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Why the Fuck?

raganwald.posterous.com

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Re: Why the Fuck?

#311

Post by ihnorton »

ramanujan wrote: post #286
failrate wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To the best of your knowledge, would it be illegal (notwithstanding any copyright claims) to produce an interface that would make FDA compliance easier? Examples: - a website that republishes FDA information in a far easier to grok manner (assuming they are as impenetrable as most government websites I've had the misfortune to require using) - a choose-your-own-adventure formatted application made in Twine that would…

Good question. Broadly speaking, the whole regulatory space (not just FDA, but all other agencies) is indeed a massive business opportunity. There are basically two ways to operate here: Option 1: reduce costs of complying with FDA. Option 2: reduce the power of FDA. Option 1 means automation of form submissions, NLP/data mining on past enforcement actions, search engines for FDA.gov like FDAZilla, reproducible resea…

> 4) Imagine if Harvard, the Mayo Clinic, and Cedars-Sinai could suddenly clear drugs and devices like the FDA.

none of those entities have sovereign immunity!

Re: Why the Fuck?

#312

Post by ivansavz »

untog wrote: post #69

"Reginald Braithwaite is a software developer at Leanpub, where he and his colleagues take the friction out of writing and selling books" Why the fuck are the greatest minds of our generation toiling away on a book publishing platform? Oh, right, because you think it's important. Guess what- we all have different opinions. Is book publishing more important than dating? Before you laugh, think about it- finding someon…

> Why are you making a book publishing platform and not following your own advice? >

I think that publishing platforms are important. Connecting people to knowledge (slow content) is probably more important than finding the optimal feed format for consuming the daily news and gossip (fast content).

Re: Why the Fuck?

#313

Post by brfox »

stared wrote: post #142
raganwald wrote: post #102

My fellow HNers: It does depress me, daily, that I do not have a career in physics or chemistry or biology or medicine where I could work on "big problems." The simple truth is, I'm not smart enough, I don't work hard enough, and I've been napping when opportunity knocked a few times in my life. That being said, sometimes a man in a saloon has a few drinks and yells at the television, telling the coach of some footba…

A short question: have you ever worked in research? Or know well anyone working in academia? First, many problems there are much harder just to get to the level that one can do any valuable contribution. And approaching them goes well beyond reading tutorial, playing with it, asking some questions on SE, being expert. In mathematics, or medicine, it's rather years than weeks. Second, many deep problems are not that e…

Very good points. I work as a bioinformatics scientist at Novo Nordisk, and we take our jobs very seriously in trying to find medicine for diabetes and other autoimmune diseases - and we feel lucky to have this possibility of success. It is very difficult because of many reasons, especially because each iteration (drug) takes years and costs millions of dollars to try out and hundreds of patients to volunteer to inject it into their body.

Re: Why the Fuck?

#314

Post by mscarborough »

raganwald wrote: post #102

My fellow HNers: It does depress me, daily, that I do not have a career in physics or chemistry or biology or medicine where I could work on "big problems." The simple truth is, I'm not smart enough, I don't work hard enough, and I've been napping when opportunity knocked a few times in my life. That being said, sometimes a man in a saloon has a few drinks and yells at the television, telling the coach of some footba…

Attention whoring at its worst.

If you care about any of these issues, go work on it. Being whiny and taking a better-than-thou man-child is lame.

Personally, there's stuff I care about I don't cry about it in public.

Re: Why the Fuck?

#315

Post by refurb »

aarondf wrote: post #105
benihana wrote: post #58

Oh goodie, another arrogant whine by raganwald where he can't understand why the greatest minds (implying people writing code are somehow the greatest minds) aren't doing what he thinks is important. This post makes two incorrect assumptions. First, that the things he derides (Google automating targeted content, Facebook introducing new search features that are tangential to their current features, Apple changing for…

As a type one diabetic, I wholeheartedly agree that bloodsugar management is more important than the next social thing. I think what raganwald is saying (IMO) is that the "problems" these "minds" are solving are not really problems at all. Agree or disagree, I think that's what is being said.

