15000 USD/pt/yr seems to be a cost of phase 3 drug trial in a wealthy (western) nation. there has been a boom in conducting human trials across developing nations , through private contractors. A search for 'drug trials in developing nations' returns millions of links , including reputable sources like bbc and pbs. I will let you pick the best ones :)
per capita income in india is 12000 usd/yr. there is no way, a drug firm will spend 15k usd in a place like that to perform human trials.Do remember that 12000 usd is the average income. the rural poor are some of the poorest in that world. you can safely assume that the cost of a drug trial in countries like india is much much lower. Indian poor have also been a test bed for human clinical trials.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-20136654
Drug companies use poor as guinea pigs , marking up the price for wealthy nations and worst of all , prevent life saving care for billions of people. some on whom the drugs were tested on. So, there is more than one reason this victory is sweet for the developing nations.
..or, you are seem fanatically dedicated to something because you are trying to defend the fact that the sun is going to rise tomorrow. :)
I read recently that a great way to test a persons understanding of a problem, is to ask them to argue for the opposing point of view.
Having known people who benefitted from ayurvedic treatment, I tell you that the regimen (medication and food restrictions- you are not assigned one without the other) is one of the toughest I have seen. the people who successfully get through it, swear by ayurvedic medicine. I have been to some of the facilities and met the doctors and they are above average ( by Indian standards). This is why, this mode of treatment in still popular among many in india. needless to say many treatment centers are based in cities and visited by what you might call a more educated and worldly crowd (I mean no offense here, but could not find a better way to say it :)
I am willing to forgo my personal observation as an one off, but please qualify your comment.
> Having known people who benefitted from ayurvedic treatment
Anecdotal evidence.
> needless to say many treatment centers are based in cities and visited by what you might call a more educated and worldly crowd
Appeal to authority.
How about some actual scientific evidence? I'm no expert on the matter, but from what I can find on Wikipedia[0], the benefits of Ayurvedic medicne were inconclusive at best.
As someone who has spent time in medical research, I will admit my opinion is skewed. I've worked with plenty of researchers from India, and none of them have given any credence to Ayurvedic medicine. These are people who (like any researchers) will use any and all means available to them to come up with scientifically viable theories that they can use to get grants. If Ayurveda were as great as you claim it is, then they would have definitely given it a shot.
is it anecdotal even if it is one of your best friends? I am not so sure. ok, here is some more information.
A study comparing ayurveda with allopathic treatment for Rheumatoid Arthritis.
http://journals.lww.com/jclinrheum/Abstract/2011/06000/Doubl...
"Conclusions: In this first-ever, double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled pilot study comparing Ayurveda, MTX, and their combination, all 3 treatments were approximately equivalent in efficacy, within the limits of a pilot study. Adverse events were numerically fewer in the Ayurveda-only group"
Ayurveda is recognized by nih as alternative and complimentary medicine.
http://nccam.nih.gov/health/ayurveda/introduction.htm
I think at some level, you need to believe not all doctors wear white coats. modern medicine is a few hundered years old , but people have been getting sick and have been treated since the dawn of time. When a country sets up regulatory agencies ( http://www.ccimindia.org ) , qualifies practitioners and monitors the practice ( albeit poorly) , to dismiss the structure based on wikipedia articles is incorrect to say the least.
if only conclusive evidence , agreed upon by everyone is acceptable we should have stopped taking aspirin a long time ago:) http://chronicle.uchicago.edu/950817/aspirin.shtml
"Best friend" has nothing to do with quality of data, in fact it might taint it. Also, causation must still be established, i.e. uncovering the mechanics of the treatment.
Also, your last few sentences are difficult to understand.
I like how you start by pointing out logical fallacies in someone's argument and then go on to say things like "I'm sure they would have definitely given it a shot if it's as great as you claimed".
Like I said elsewhere here, I know several medical doctors (well qualified ones as well) who recommend ayurvedic treatments in certain situations (not the commercialized medicines you get in shops, but more basic 'take these things and grind them and eat it before lunch' medicines and they work reasonably well.
I think I'll take my anecdotal evidence over your link to a Wikipedia article stating inconclusive evidence.
You can believe whatever you would like to believe, but the fact of the matter is that there is no scientific evidence to suggest that ayurvedic treatments are effective whatsoever.
