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The Voice over edition is included on the 4 or 5 disc set of the Blade Runner Final Cut DVD http://www.amazon.com/Blade-Runner-Four-Disc-Collectors-Harrison/dp/B000UBMSB8/ref=tag_dpp_lp_edpp_ttl_ex

Haldeman's Forever War is one of my favorite too. For those interested, it's been already adapted into a truly excellent comic book by belgian artist Marvano, and there's an english version of it.

If you honestly want that, you can get the four disc collectors edition off of Amazon for $23, which has every cut save for the workprint cut. Don't take this as a flamepost, but can I ask how you feel the narration helped? I was more than able to follow what was happening without the narration.

Scrivener
http://www.literatureandlatte.com/
even if you have to get a polycarbonate macbook to run it on.
( & a Nice Big Screen to plug inta tha thang, fer deskwerk )

Stein on Writing ( Sol Stein )
http://www.amazon.com/Stein-Writing-Successful-Techniques-Strategies/dp/0312254210/

Writing Fiction Step by Step ( Josip Novakovich )
http://www.amazon.com/Writing-Fiction-Step-Josip-Novakovich/dp/1884910351/

[ not affiliated ]

The MEANS for writing thoroughly well...

Cheers,

Scrivener
http://www.literatureandlatte.com/
even if you have to get a polycarbonate macbook to run it on.
( & a Nice Big Screen to plug inta tha thang, fer deskwerk )

Stein on Writing ( Sol Stein )
http://www.amazon.com/Stein-Writing-Successful-Techniques-Strategies/dp/0312254210/

Writing Fiction Step by Step ( Josip Novakovich )
http://www.amazon.com/Writing-Fiction-Step-Josip-Novakovich/dp/1884910351/

[ not affiliated ]

The MEANS for writing thoroughly well...

Cheers,

There was also the Stealing the Network series of short stories. I've only read the two short stories by Fydor, the author of Nmap who released them free at http://insecure.org/stc/sti.html and http://insecure.org/stc/. Quite enjoyed the first one. Not exactly well written from a literature point of view, but still interesting to read.

Yes they do.

http://www.amazon.com/ViewSonic-NextVision-HD12-HDTV-tuner/dp/B0006B486U

On the other hand, any notes taken by an undergrad in Econ 101 are likely to be un-insightful at best and at worst full of mistakes. They *might* be useful to the individual student who took them, especially if he or she has an unusual learning style, but I can almost guarantee that nothing was taught in that Econ 101 class that wouldn't be in any decent Econ textbook or freely available on the web. In fact, there is already a well known free online textbook of Economics, Introduction to Economic Analysis, maintained and made available by R. Preston McAfee of the California Institute of Technology. If you have more than a few nickles to rub together then I would also recommend Principles of Economics (4th edition) by N. Gregory Mankiw (which I own a copy of personally and have referenced on many occasions to dispel the economic double speak of our politicians). I also read the Economist on a semi-regular basis (it is also recommended in the back of the Mankiw textbook for further up to date and more specific reading concerning economic and political issues of the moment). I didn't save most of my notes from college because, frankly, they would not have been useful in my software development job AND they probably aren't very good quality reference materials either (assuming that anyone else would even want to decipher my hand written scrawl).

Actually they're quite good at making HCI hardware (sometimes).

I love the Microsoft Natural Ergonomic Keyboard 4000. Prior to that, I loved the Microsoft Natural Keyboard Pro. Sometimes they're terrible at it though. Other bizarre screw ups include mice that have notchless wheels. I cannot figure out how that's in any way a good thing, yet half of their mice lack them.

Funny thing is I'm using a Microsoft Natural Ergonomic Keyboard 4000 to type this and a Microsoft Wireless Mobile Mouse 3000 on a laptop running Ubuntu 8.04.

Actually they're quite good at making HCI hardware (sometimes).

