I generally agree. Even as an experienced Clojure developer (but not much of a web developer), it took a bit of time for me to get a ClojureScript working environment integrated with Vim fully worked out.
However, you can still get to a very usable state with a minimal setup. Once you get lein-cljsbuild set up, just running 'lein cljsbuild auto' and reloading the page after changes works fairly well. No, it doesn't have the polish or Vim integration of this full configuration, but it's usable.
Pretty neat. Figwheel is pretty new to me, so it's something I'll have to look into.
I just recently got my head around using ClojureScript with vim-fireplace and Austin. It took a bit of work, but I finally got to a point where I easily have a browser REPL running using an environment stored in a var. This helps avoid security error, but it's not as simple a setup.
I suppose one big difference is the HTML I am using is being served via a Ring-based server rather than using a separate serving process. This allows me to add middleware in development mode that will inject the necessary JavaScript to connect to the browser REPL.
A different approach, which I used for Clojure/Android, is to generate JVM bytecode and then use a bundled dx tool to generate Dalvik bytecode from that.
I used to think that fingerprint sensors were pretty cool, and even purchased the option on a laptop some years ago. That was until I found out the relative ease of duplicating fingerprints [1]. Now, I am wary of leaving my password on everything I touch.
I enter a 4 digit password into my phone a hundred times a day. Standing behind me at Starbucks is probably easier than dusting for prints and recreating my thumb.
This is what first came to my mind as well. But I also reacted to Ars Technica reporting[1] that the sensor has the capability to scan "sub-epidermal skin layers". That might be a way to protect the system from the fingerprint "copy-paste" method described in your link, since the sensor used there only scans the surface.
Doing that is way harder then guessing 4 digit pass code. Besides depending on technology used in Apple's device you might need to get way more sophisticated. With processing power of mobile devices nowadays, how much would you need to invest to make a fake that is not easily statistically distinguishable from real thing? What is stopping that scanner from taking 20-100 pictures and then analyzing them in background? I really do not think run of the mill fingerprint faking will be sufficient to overcome modern fingerprinting with sufficient security emphasis put into them.
I'd guess false negatives. You _really_ don't want persistent false negatives. I wonder what's the solution to the `I cut my index finger' problem. Does it require multiple fingers to be enrolled?
The Chaos Computer Club in Germany got tired of a certian minister proclaiming that biometrics were perfectly secure and fool-proof. So they published his fingerprint in a little piece of plastic, with instructions on how to leave his fingerprints everywhere. http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2008/03/hackers-publish/
In the announcement, they said the feature was aimed at people who don't have a lock screen enabled at all. It was basically "fingerprints: better than nothing!"
I'd like to thank Alexander for all of his hard work. It's entirely my fault that his Neko work hasn't been merged in, but it's something I am going to get done soon.
This is the same state where car dealerships are only allowed to be open one day of either Saturday or Sunday. There was recently a proposal to get rid of this law, but it failed. Who was one of the biggest proponents of the status quo? The Texas Automobile Dealers Association.
It's yet another example of where government is used to protect special interests.
Because auto-sellers don't want to work both days of the weekend.
Let's say I run a liquor store. I get together and collude with all my liquor store running buddies and pass a law that says liquor stores can't be open after 5pm.
Ta-da, we all get to go home at 5pm. We don't lose any sales to people open after 5pm, because no one is allowed to do that.
Texas had a bunch of restrictive laws about Sunday called blue laws, the last one left is for liquor sales.
Used to be you couldn't sell cars at all on Sunday, but they added this "either or" clause a few years ago for some reason. Dealers claim having to be open 7 days a week would drive up costs...go figure.
I was there yesterday when Elon supported the new bill to the committee. Each and every single member seemed infatuated. They're personally setting up a meeting with Elon & The Texas Automobile Dealers Association to talk things through.
From yesterday's experience, I'd be surprised if Tesla didn't get its way.
This article didn't seem all that great. It just claims "the prices are higher" without any substantive recommendations on how that problem can be solved.
Nonetheless, it does make one interesting point:
This is a good deal for residents of other countries, as our high spending makes medical innovations more profitable. “We end up with the benefits of your investment,” Sackville says. “You’re subsidizing the rest of the world by doing the front-end research.”
In other words, the low prices for health care found in other countries is, in part, subsidised by the American consumer. As a result, it would stand to reason that if price controls were implemented in the U.S., it could result in less medical innovation or rising prices elsewhere in the world.
> This article didn't seem all that great. It just claims "the prices are higher"
They buried the reason: “It’s very much something people make money out of. There isn’t too much embarrassment about that compared to Europe and elsewhere.”
Profiting off of the sick and injured has zero shame in the US. In fact, if you can drive the patient to bankruptcy, then you have maximized the take.
For some reason, there is no outrage. Previous generations would have used the word "profiteering", but the word seems unfashionable to apply in modern times to medicine or the military.