A few points:

- there seems to be an underlying assumption that nobody is working on a better way to manage blood sugar levels for diabetics

- there are a lot more important things that better blood glucose measures if you're thinking of tackling the problems in global health; using the analogy of the blog article, one could also point to the med device companies and say "Why the fuck are people wasting billions of dollars per year finding a better glucose monitor system rather than tackling the millions of deaths due to childhood diarrhea??"

Re: Why the Fuck?

#316

Post by rtpg »

steve8918 wrote: post #308
raganwald wrote: post #102

My fellow HNers: It does depress me, daily, that I do not have a career in physics or chemistry or biology or medicine where I could work on "big problems." The simple truth is, I'm not smart enough, I don't work hard enough, and I've been napping when opportunity knocked a few times in my life. That being said, sometimes a man in a saloon has a few drinks and yells at the television, telling the coach of some footba…

> "Hypocrisy" is one of those empty criticisms, like "Unprofessional." If someone says to you, "smoking is bad," it doesn't matter whether he smokes. Maybe, his advice is actually more relevant if he's an older fellow who smoked and now regrets not making a different choice when he was your age. It's not an empty criticism. It speaks to your credibility. You are admonishing Google and Facebook for working on "stupid"…

There is a perception difference, for sure, but an argument's validity is not reduced by the person saying it. Granted, here it's much more opinion than fact, so...

Re: Why the Fuck?

#317

Post by xivSolutions »

javajosh wrote: post #169
raganwald wrote: post #102

My fellow HNers: It does depress me, daily, that I do not have a career in physics or chemistry or biology or medicine where I could work on "big problems." The simple truth is, I'm not smart enough, I don't work hard enough, and I've been napping when opportunity knocked a few times in my life. That being said, sometimes a man in a saloon has a few drinks and yells at the television, telling the coach of some footba…

>Just because he's drunk and in a saloon doesn't mean he's wrong, just boorish. Just out of curiosity, can you identify the actual point in time when you came to believe that self-awareness of bad behavior makes that bad behavior acceptable?

One can be rude, and still be correct in their reasoning. I do believe that was the point here. Additionally, one can still engage in bad or unhealthy behavior and still recognize it as wrong.

Re: Why the Fuck?

#318

Post by a_bonobo »

If you're interested in working in bioinformatics, use Google to check for your local university and drop a mail to any of the bioinformatics groups, interns and research assistants are always great!

We love to have someone on board who's a) motivated and b) actually knows what he/she's doing, not many bioinformaticians know how to "properly" code, it's a lot of dirty hackish stuff.

Re: Why the Fuck?

#319

Post by pknerd »

raganwald wrote: post #102

My fellow HNers: It does depress me, daily, that I do not have a career in physics or chemistry or biology or medicine where I could work on "big problems." The simple truth is, I'm not smart enough, I don't work hard enough, and I've been napping when opportunity knocked a few times in my life. That being said, sometimes a man in a saloon has a few drinks and yells at the television, telling the coach of some footba…

But you can collaborate with the domain expert, can't you?

Re: Why the Fuck?

#320

Post by ramanujan »

ihnorton wrote: post #311
ramanujan wrote: post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good question. Broadly speaking, the whole regulatory space (not just FDA, but all other agencies) is indeed a massive business opportunity. There are basically two ways to operate here: Option 1: reduce costs of complying with FDA. Option 2: reduce the power of FDA. Option 1 means automation of form submissions, NLP/data mining on past enforcement actions, search engines for FDA.gov like FDAZilla, reproducible resea…

> 4) Imagine if Harvard, the Mayo Clinic, and Cedars-Sinai could suddenly clear drugs and devices like the FDA. none of those entities have sovereign immunity!

Right, but if there were a private system similar to the one in which Underwriters Laboratories operates, that'd be preferable. I'm not sure how to get there from here, which is why I said "I'm not sure how you'd pull this off".

For example, it might be feasible to get Cedars-Sinai to partner with (say) Singapore's HSA and do some kind of fast track approval process intended to compete with FDA's slow approval. Here Singapore's name brand would be enough for the Asian market while Cedars' brand would establish to American medical tourists that the product/device/service had been vetted.

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