firecat

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2010/1007.blake.html
Small medical tech companies have a hard time selling their products because of loopholes in Medicare laws.

Shaw’s retractable syringe hit just as these trends were converging. In fact, the year his product came onto the market, three of the nation’s largest GPOs merged to form a company called Premier, which managed buying for 1,700 hospitals, or about a third of all hospitals in the United States. Shortly thereafter, Premier signed a $1.8 billion, seven-and-a-half-year deal with Becton Dickinson. Under the agreement, member hospitals—among them Dallas-based Presbyterian, where Shaw would hit a brick wall—had to buy 90 percent of their syringes and blood collection tubes from the company. Over the next two years, BD landed similar deals with all but one major GPO. As a result, almost everywhere Shaw turned, he found hospital doors were closed to him.

http://eminism.org/blog/entry/330
This law is supposed to discourage sex trafficking, but the real consequences might be harmful to women:

New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg signed into law a new regulation targeting taxicab drivers who knowingly transport people who are engaging in prostitution....Critics of the law have pointed out that the new regulation might lead cab drivers to refuse rides to any woman who are suspected of being prostitutes or sex trafficking victims (based on their appearance and other factors).

The article suggests a better way:

There are many initiatives within anti-domestic violence movement that attempt to build community support for people who are in ongoing, long-term abusive relationships. One example of such strategy is anti-DV organizations partnering with cosmetology schools and practitioners to educate hairstylists and others in the field to become the first line of support and information referral point for victims of domestic violence....

The purpose of the partnership is not so that hairstylists can identify and report suspected abuse victims to the police; it is to build trust and rapport with the women, hear their stories, provide support and encouragement, and when a woman ready and willing, give her resources she needs to escape from violence. What I wish the New York City had done is to adapt a similar strategy to reach out to people in the sex trade through cab drivers, whether or not their circumstances meet the legal definition of “sex trafficking.”

https://torrentfreak.com/pirate-bay-loot-with-artists-120728/
So much for music companies' claims that they care about piracy because they want musicians to get more money: "any recovered funds will be paid to IFPI Sweden and IFPI London for use in future anti-piracy activities,” IFPI writes."

http://techcrunch.com/2012/07/29/surprisingly-good-evidence-that-real-name-policies-fail-to-improve-comments/
From the DUH files:

In 2007, South Korea temporarily mandated that all websites with over 100,000 viewers require real names, but scrapped it after it was found to be ineffective at cleaning up abusive and malicious comments (the policy reduced unwanted comments by an estimated .09%).

http://cuteoverload.com/2012/07/31/introducing-mac-osx-maru/
I can't wait!

http://www.metro.us/newyork/international/article/1148979
What if every Olympic sport were photographed like beach volleyball? (Contains a lot of butt and crotch shots, obvs.)

Via moominmuppet

"Mortgage defaults are causing health problems in people over 50" by Annalee Newitz

Excerpt:

The study was led by University of Maryland epidemiologist Dawn E. Alley, who said:

More than a quarter of people in mortgage default or foreclosure are over 50. For an older person with chronic conditions like diabetes or hypertension, the types of health problems we saw are short term consequences of falling behind on a mortgage that could have long-run implications for that person's health.

...
While this information may seem like common sense, this study is one of the only examples where such "common sense" has actually been confirmed scientifically.

Well, I'm glad research like this sometimes sees the light of day.

Original study