For instance an year back for patient with chronic trigeminal neurological pain, we have given cyberknife treatment. Most advanced radiation thearphy for this kind of pains. Initially everything was ok and the pain bounced back in 3 months. We kept the patient continuously in pain killer for so many months, before they found a very old Ayurveda practitioner somewhere deep inside southern part of India. He assured them they can take the ayurvedic medicines along with our allopathic medicines and can discontinue all the allopathic and pain killers gradually.
We have accepted to that as honestly, we left with no other option as this is an very rare case and we recorded the patient status on day to day basis. After 2 months of consumption, to our surprise, the patient has shown gradual improvements and discontinued the pain killers in the 3rd month. After an year, she discontinued ayurvedic too and living a normal life.
We still have the entire medical history of the patient, and using ayurvedic as a lost resort for trigeminal neurologia issues. But I agree, this is a rare case, and it has to be thoroughly experimented for general practice.
"Various occasions" do not prove anything. Sample sizes need to be much larger, and even then, the mechanics of the treatment must be uncovered.
Also, there is no reason to use "scientific" as a qualifier for proof. There is either sufficient evidence to constitute proof, or not, but there is no distinction between "scientific" proof and other proof.
Your analogy makes all other employees look like mind less cogs,who can have no idea's of their own.No CEO can succeed without a good team. Which begs the question , if yahoo makes 150M more, does she deserve 2/3rd's of that new money? Is Marissa the only person who has a winning perspective or a sense of direction in a firm of more than 10000 people? What we see here is the trickle down effect and people closer to the money paying themselves first. It is also true that a bad ceo ( thompson, bartz) can do more damage to a large company like yahoo than the benefits a good ceo can bring. The board has swung for the fences cause it has shot itself in the foot many times. A lot of this money , is for Marissa to NOT screw up yahoo like her predecessors. Even if she just keeps the engine chugging along at an average pace, the board will be relieved.
edit: Grammar
I have heard this but I guess I don't see it. I don't think you can succeed without taking risks, and i don't think you can succeed without failing, sometimes big-time. Indeed I think failure is more often than not, a stage on the road to success.
As for family, it's true that there will always be people who don't have an appetite for risk. However, I also think that if you build risk mitigation strategies into your family unit then the family can become a bit of a safety net, rather than something that drags everyone down. This may not be possible in all environments but I think it is often possible enough with a little creativity, that it can be done.
For example, when I am making money, my wife's income is strictly used to purchase luxuries, or saved. When I am not making money, that's a safety net. Similarly when she's not making money but I am we can live ok. But we can't do this without economizing in a lot of areas and being aware of risk.
> also the demo did not show a way to type information
I don't think people in the gesture interface market are looking for ways to replace the essential function of the keyboard. For all intents and purposes, it's probably the best way to input textual data into a machine.
Keyboards are the also the only way ( until now) to input textual data.not implementing that makes this at best a companion device to existing setup and not a replacement.
[edit]. voice to text transcriptions can be an alternative..
I understand your statements as coming from someone who is looking for an opportunity and frustrated now. Wait until you get a job( which you will) and 'settle'. If you are already employed or , looking for fulfillment outside your 'day job', this thread might be more relatable to you.
Mobile apps are a sequestered experience. It is easier to maintain a users attention inside your app. Many apps now, also include access to their settings and preferences inside their app to prevent users from 'thinking outside their app'. web apps leave you with the same feeling you get when paying attention to something and have HN and twitter on the monitor.
there is also the matter of your app's identity. Unless you are using sencha or a similar tool, i think it is easier to convey the purpose of your a software much easier if it is an app.
the need to improve working conditions in third world factories is real. Mr.Daisy in his 'passion' to be broadcast and the rare sloppy work by TAL will cast a shadow on future investigative reports of this kind.
Apple did release the list of its suppliers after the TAL story. i hope they keep up their drive to be more transparent irrespective of this blotch by TAL.
Drug companies use poor as guinea pigs , marking up the price for wealthy nations and worst of all , prevent life saving care for billions of people. some on whom the drugs were tested on. So, there is more than one reason this victory is sweet for the developing nations.
p.s sorry about the multiple edits..