I love the Microsoft Natural Ergonomic Keyboard 4000. Prior to that, I loved the Microsoft Natural Keyboard Pro. Sometimes they're terrible at it though. Other bizarre screw ups include mice that have notchless wheels. I cannot figure out how that's in any way a good thing, yet half of their mice lack them.

Funny thing is I'm using a Microsoft Natural Ergonomic Keyboard 4000 to type this and a Microsoft Wireless Mobile Mouse 3000 on a laptop running Ubuntu 8.04.

For that I think you need to buy his book.

You should try reading Nassim Taleb. Interesting guy, interesting ideas, but the man can't get through a page without sprinkling it with parentheses.

http://www.amazon.com/Fooled-Randomness-Hidden-Chance-Markets/dp/1400067936/

It is already online. Scanned in nice PDF format files, even runs Linux.

In this book there's a description on how an Al Qaeda member infiltrated the US Army. He had been a major in the Egyptian army before he joined the terrorist group. He went to the US and married an American girl to get citizenship. He joined the US Army and was rather quickly promoted to sergeant, after all he had been a major before and had good knowledge of military subjects. He then proceeded to send US Army training material to Muslim radicals, those manuals were found in Al Qaeda camps in Afghanistan after 9/11.

Think Harold Agnew would tell Ali Muhammed Whatever how to build a weapon?

Seriously now, who do you think would find it easier to get classified information? A truck driver or a US Army sergeant?

Odds are that you don't commute by rail. Commuting by rail has its advantages, and the magazine format coincides nicely with a hard day's use of the laptop. Especially given boot times, logins, possibly a connecting train. You get the idea.

Meet Kindle, which answers all of your concerns.

Well, except that nothing I want to read is published for it. I guess I could change all of my reading habits just to be cool, though.

TFA http://www.slashfilm.com/2009/01/23/free-monty-python-videos-on-youtube-lead-to-23000-dvd-sale-increase/
refers to http://mashable.com/2009/01/22/youtube-boost-sales/
which allegedly refers to a mashable news from 01/21/2009, but the linked site http://mashable.com/2009/01/21/youtube-click-to-buy-overlay-ads/
has NOTHING to do with amazons bestseller lists AND there was no mashable news on 01/21/2009 about amazon at all. see http://mashable.com/page/2/ and http://mashable.com/page/3/

moreover none of amazons "Movies & TV" bestseller lists http://www.amazon.com/gp/bestsellers/dvd/ref=pd_ts_d_ldr_dvd/183-1981496-3747918 or sublists (links on the left side) has a monty python title (if it was no. 2 on 01/21/2009, like the first mashable "news" claims, then i don't think it would have been out so fast)
also the "news" doesn't mention, WHICH title was no. 2 in the bestseller list, but I think amazon's search-results are sorted by Sales Rank and the highest one in the search-results for "monty python" is http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0009XRZ92 on rank 755 in Movies & TV.

i think, the whole article is just made up.

TFA http://www.slashfilm.com/2009/01/23/free-monty-python-videos-on-youtube-lead-to-23000-dvd-sale-increase/
refers to http://mashable.com/2009/01/22/youtube-boost-sales/
which allegedly refers to a mashable news from 01/21/2009, but the linked site http://mashable.com/2009/01/21/youtube-click-to-buy-overlay-ads/
has NOTHING to do with amazons bestseller lists AND there was no mashable news on 01/21/2009 about amazon at all. see http://mashable.com/page/2/ and http://mashable.com/page/3/

moreover none of amazons "Movies & TV" bestseller lists http://www.amazon.com/gp/bestsellers/dvd/ref=pd_ts_d_ldr_dvd/183-1981496-3747918 or sublists (links on the left side) has a monty python title (if it was no. 2 on 01/21/2009, like the first mashable "news" claims, then i don't think it would have been out so fast)
also the "news" doesn't mention, WHICH title was no. 2 in the bestseller list, but I think amazon's search-results are sorted by Sales Rank and the highest one in the search-results for "monty python" is http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0009XRZ92 on rank 755 in Movies & TV.

i think, the whole article is just made up.

