6 ms·
This is depressing. Single use disposable. Full of copper, gold, tungsten, halfnium. Will leach poison into the ground. Some of the most advanced technology of
by ip26 5y ago
This is depressing. Single use disposable. Full of copper, gold, tungsten, halfnium. Will leach poison into the ground. Some of the most advanced technology of our age. Use it once, toss it in the trash.
Meanwhile the paper versions work just fine.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- aeternum 5y agoWe've made significant advancements in catalytic converters over the last decade and many waste management centers are able to incinerate much of the trash without the toxic emissions. They can then use magnets and eddy current separators to extract nearly all the metals out of the resulting ash.
- jraph 5y agoThis is new to me. But even if it's true, it still requires a lot of energy to produce the chip and then apply the waste management you mention. The best waste is the one that does not exist.
- malwarebytess 5y agoThe optics on this seem to indicate that it is just a lateral flow test of some kind. It's not even different. Instead of having to interpret a couple lines you have software interpret the strip and tell you over bt on your phone. So much tech for so little.
- new299 5y agoIn the Lucira test is a bit more justifiable it's a full molecular test, with built in controls, better accuracy than lateral flow. The optics is pretty neat too: https://aseq.substack.com/p/inside-the-lucira-check-it-covid https://aseq.substack.com/p/inside-the-lucira-check-it-covid
- mozey 5y agoFor an app that displays positive or negative, wouldn't it be cheaper/easier to use image processing to detect lines on the test?
- hedgehog 5y agoSome tests do that but then you end up with a limited list of phones where the camera has been qualified. Better to go all the way to an eye-readable test.
- shiftpgdn 5y agoIf you read the full Twitter thread they explain that paper doesn’t work for everyone (the color blind and the incompetent, for example.) There is a use case, it just might not be for you.
- azinman2 5y agoThe Abbott test has two lines separated… if two then positive, if one then negative. You don’t even need to tell the colors apart.
- labcomputer 5y agoYou do, however, need color vision to tell that the control line changed from blue to red (which the instructions tell you to do to verify that the test is working correctly)
- phoyd 5y agoEvery Covid self test I've ever used had two red lines for postive and one red line for negative. Why are there tests out there that need color vision?
- sudosysgen 5y agoThat's not true for every test, the one I just used begins with no line and then a line appears. So you don't need color vision. You do still need vision, but it's hard to use a COVID test otherwise.
- labcomputer 5y agoSure, but the parent specifically referenced the Abbott test. And the Abbott test instructions tell you to discard and not use the test if the blue line is not present. See pages 6 and 7: https://www.fda.gov/media/141570/download https://www.fda.gov/media/141570/download
- M2Ys4U 5y ago
- fanzhang 5y agoAnother view is that it's a great illustration of the relative price trends in the last 50 years. Healthcare has gone way up in price, and tech way down. What was a supercomputer 50 years ago is now a small fraction of the cost of a chemical test (which requires FDA approval).
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- Reichhardt 5y ago
- IgorPartola 5y agoWhat powerful political and economic interests want these boondoggles to stay in place?
- sydthrowaway 5y agoBasically all of big tech?
- IgorPartola 5y agoAnd why do they want this?
- ulfw 5y agoAnd you need to get your conspiracy theories out of your head. There is nothing, NOTHING, humanity agrees on. No way in hell would you get 200 odd governments to 'conspire' against you.
- geraneum 5y agoThat’s actually an entertaining picture. Imagine all these countries from US, Russia, Norway and Germany to North Korea, Japan, Iran, India and Syria, etc. all sitting around a table, all in concert, with the same goal and executing a perfect plan at nearly the same time and keeping it secret from people and do so successfully. But to be honest, when you see what some people believe and how gullible some can be, you won’t get surprised if someone actually claims that these happened and a significant number of people believe it. It’s scary.
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- alvarlagerlof 5y agoSeems today early to me.
- Lamad123 5y agoAnd they are crying about semiconductor shortage, and blah blah...
- throwaway4good 5y agoIn Europe a COVID19 quick test is 1-2 USD. This is 20-40 USD? For a device you only use once. Why is there any kind of market for this?
- aspyct 5y agoQuick self-test is 8€ here in Belgium. Are we being ripped off?
- pjmlp 5y agoA little googling around European online pharmacies says yes.
- throwaway4good 5y agoSounds like it. Last I paid was 1.75 euro in DM (Germany). I remember buying them at 0.99 in LIDL.
- geonic 5y agoPrices have gone up sharply since the fourth wave in Europe. I remember seeing self-tests for 0.85 in summer. Now they‘re going for 3.00 bucks or so.
- throwaway4good 5y agoIt is the new toilet paper ...
- zimpenfish 5y agoIn the UK, you can get free 7-packs of LFTs from most big pharmacies or online from gov.uk. https://www.gov.uk/order-coronavirus-rapid-lateral-flow-tests https://www.gov.uk/order-coronavirus-rapid-lateral-flow-test... Although it looks like you need a (free) "collect code" at the moment (because we ran out a couple of weeks back, IIRC.) https://test-for-coronavirus.service.gov.uk/collect-lateral-flow-kits https://test-for-coronavirus.service.gov.uk/collect-lateral-...
- 5y ago
- distances 5y ago> Will leach poison into the ground. Electronics must not be disposed with general waste, I'd imagine all Western municipalities have special recycling programs for electrical devices. Not sure if they'd be that happy to receive used covid test kits though.
- pjmlp 5y agoThey do, except many don't use them as much and is quite common to find electronics on the containers.
- tssva 5y agoAbout 42% of e-waste is recycled in the EU and about 15% in the US. Even those numbers don't reflect reality since a large percentage of "recycled e-waste" is shipped off to poor countries where it may or may not be strip of some parts before being dumped.