[hn_throwaway_99]

> While it is true there may be a machine in the future that can do what Holmes claimed

No, there won't. I feel the need to keep repeating this because for some reason many people seem to conflate "it is not possible with current technology" with "it is a physical impossibility". Doing accurate quantitative blood tests with a finger prick is a physical impossibility.

All that said, one thing that made me especially mad about Theranos is that a lot of their ideas, e.g. one small, portable machine that can run tons of tests; simplified, consumer-accessible pricing; access at neighborhood pharmacies, etc., had a ton of value even if accomplished with venous blood draws. But instead Holmes' delusions of grandeur forced her to hang everything on the fraudulent, and impossible, "must be done with a finger prick" idea.

[kordlessagain]

I said may be. What is impossible is to negate a "maybe". While there may be physical limitation now, that doesn't mean there will be later. New understandings of physics may change that, as would new technology that wouldn't normally be researched along a given path to an idea or need (like a very small machine operating on very small samples). For example, we may find a way to use neutrinos to detect things we didn't know we could detect before, because someone theorized that doing XYZ with neutrenos allows us to detect them.

That "discovery" (hypothetical) could then be repurposed to build a small machine that does what Holmes thought it could. Not that she thought about stuff like that - she was designing their stupid building instead.

The point I was making was that not knowing now and then saying will will know later at which point "someone becomes right" is a biased way of thinking. My point was not to say there will or won't be, which is why I used "may be".