Odds are that you don't commute by rail. Commuting by rail has its advantages, and the magazine format coincides nicely with a hard day's use of the laptop. Especially given boot times, logins, possibly a connecting train. You get the idea.

Meet Kindle, which answers all of your concerns.

I just looked at Amazons' bestseller lists, and I can't find any Monty Python stuff anywhere.
Maybe I am looking in the wrong place, or maybe it has already dropped out of the list. But...

Anyway, I found the original youtube blog post with the mentioned 23 000 percent figure.
And an official YouTube blog may not be the most unbiased source of data regarding the efficiency of their "eCommerce platform".

Not that they don't deserve the success.

Tell us more about your situation. Did you refuse to give her your notes? Did you tell her not to rummage through your bag? How many students did she do this too?

What she did was probably illegal, but you've got to be really assertive about protecting your rights. And please note the word "assertive", not aggressive, meaning that you tell her you're not giving her the permission to go through your bag, or that you do not want her to go through your bag. For further reading on assertiveness and setting boundaries, I'd suggest you read When I Say No, I Feel Guilty by Manuel J. Smith

Also, one last question. How old are you? Personally, I know that age shouldn't matter, but age does matter. Adults are much more likely to bully young people, people they have authority over, or very old people, just because they know that those types of people are less likely to fight back -- or call the cops on them.

It started at the lowest rating possible in a number of systems, and then through incredible wheeling and dealing ending up with just above the lowest rating possible.
[amazon], why are they still pushing it?, didn't they learn from anything Windows did with Vista?

Unfortunately, the Creative Zen had a side scroll wheel years earlier that you'd scroll up and down to scroll through songs and click in to select etc. etc. The wheel on the iPod is different only in that you move your finger round the wheel straight on rather than having a physical wheel you scroll up and down- the concept is identical, only the implementation is different.

Yes, the "concept" of a wheel to scroll through lists is the same. But the physical experience of the interface is actually quite different. On an edge-contact scroll wheel, you can only move the list as far as the length of your thumb (or finger) pad before you have to pick up and reposition. This limits how fast you can move through the list. On a flat-contact scroll wheel, you can scroll through an infinite list continuously, which is faster. And (crucial detail) the iPod software actually scrolls the list faster the faster you move your finger (the relationship between fingertip speed and scroll speed is not linear).

The real predecessors to the iPod scroll wheel, at least physically, are the scroll wheels used in the video industry for fine frame scrolling. Like the iPod these were flat-contact wheels that allowed continuous smooth scrolling for as long as you wanted. They just were physically moving parts as opposed to a touch-sensitive surface like the iPod.

I won't claim that Apple is an amazing inventor for what they did with the iPod. I will say that they did a very good job tweaking and combining existing ideas to produce a very compelling product. Yvon Chouinard draws a difference between invention (the creation of new ideas) and innovation (the application of inventions to create a good product). By that definition I would say that Apple is an innovator.

Well John Gray is more of a computer scientist then an astronomer. (He is a really good professor too)

You should read Little Brother . The USA PATRIOT Act messed badly with "innocent until proven guilty." In which case, you don't have to be guilty to be treated as a criminal.

Back in the earlier day of the web encylopedia Americana was free. Britannica was a pay site. Then Britannica went free and it was dominant. But for most of this decade Britannica has not been a free site, which means links are low value.

Further:

1) Wikipedia has vastly more articles than Britannica. It isn't even close.

2) Wikipedia covers a wider range of topics.

3) Wikipedia articles are longer and more detailed

4) Wikipedia articles are much more web friendly with their "see also" web references.... In many ways playing the role yahoo used to play

5) Wikipedia articles offer history and talk pages which can provide tons of additional information

I can't see why Britannica would even think that in 2009 they should rank above Wikipedia. Wikipedia vs. Britannica discussions were interesting in 2005/6 and you could make a case. Today they aren't even close. Wikipedia functions reasonably well against specialized encyclopedias in their specialties.

