regularly modded +5 informative/insightful. Having said that, I sincerely thank Slashdot for providing the forum, I have been following the subject since the early 80's and have leant a great deal about the subject (and human nature) from that decade long "conversation".

If we had meat, we could make a sandwich, if we had bread...

"It said last night on Twitter that Samantha Lewthwaite, the ‘white widow’ of London 7/7 bomber Jermaine Lindsay, was ‘in their ranks’ and a ‘brave lady’."

Lewthwaite. The "other" David Headly.

Amazing that people fall for these CIA/Mossad stooge-games.

Nor is it a bad thing since unpopular opinions are in general unpopular for good reason.. Groupthink exists with or without moderation, in fact if moderation fails to highlight the group's main opinion(s) then it has failed to do what it was designed to do. It's simple really, if you want to know what the group thinks then browse at +4/5, if you want to know what everyone thinks browse at -1.

Now if we look at your current +5 score, we can deduce that "groupthink==BadThing(TM)" is a popular opinion on Slashdot, not one that I hold myself but never the less it does represent a significant and popular "group thought".

Unlimited mod point are prone to abuse by commercial and or political astroturf. Look at any top of the list AGW story on Slashdot and you will see the trolls arrive first and start modding up each other, once the story gets down to the 3rd or 4th story on the list more reasonable voices and moderators start to pop up. It's seems to be SOE for these people to try and get in first and peddle their bullshit. The so called "IPCC leak" of recent days has the same MO, derail the discussion with irrelevant bullshit before it has chance to get going.

Just google some past stories on major events in the AGW saga, around the date of every major conference/paper/report there is also a rash of climate "scandals" which when the dust settles turn out to be nothing more than good old fashioned tabloid "beat up". The aim of course is to create just enough dust to obscure the actual news. Often these "beat ups" contradict their own news departments, particularly in the case of WSJ and the Australian, who both deliver accurate news and well funded opinions.

Speaking of the "IPCC leak". How many people actually noticed the tiny retraction in the Australian where they admitted it was they who got it wrong, not the IPCC.

Either way? Tastes like anus.

But they just can't kill the beast.