Health care companies seek a profit because innovation takes capital investment, and the only way to build capital is to make a profit. The article admits to the value of this when it talks about how U.S. consumers subsidize innovations that have global benefits (like MRI machines).
I totally disagree with the idea that health care companies actively seek to drive patients to bankruptcy. Can you provide any proof of this other than your own opinion?
It isn't exactly news that the industry maximizes profits.
The mere fact that you chose to write "Health care companies seek a profit because innovation takes capital investment, and the only way to build capital is to make a profit" is indicative of the problem. It's almost as if you can't imagine any other means of solving the problem.
I don't think you're alone either. In quantitative medical rankings, the US is 33rd in life expectancy and 34th in infant mortality (behind Cuba!) yet is #1 in per-capita spending.
46% of all bankruptcies circa 2007 were medically induced.
There were obvious problems with Warren's methodology. If I live in a system with excellent government healthcare, and I end up paralyzed, my family might still go through bankruptcy because they've lost their primary income.
The number is more like 1/4 than 1/2. 26% of bankruptcies have medical debts exceeding $1000. Obviously that includes someone owing $4000 to a dentist as well as someone owing $450,000 to an oncologist, so the real number is some portion of 26%.
> "In other words, the low prices for health care found in other countries is, in part, subsidised by the American consumer."
What you'd expect is that the research takes place in the US due to some level of higher profits, but it's far from clear whether that level ~= our current level.
Absent any determination of discrepancy between those two levels, while we can still say it's a part of the puzzle, we have no idea how large a part.
And given that a higher GDP country will tend to be the more profitable place to do any front-end research/initial rollout anyway, it wouldn't seem that researchers would need any additional profit premium to prefer the US to, say, France [1].
So while data may show differently, I certainly wouldn't expect that factor to explain any of the discrepancy between what we pay as a percentage of GDP and what France pays.
[1] In general: people in larger economies tend to spend more for things. So net profit tends to be higher there. So things tend to get researched/introduced there first. And no other industry seems to require anything close to the additional profit premium that the healthcare industry sees, to do that research/introduction here first. (auto, energy, tech, etc) In fact, the degree to which industries go elsewhere tends to hinge on massive government subsidies designed explicitly to offset this natural reward structure.
Yes, it's extremely hard in America to choose to have a European level of health care, where not everything is done to keep people alive at all costs, damn the bills and damn quality-of-life and damn patient wishes to the contrary.
One quote from the "How Doctors Die" I linked to elsewhere on this page (heavily trimmed for space):
He explained to me that he never, under any circumstances, wanted to
be placed on life support machines again. .... Doctors did everything possible to resuscitate him and put him on life support in the ICU. This was Jack’s worst nightmare. ... Then I turned off the
life support machines and sat with him. He died two hours
later. ... Even with all his wishes documented, Jack hadn’t died as
he’d hoped. The system had intervened. One of the nurses, I later
found out, even reported my unplugging of Jack to the authorities as a
possible homicide. the prospect of a police investigation is
terrifying for any physician. I could far more easily have left Jack
on life support against his stated wishes, prolonging his life, and
his suffering, a few more weeks. I would even have made a little more
money, and Medicare would have ended up with an additional $500,000
bill.
I think it's very important that people be allowed to spend their own money on what they want, because that's where the innovation will come from that will eventually be commoditized for everyone else. But sometimes last year's pill is good enough.
Also, this article doesn't explain the price of MRIs at all. Is the price higher due to higher worker costs, more expensive machines being used, more expensive facilities or more pricing power on behalf of the providers?
I thought the implication from the comparison with other countries is that it's primarily pricing power: i.e. profit for the providers. But I agree that the article doesn't address the title very directly.
I think this is sometimes indeed the purpose. I haven't verified this, but I remember reading that there was one part of the Affordable Care Act that was intended to be some pork for Nevada. However, the act didn't read that way. It was written as a sort of benefit to states which met something on the order of two pages' worth of qualifications. In the end, it ruled out every state but Nevada.
Arguably, a big part of the reason why "lactation consultants" exist is because breastfeeding has become relatively uncommon in places like the U.S. It's not that the nipple isn't an intuitive interface—it's breastfeeding that must be learned, and the generational transmission of that knowledge has broken down.
Question, do you have children of your own? Have you been through the process of watching a baby learn to breastfeed?
Technically you're right, breastfeeding must be learned. And breastfeeding is in large part the skill of assisting and teaching babies how to nurse effectively. The fact that they need that teaching says that the skill is not intuitive.
Admittedly they do come armed with reflexes to make them more easily trainable. But the training is needed.
However, you can still get to a very usable state with a minimal setup. Once you get lein-cljsbuild set up, just running 'lein cljsbuild auto' and reloading the page after changes works fairly well. No, it doesn't have the polish or Vim integration of this full configuration, but it's usable.