I have always been a strong supporter of Britannica. I've bought lots of their products over the years and still use their encyclopedia on my laptop as a mobile solution. But they really aren't in the same league anymore as reference works. I think Columbia Encyclopedia makes a fantastic one volume reference work but I wouldn't rate it not to Britannica. Quantity matters.

__________

Even assuming they started to get a flood of content I don't see how they would deal with it. Are they really ready to fact check say 1000 pages of new content a day? If they want to do what they are talking about they need to do something like partner with http://en.citizendium.org/
Britannica could create a distinctive advantage for citizendium and at the same time Singer has put in place enough people to help with content additions.

The LOTR strategy games were good - inclduing War of the Ring, which you can get for supercheap, and Battle for Middle Earth 1/2.

The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Ring

The Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle-Earth II

Action-wise, Return of the King is also fun for co-op play on consoles. My wife and I played it through twice.

Lord of the Rings: Return of the King

The LOTR strategy games were good - inclduing War of the Ring, which you can get for supercheap, and Battle for Middle Earth 1/2.

The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Ring

The Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle-Earth II

Action-wise, Return of the King is also fun for co-op play on consoles. My wife and I played it through twice.

Lord of the Rings: Return of the King

The LOTR strategy games were good - inclduing War of the Ring, which you can get for supercheap, and Battle for Middle Earth 1/2.

The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Ring

The Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle-Earth II

Action-wise, Return of the King is also fun for co-op play on consoles. My wife and I played it through twice.

Lord of the Rings: Return of the King

I've always wondered why this doesn't exist for TV.

It kinda does

it is called a smart strip. if the primary device is shut off then power is cut to all of the secondary devices.

http://www.amazon.com/Smart-Strip-LCG3-Autoswitching-Technology/dp/B0006PUDQK/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1232550750&sr=8-1

i always post anonymously from work.

It's funny. Maybe it's because right now I'm reading The Year of Living Biblically, but when americans talk about the constitution, it sounds just like when religious people talk about the bible.

Both are books which are getting relatively long in the tooth and as time goes by:

1. they get increasingly "interpreted". I guess that they lose relevance to the modern world and need to be updated.
2. no one wants to update them because they are seen as perfect and timeless.
3. when interpreting the book people start imagining what the writers really meant. It's especially strange with the consitution, since it is a book of law which was theoretically written in a way that should be clear to understand.
4. people follow them almost blindly (religiously, I would say).
5. some of the more strange/inconvinient rules get "forgotten". The book I'm reading is full of examples of those.

I don't mean to insult anyone, but seriously, I think you guys need a constitution 2.0. There are a lot of countries with constitutions in Europe and they get updated frequently.

Perhaps the volumes of help most commonly viewed should be reproduced in offline form for users by paid/trusted editors at Canonical.

You mean like the official book?

and also this one..

Furthermore, let's talk about the issue with the girl in Wisconsin putting her ISP CD in and not understanding why it doesn't work. Maybe a simple dialogue explaining to her that windows installers won't work on Ubuntu (flag disabled if wine is present)-- perhaps something like Apple's windows-mac equivalence guide would be helpful. Imagine that your users have no idea what to expect from your system.

Perhaps you should read Scott Richie's ideas. That's exactly what they're working on.

This is why Ubuntu is not ready for the mainstream- because their "community support" ideal is a rat's nest of dipshits who are working out of religious passion.

No it's because the reporter was a dipshit troll who put the words "Woman blames Ubuntu for missing online classes" (Finally changed to Dell) and then went on to give out her full name in the article.

Then in a later post the very same reporter is laughing about all the attention he got on his site. Yeah, anything to make a quick buck while ruining Abbie's life.

The story made national headlines on small techie sites as well as USA Today and Newsweek.com. So, really, truly, from the bottom of our sales department's heart...THANK YOU!!!!

http://addins.wkowtv.com/blogs/behindthenews/archives/84

and the so called "Ubuntu community" which you are so sure are the attackers and your comparison to Microsoft is absolute nonsense.

