Invent the Medical Tricorder, Win $10,000,000 167
GeneralSecretary writes "If you've ever watched Star Trek and said, 'Hey, I could build that,' now's your chance. Qualcomm and the X PRIZE Foundation have teamed together to offer ten million US dollars to whomever can invent 'a mobile solution that can diagnose patients better than or equal to a panel of board certified physicians.' They call it the Tricorder X PRIZE. Hopefully the Tricorder will join the cell phone, MRI, and tablet computer in the list of Star Trek devices that are now part of our lives."
According to this thing... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:better than a group of doctors?!?! (Score:5, Funny)
Old Joke (Score:3, Funny)
One day Bill complained to his friend that his elbow really hurt. His friend suggested that he go to a computer at the drug store that can diagnose anything quicker and cheaper than a doctor.
''Simply put in a sample of your urine and the computer will diagnose your problem and tell you what you can do about it. It only costs $10." Bill figured he had nothing to lose, so he filled a jar with a urine sample and went to the drug store. Finding the computer, he poured in the sample and deposited the $10. The computer started making some noise and various lights started flashing. After a brief pause out popped a small slip of paper on which was printed: "You have tennis elbow. Soak your arm in warm water. Avoid heavy lifting. It will be better in two weeks."
Later that evening while thinking how amazing this new technology was and how it would change medical science forever, he began to wonder if this machine could be fooled. He mixed together some tap water, a stool sample from his dog and urine samples from his wife and daughter. To top it off, he masturbated into the concoction. He went back to the drug store, located the machine, poured in the sample and deposited the $10. The computer again made the usual noise and printed out the following message:
"Your tap water is too hard. Get a water softener. Your dog has worms. Get him vitamins. Your daughter is using cocaine. Put her in a rehabilitation clinic. Your wife is pregnant with twin girls. They aren't yours. Get a lawyer. And if you don't stop jerking off, your tennis elbow will never get better."
* Cribbed from some dumb site [jokes.com]
Re:According to this thing... (Score:5, Funny)
"Okay. This one goes in your mouth. This one's for your ear. And... This one goes in your butt." ..."
[scrambles plugs]
"No wait, THIS one goes in your mouth,
Re:better than a group of doctors?!?! (Score:2, Funny)
Well doc, give it to me straight, what have I got.
Signs point to yes
What?
yes
So i've got yes?
My sources say no
Is that a good thing?
no
Re:Now's your chance? (Score:5, Funny)
If you've ever watched Star Trek and said, 'Hey, I could build that,' then why the fuck haven't you?
Because I sobered up?
Re:perspective (Score:2, Funny)
Look, you got it wrong and now you're playing the "overly pedantic geek" card. Radiotelephones to a base station allowed you to specify who you could speak to. In early days it was a human operator who physically patched you through, but hey, "it is never specified" how it happened on Star Trek and maybe Uhuru had a massive switchboard that we just never saw. Or maybe each communicator had a speech recognition unit to set peer frequency based on name.
Star Trek communicators did not routinely work like cell phones: there was no setting up of a cell in between beaming down to a planet and first contact with the ship or each other. Your most Occam-defying counterargument might be that one of the crew members was secretly assigned the role of "portable cell tower carrier" and that said crew member was conveniently never annihilated/forcefielded such that - in the many billions of Star Trek episodes where communicators become ineffective - the problem is never described in terms of this.
Also, nerd fight! :-)