The third way to look at this is that Free Speech has won the day. To this way of thinking, another attempt to squash the little guy with a big mouth has failed.
Are you stupid, a spammer or a sockpuppet???
Where does in the first amendment is it said "the right of people to force other to read what they say and by having them pay for me transmitting it shall be protected"???
Spam is not FREA SPEACH. Spam is THEFT. Theft of computer ressources, theft of bandwidth, theft of storage, THEFT OF PEOPLE'S TIME.
No gui distractions standing in the way of getting the work done (when the said work doesn't involve Photoshop or Autocad or Freehand or Illustrator or Quirk Xpress)...
Sounds like a "Tasp", from Larry Niven "Known Space" novels.
(A Tasp is a device that lets one remotely tickle someone else's brain pleasure center. It's illegal, of course, since very often, the victim, after a moment of pure joy, is bound to get depressed and eventually becomes a wirehead, by having a wire to the pleasure center surgically implanted, then getting high on house current [presumably transformed down to a managable voltage/current] and avoiding normal sundry chores like working, washing-up and eventually eating).
Why not instead push BETTER PROGRAMMING, if needed by the total eradication of the programming languages that happily let you shoot yourselves in the foot by letting you program sloppily?
Also, castration of programmers could help by reducing the need to display machoness by programming in a low-level language (or what looks like a high-level language but is in reality a disguised assembler) could be contemplated.
But, of course, nothing would beat a major clueing-in of programming -spit- managers.
So I'm a sheep because I'd rather spend two seconds doing something that won't inconvenience me in any way rather than fight for who knows how long for no discernible benefit?
Baaa! Baaa! If you do not realize that your rights are being eroded each time you consent to such scrutiny, you do not deserve any of those rights.
Prohibiting advertising to the public is the key here to lower drug prices.
This might well be the case. Indeed, I've heard a similar view expressed by a drug company executive. But there are 1st amendment issues involved in trying to prohibit pharmaceutical companies from advertising.
Bzzzzzt! wrong answer. "First amendment" cannot be deemed a defense for prior restraint of COMMERCIAL SPEECH, as the various statutes against false advertising attest.
As well as the prohibition of tobacco advertising.
As for the notion that "there is no reason to market to the public," pharm companies wouldn't do it if it wasn't effective. Doctors may be the only ones who can prescribe, but the doctor is ultimately working for the patient, and if a patient wants a particular drug, the doctor is likely to go along with the patient's request if it is not clearly medically inappropriate.
Is is only "effective" because all companies do it so everyone is compelled to do it.
Also, it would be nice if you typed comprehensible or at least sensible English in your post. Your usage and grammar is pitiful.
Who gives a shit? I've got better karma than you, stupid grammar nazi who, as a typical american, does not know that there are people whose first language is not english...
(BTW, I'm one of those disgusting frogs who live less than a day's drive from Washington DC).
Duh. Companies don't have less money by virtue of engaging in advertising. They advertise to increase sales, thereby making money. So advertising is what brings in the dollars that are subsequently used for research.
What is insane is marketing to the public, which is the reason why advertising expenses skyrocketed to leave R&D expenses in the dust. And, in any case, pharma companies have no reason to market to the public as only doctors are the ones who can prescribe given drugs.
Prohibiting advertising to the public is the key here to lower drug prices.
Far be it for me to interject any actual information into your rant, but the profit/loss and income/expense statements of pharmaceutical companies are matters of public record. Go onto Yahoo Finance and look at them yourself, for any major drug company. You will see that the majority of expenses for producing pharmaceuticals are manufacturing and R&D.
Manufacturing, yes, but definitely not R&D, since this is often done in universities using results of public-funded research. And US drugs companies spent 10 times more in marketing than for R&D.
The reasons why drug prices are so high in the USA, of course, is because research is extremely expensive, production quality is so strictly controlled, and safety trials are so stringent. Most people consider safe pharmaceuticals a good thing; for everyone else, there's always Tijuana.
It's a good thing that you didn't say Canada, eh?
What part of "US drugs companies spent 10 times more in marketing than R&D" didn't you get?
Your statement that drug companies don't have to do marketing is theoretically true. However, doctors can't find out about new drugs through ESP, or provide samples to their patients out of their own pockets.
Marketing to the public is incredibly expensive. Not marketing to doctors. And marketing to the public is criminally insane, since only doctors should prescribe drugs anyways.
Ah, the faery world of the social liberal. Here is the straight dope. Drug companies spend a lot of money on marketing because they have to. Not because they just feel like it. No company blows that kind of money on anything unless there is a real need.
In the case of the drug company, unless they spend a lot of money marketing that new drug, forget selling enough to recover the costs to develop new medicines.