Just because some freedom douche sent in an email or phoned the studio doesn't mean they use Ubuntu. The reporter felt it necessary to cast the Ubuntu community all in the same light (again) in his post titled "Just how mean can Ubuntu users be?" where he goes trolling and name calling. Yeah, real professional.

What I don't get about your post is how you associate Ubuntu user to be Ubuntu Community. If I use Windows to play some games does that make me part of the Windows Community? There are over 10 Million Ubuntu users of course there are going to be some assholes however when I read that news about the women some of the comments said they didn't even use Ubuntu but hated how much misconstruing of facts there were.

There's only one reason why that news story got so much negative feedback and that's because it was posted on Digg, Slashdot and Reddit. Assholes of the internet. This story was never posted in the Ubuntu news letter which is in my opinion the Ubuntu community. Not like all these little shits on digg who think they are leet because they have linux and are standing up to the man to fight for open source freedom.

Perhaps the volumes of help most commonly viewed should be reproduced in offline form for users by paid/trusted editors at Canonical.

You mean like the official book?

and also this one..

Furthermore, let's talk about the issue with the girl in Wisconsin putting her ISP CD in and not understanding why it doesn't work. Maybe a simple dialogue explaining to her that windows installers won't work on Ubuntu (flag disabled if wine is present)-- perhaps something like Apple's windows-mac equivalence guide would be helpful. Imagine that your users have no idea what to expect from your system.

Perhaps you should read Scott Richie's ideas. That's exactly what they're working on.

This is why Ubuntu is not ready for the mainstream- because their "community support" ideal is a rat's nest of dipshits who are working out of religious passion.

No it's because the reporter was a dipshit troll who put the words "Woman blames Ubuntu for missing online classes" (Finally changed to Dell) and then went on to give out her full name in the article.

Then in a later post the very same reporter is laughing about all the attention he got on his site. Yeah, anything to make a quick buck while ruining Abbie's life.

The story made national headlines on small techie sites as well as USA Today and Newsweek.com. So, really, truly, from the bottom of our sales department's heart...THANK YOU!!!!

http://addins.wkowtv.com/blogs/behindthenews/archives/84

and the so called "Ubuntu community" which you are so sure are the attackers and your comparison to Microsoft is absolute nonsense.

Just because some freedom douche sent in an email or phoned the studio doesn't mean they use Ubuntu. The reporter felt it necessary to cast the Ubuntu community all in the same light (again) in his post titled "Just how mean can Ubuntu users be?" where he goes trolling and name calling. Yeah, real professional.

What I don't get about your post is how you associate Ubuntu user to be Ubuntu Community. If I use Windows to play some games does that make me part of the Windows Community? There are over 10 Million Ubuntu users of course there are going to be some assholes however when I read that news about the women some of the comments said they didn't even use Ubuntu but hated how much misconstruing of facts there were.

There's only one reason why that news story got so much negative feedback and that's because it was posted on Digg, Slashdot and Reddit. Assholes of the internet. This story was never posted in the Ubuntu news letter which is in my opinion the Ubuntu community. Not like all these little shits on digg who think they are leet because they have linux and are standing up to the man to fight for open source freedom.

In the late 70's people believed the US would be crushed and the Soviets were not doing as badly as one might think. They did have a huge amount of oil and natural gas, the attitude among many were that they were a healthier economy than us.

Funny, I could have swore Reagan was president in the 80s not the 70s. In addition, while we knew of their natural resource reserves we also had taken in enough defectors to know what the state of their economy was. The fear the populous had of the Russians had lingered on after the "Red Scare" and savvy politicians knew how to exploit it.

Unchecked... Umm House of commons/lords means anything to you? The monarchy in England was under check for nearly a half millennium before the revolution.

Perhaps you should look into what the House of Lords was, I'll give you a hint the last word is Lords. As for the House of Commons at the time their power was far less than that of the house of Lords, not to mention most (if not all) of that representation still consisted of nobles and those with "old money".

