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Physicians are influenced by marketing. That's no surprise. So are most consumers, as evidenced by television and radio commercials, billboards, pop up ads and targeted ads for drugs on your computer screen. Big Pharma markets not only to physicians, but also directly to consumers. In a recent Washington Post op-ed, Dr. Nicole Van Gronigen made the case that Big Pharma successfully influences physician prescribing behavior via marketing. Specifically, drug reps do with with free lunches provided by the pharmaceutical reps, or educational dinners at nice restaurants. She reported a JAMA study correlating industry-sponsored meals with increased promotion of branded medication...

Purchased gas on my credit card today. Several minutes later, I received a text message from my credit card vendor asking me to confirm other purchases, none of which I had made. Contacted credit card company and they froze the account. They are expediting me a new card which I will receive Monday.I've had this happen in the past also and things are always resolved quickly and to my satisfaction. But I wonder how often this happens to other Freepers. Basically, I'd like to know how often this should be expected to happen to see if I need to do...

As of April, there were 74,531,002 people enrolled in Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program as of April, according to the latest data released by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. That is up 16,705,235 in the 49 states that reported their Medicaid/CHIP enrollment numbers for both the July-to-September period of 2013 (the last quarter before the Obamacare exchanges opened) and this April. The 74,531,002 enrolled in Medicaid/CHIP as of April includes the numbers for all 50 states and the District of Columbia. In the 49 states that reported both before the Obamacare exchanges opened in 2013 and...

Apple announced several updates to the Mac lineup earlier this month at WWDC. Now that results for these Macs have started to appear in the Geekbench Browser, let’s take a close look at the performance of the of the 27-inch iMac. Let’s see how the new iMac CPUs and GPUs perform using Geekbench 4. Also, since the 27-inch iMac is popular with many pro users, I’ve included Geekbench 4 results for the Mac Pro as well. If you’re not familiar with Geekbench 4, or how it measures performance, higher scores are better, and double the score means double the...

Apple CEO Steve Jobs holds up an iPhone at the MacWorld Conference in San Francisco on Jan. 9, 2007. (Paul Sakuma / Associated Press) Steve Jobs unveiled the first iPhone in January, 2007, before an adoring congregation, in his signature “Sermon on the Mount” style. On June 29, it became available to the public. Ten years later, the phone has spread like Christianity. There are 1 billion iPhones in use, and the device represents “the pinnacle product of all capitalism,” as Brian Merchant argues in his new book, “The One Device: The Secret History of the iPhone.” Merchant calls the...

Coal company Murray Energy has sued HBO and its Sunday-night host, John Oliver, for what it says was a “false and malicious broadcast” last Sunday evening. It's seeking financial damages and a court order barring rebroadcasts of the segment's “defamatory statements.” Oliver's “Last Week Tonight” coal segment criticized the Trump administration's effort to revive the industry, saying coal jobs have dropped for decades and other energy alternatives are driving the industry's decline. He ribbed Murray Energy's CEO Robert Murray, who blames regulatory efforts by the Obama administration for damaging the coal industry. He said the 77-year-old looked like a “geriatric...

A real-life Robinson Crusoe who has spent 20 years living on a desert island says he’s glad he doesn’t have to worry about terrorist attacks. Former millionaire David Glasheen, 73, moved to the idyllic Restoration Island, located off North East Australia, in May 1997 after losing his fortune in the stock exchange crash of 1987. The ex-gold mining tycoon and property magnate, who at his most successful was worth an estimated $27 million, now lives in a wooden beach shack with only his loyal dog Polly for company.

In order to rebut some letters to our local paper, I need the total number of medical insurance companies that have either, pulled out of counties or states, or have raised their premiums in the same. Need sources of the above.

This needs its own separate but more general topic. “What Do You Do With States That Get Into Fiscal Trouble Like Illinois?” I guess Illinois is the worst case but are not California, New York and others not far behind? Question: Can this be laid at the feet of Nixon’s “Revenue Sharing”? Doesn’t federal revenue sharing allow states to skate their own fiscal responsibilities, since Uncle Sucker (meaning other states!) will now pay its bills? What are some solutions?

Seriously, what will Illinois Pension Recipients Do when their "Checks" quit coming ? Really ! Read these news articles: Barron's on June 20, 2017 Illinois Financial Crisis Looks Ever More Dire June 20,2017 COMPTROLLER MENDOZA REACHES OUT TO STATE LEADERSHIP Fox News Politics June 20, 2017 Illinois careens into financial meltdown – and not even the lottery is safe The Fiscal Times on June 12, 2017 Could Illinois Be the First State to Go Bankrupt? Business Insider on Jun. 13, 2017 Illinois is facing bankruptcy and a junk-bond level credit rating crisis Glenn "Think Tank" on Wednesday, Jun 21,...