The founders fought against a lack of representation *not* against hereditary rule. Many, *MANY*, people wanted George Washing to be a king in a constitutional monarchy not much different than the English monarchy and anyone who has studied Franklin knows that until he was humiliated in England by his enemies he was quite content to stay a part of great Brittan on the condition of representation and equality with English citizens.

Before you chastise others by telling them to 'buy a clue' maybe you should read a book.

When you say *MANY* people, how many of those people are included in the "founding fathers?" Much of the citizenry wanted a king, but I don't know how many (if any) of the founders did. But I should step back here and say that it is almost always absurd to talk about the "founding fathers" as a singular unit. They were a group of people with many different opinions and ideas. Whenever anyone talks about the founding fathers, they are using them as a vehicle for their own ideas, or some pundit's opinion that they've grafted onto that body.

As for Franklin and book reading, might I recommend to you, Benjamin Franklin: An American Life. It's funny you should bring him up now since he was one of the most vocal opponents of hereditary power among the founders (which is ironic because he secured the governorship of New Jersey for his son while in London, but nobody's perfect). Also, it's interesting you don't mention a book that might enlighten me, do you know of one that isn't pure propaganda? I'd recommend reading to anyone unless it's the latest work of fiction by Anne Coulter, Bill O'Reilly, or Michael Moore in that case you would be better off smoking some crack. It's also funny you'd bring him up just before claiming I don't read since very few people, outside of colonial historians, could claim to have read as much on, or by, Franklin as I have.

Anyway, you refer to the "Hutchinson Affair" and I'm not sure why. I'm sure everyone that fought the British had some revelation or series of them that turned them against the crown at some point, Franklin came to that table later than some others, why does that matter? He always had problems with the parliamentary system but felt confident enough in it to fight for change from the inside, until being insulted by the Solicitor General wounded his pride enough to openly support revolution.

But what does any of this have to do with Ronald Reagan whipping up anti-government sentiment? If I asked you what the 9 scariest words in the English language are, would you know what I was talking about? I would guess that you would, and if so it's because his name is synonymous with anti-government sentiment.

I hate 1 Belkin product: F5D8000 WiFi Card/a>

it is next to impossible to find vista x64 drivers, the card frequently (every 20 minutes or so) drops the connection when using bittorrent.

No, because there is no sale.

Wrong

Just because they give it away on their site:

1 - Doesn't mean they don't also sell it
2 - Doesn't mean they don't sell to OEMs (dell)

To keep in vein of this thread, here's another book by this same publisher: Learn Objective-C on the Mac http://www.amazon.com/Learn-Objective-ndash-C-Mac/dp/1430218150/ref=pd_bbs_sr_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1232417589&sr=8-2 It has received relatively good reviews on Amazon.

* http://www.amazon.com/How-Talk-Anyone-Little-Relationships/dp/1593160267/

* http://www.amazon.com/How-Be-People-Magnet-Finding/dp/1593160054/

* http://www.amazon.com/How-Talk-Anyone-Little-Relationships/dp/1593160267/

* http://www.amazon.com/How-Be-People-Magnet-Finding/dp/1593160054/

It was once true that you couldn't buy the Macintosh OS on its own, but it has been possible to buy OSX without an Apple computer for some time now. Example at amazon.

Can you recommend a resource for learning personal skills and politics? Books or something? How does one do this, exactly?

Strategy Representation: An Analysis of Planning Knowledge http://www.amazon.com/Strategy-Representation-Analysis-Planning-Knowledge/dp/0805845275

I would recommend Cocoa Programming for Mac OS X for a good introduction to Cocoa and Objective-C. No-referral Amazon link.

I think they need to investigate the reviews for A Million Random Digits with 100,000 Normal Deviates. I think RAND paid them off! Some examples,

"A great read. Captivating. I couldn't put it down."

"The book reads like a journey through the human soul with no signposts along the way. To stay on the path requires firm reason, so we think, but when the signs fall down, only faith guides the reader's way. Corporation well understood the limitations of reason as an infallible guide in maintaining our faith in humanity."

"I took a class in statistics in college. I used this book to help me select random phone numbers for a poll I was conducting for my class project. One of those phone calls was answered by the woman who is now my wife. We've been happily married for ten years! Thank you, RAND."

Some of RAND's competitors might have paid for negative reviews,

"A strictly "by the numbers," formula-driven plot spoiled the ending, which was, nevertheless, difficult to predict by my calculations. The characterization was singularly type cast and the theme repetitive. You can safely skip this radical arctangent from scientific literature."

"While the printed version is good, I would have expected the publisher to have an audiobook version as well."

Saturn's Children by Charles Stross is a great novel about the adventures of a Fembot in a post-human future.

That's great for employees of LMC, but you're overlooking two things:

(1) LMC was able to negotiate that kind of blanket coverage with their insurance provider because, well, they're Large. Smaller business don't have that kind of leverage.

(2) There's absolutely nothing to stop the insurance provider from telling LMC, "Right now you're paying $x million per year for blanket coverage. We can offer you the same coverage for 0.9$x million per year [which will actually cost us 50%, not 90%, of what it does now, although we're not going to mention that] if you accept our suggestions about which types of employees you might want to ease out the door." Nor is there anything to stop LMC's management from thinking this offer is a really good idea.

If you think there's a way to solve either of these problems without serious government regulation, please feel free to make a suggestion.

Well, it has been suggested. Read Matt Miller (a liberal political commentator) and his book The Two Percent Solution.

In response to your points, in Pt 1, my response to that is that issues like this are precisely why Barack Obama's plan to force companies to provide health care to their employees is biased in favor of big business. A company with 100,000 employees can negotiate far better insurance terms and rates than a company with 10,000, or 1,000, or 100. In fact, my "ideal" solution to universal health care (and the one championed in "The Two Percent Solution") would be to offer a mandatory tax rebate/tax credit which must be used to buy health insurance. As a condition of receiving this tax rebate, insurance companies must cover anyone for the same rate and offer the same exact policy.

This works for the insurance companies because they get to spread out their risk over 300 million rather than over 1 individual. It vastly multiplies the advantage that Large Multinational Corporation has in terms of buying insurance, and distributes that advantage over the entire country instead of one company. It works for the populace, because they now not only get insurance, but because any insurance company can cover you, the insurance companies must compete on coverage. This last point is precisely why single payer socialized health care will be a net negative for health care in this country. A government run organization has no impetus for innovation, whereas multiple companies competing in the same field do.

As far as pt 2, that issue is moot under Matt Miller's plan. Ignoring that, that's walking a fine line towards employment discrimination, and I'm sure the Large Multinational Corporation's lawyers would have something to say if management were inclined to accept such an offer.

If he was not such a retard he'd just sign up with bogus accounts and write the reviews himself, from a public library terminal.

Actually, he did. Check out this link from Google cache.

I did a google search for Belkin Bayard, and it returned that link. He had an Amazon account under M. Bayard, and he was reviewing Belkin products. His Amazon account has been renamed to B. Ekim "BE" presumably to avoid detection. (Mike spelled backwards. This guy is a master of disguise.) If you click on his profile, you'll see his nickname is listed as "mikebayard". He only reviews Belkin products, and he only gives 5 star reviews. His listmania is a series of Belkin products.

Can anyone tell me if these reviews are real or astroturfed? Of 271 reviews, almost half are five-star:
http://www.amazon.com/Denon-AKDL1-Dedicated-Link-Cable/dp/B000I1X6PM/

For example.

Considering that their album costs $5, it makes a lot of sense. People who didn't know about torrents were willing to pay that much for it, because most of the other albums I've seen there cost more than $5.

In closing: the thing best you could do to boost up your sales would be to lower your price; that will get you in Amazon's top and if your music is good enough, people will hear about you and may be willing to pay a bit more for a CD of your next album.

So this means that the album IS available for free to legally download via torrent AND it was the highest sale on Amazon. Remarkable eh!