Microsoft is now rolling out Windows 10 build 16226 for PC Insiders in the Fast ring, with some notable new changes and features included. Last weeks Insider Preview build included several new user interface changes and a bunch of new settings and features. Today's build continues that trend. What's New? Microsoft Edge Giving you more control over closing tabs: Building on our work in Build 16199, we've updated Microsoft Edge to ensure the X in the tab band is always available to close a tab, even when a JavaScript (i.e. alert, prompt, etc.) dialog is showing within Microsoft Edge. Additionally,...

Windows 10 does disable some third-party security software, Microsoft has admitted, but because of compatibility – not competitive – issues.Redmond is currently being sued by security house Kaspersky Lab in the EU, Germany and Russia over alleged anti-competitive behavior because it bundles the Windows Defender security suite into its latest operating system. Kaspersky (and others) claim Microsoft is up to its Internet Explorer shenanigans again, but that’s not so, said the operating system giant.“Microsoft’s application compatibility teams found that roughly 95 per cent of Windows 10 PCs had an antivirus application installed that was already compatible with Windows 10 Creators...

States face colossal fiscal pressures, including mounting public pension obligations that now represent a $1 trillion unfunded gap, according to the Pew Center on the States. That gap—combined with other mounting fiscal woes—has led to a national conversation about whether states should be allowed to file for bankruptcy. That conversation has prompted state officials to react, most arguing that the mere existence of a federal law allowing states to declare bankruptcy would increase interest rates, rattle investors, raise the costs of state government, create more volatility in financial markets, and erode state sovereignty under the 10th Amendment to the U.S....

Airlines, it turns out, prefer the fuel efficiency of smaller planes like the Boeing 777 to the pack-em-in capacity of the Airbus A380. As a result, Airbus hasn’t scored any new orders for an A380 in more than a year. Its big plan to turn things around? Launch a new version, make it cheaper to fly, and slap on some winglets. This week at the Paris Air Show, Airbus announced the revamped “A380plus,” a refresh that packs even more passengers into the super-jumbo and tweaks the wing design. The upswept winglets found on most modern airliners boost fuel efficiency by...

"If we're going to be able to create magical experiences with software, then the hardware will be the thing that people buy to go experience that," Microsoft corporate VP of devices Panos Panay told TIME during a recent interview. We were discussing his company's decision to release its first true laptop after years of selling hybrid computers, namely the Surface Laptop, which began shipping on June 15. "And [when] those two things work perfectly together in a seamless way, that brings elegance out," he added. If that approach sounds familiar — using the sleek, shiny allure of new gadgetry as...

Note from dayglored: This article is about a flaw in the *IX systems -- Linux, FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD, Solaris. It does NOT apply to Windows, nor as far as I can tell, to OS X (even though OS X is based on FreeBSD). What is the Stack Clash? The Stack Clash is a vulnerability in the memory management of several operating systems. It affects Linux, OpenBSD, NetBSD, FreeBSD and Solaris, on i386 and amd64. It can be exploited by attackers to corrupt memory and execute arbitrary code.Qualys researchers discovered this vulnerability and developed seven exploits and seven proofs of concept...

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Uber is enabling passengers to tip its U.S. drivers with a tap on its ride-hailing app for the first time, part of a push to recast itself as a company with a conscience and a heart. Besides the built-in tipping option announced Tuesday, Uber is giving drivers an opportunity to make more money in other ways too.

Microsoft shipped a new edition of Windows 10 last week, preinstalled on its elegant and eagerly anticipated new Surface Laptop. How did reviewers react to Windows 10 S? Spoiler alert: They hated it. They really, really hated it. Microsoft debuted its first true laptop last week, and the reviews were overwhelmingly positive, even downright effusive.For the hardware, that is.Microsoft chose to debut a new edition of Windows with the Surface Laptop, and the same reviewers who loved its elegant design and performance were almost uniformly scathing in their rejection of the brand-new Windows 10 S.And rightly so. Whoever made the...

he manager of the state’s power grid issued a statewide Flex Alert for Tuesday afternoon and Wednesday afternoon, urging residents to voluntarily conserve electricity to ease demand on the system. The Flex Alert issued by the California Independent System Operator, or Cal-ISO, will be in effect from 2 p.m. to 9 p.m. Tuesday and Wednesday throughout California. Residents were urged to set thermostats at 78 degrees or higher, close drapes and use fans to cool rooms, turn off unnecessary lights and appliances, and delay using major appliances until early in the morning or late in the evening. In response to...

Full Title: PathForward: US Dept. of Energy Awards $258M in Research Contracts To Develop Exascale Supercomputer Technology Even though the major US national laboratories are just now starting to take delivery of the supercomputers they ordered a few years back, due to the long and complex development process for these projects, the US Department of Energy(DOE) has already been focusing on the next round of supercomputers for the next decade. Under the Exascale Computing Project, the DOE expects to develop & order one (and in the end, likely several) exaFLOPS-capable supercomputers, 50 times more powerful than the generation of supercomputers...