Ah! The clueless world of the cheap-labour conservative. Drugs companies have no business marketing their drugs to the general public. Drugs should only be prescribed by doctors, so the latter should be the targets of drug marketing, which can be done fare more effectively and logically than when you target the general public.
Forget swanky commercials, this is done through product monographies presented to doctors who, being well-educated only need logical data rather than the senseless drivel that commercials usually are.
If drug marketing was prohibited, NONE of the pharm companies would have to do it, so the price of drugs would come down naturally.
What you leftist, socialist, anti-capitalists don't understand is, without profits, a company doesn't stay in business. If you don't like the price of a drug, don't buy it. Before you start; I tell my Doctor to select an inexpensive drug. He tab's through his PDA, and we descuss the drug he is considering, and it side effects, as well as its price. Once I am satisfied, he writes the prescription. All of my drugs are cheaper if I just pay cash; the insurance co-pay is more than the cost of the drug.
What you hard-assed cheap-labour conservatives don't understand is that drug companies spend much more money on marketing (which is basically bullshit), which is the main reason why drug prices are exorbitant in the USA. The drug companies don't have to do that marketing; if they didn't spend so much in marketing, their prices wouldn't be so high as to force States to expropriate their patents in the first place.
Now ot seems to me that the taking of a patent with the idea that it would save the government money is truly a stupid idea - fair compensation would require that the company not be hurt by the taking. The constittion also provides protection against bills of attainder that might also be relevant.
"Fair" does not mean "cater to every whim". If a company spends $10 million devellopping a drug in partnership with a public-funded university, and then spends $80 million marketing it, when the government takes their patent for $20 million they should be very tankful that they didn't take it for the $10 million they spent developping it.
Notice to hardassed cheap-labour conservatives and martketoïds: *** MARKETING IS NOT DEVELOPMENT NOR MANUFACTURING ***
Since the drug companies invest so much in research due to the potential profit, wouldn't reducing the potential profit reduce the incentives for research?
They don't need any incentive for research.
Drug companies don't invest much in research anyways, as research money comes from governments and is also subject to tax credits; most of their money goes to marketing.
I'm so bugged with this whole paptent issue. I will tell you why. I was once developing a IM Bot for MSN messenger using perl. I was almost towards the end of coding the bot. Thats when I hear that the IM bot technology is patented by ActiveBuddy. I had to stop development. I wish they had a better model to protect software inventions
Why didn't you move the project to Canada, where software cannot be patented???
Slowly and slowly, the realization seeps in that private entreprise is much worse than government when it comes to safely keep records...
At least, the government has no budget limits when it comes to security, whereas bean-counters are always breathing down the neck of private entreprise employees.
The People will wake-up that what private entreprise has been saying about "efficiency" is nothing but oxdung and claptrap to make them vote for whoever clamours that "we need less government", but in reality, this was only to create a power vacuum that the corporations would fill to suit their own needs, rather than the needs of the people as Government is OBLIGATED to.
Expect the Democrats to win the next elections EN MASSE, and bring back the times of good, big, benevolent government, a government that makes sure the Citizens live properly instead of bowing to the croporates overlords.
Not true. Most modern librarians are DB experts with a sweeping understanding of complex data structures and data mining. I should know, I'm married to one. Card catalogs went out of fashion in the 1980s
Is that a tongue in your cheek or you're just happy to see me???
EU software law requires that no limits be placed on resale of legally acquired software. Not supplying install media is a major limit in my book!
But the OEM version is licenced for use on that one PC only. You may resell the software by reselling the whole PC but that's it, and no media doesn't limit that case.
Have you read what you're answering to? Microsoft can say whatever it wants in it's licenses, but they cannot demand illegal terms. So, if Microsoft says "you can't resell it", the law says "you CAN resell it", so, basically, YOU CAN RESELL IT.
On the other hand, with word of this out there: It seems to me that fewer people will upgrade than before. Every generation of Windows has fewer upgrades than the last one. XP for example did very poorly over all because they just couldn't find a reason to force people into upgrading. People using Windows 2000 for example are still happy with it. Why would they really even want XP? Prettier animation? Fat chance. How do you sell something new to a market you have already saturated, that realistically isn't that far off from what is already out there? Seriously, I would like to know. Maybe if anyone knows, I could start a Microsoft rival, and take over the world again. Yes... that would be fun and evil. Let me ponder it.
Care to support your assertions?
Care to support your disguised-into-a-question rebuttal?
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Where does in the first amendment is it said "the right of people to force other to read what they say and by having them pay for me transmitting it shall be protected"???
Spam is not FREA SPEACH. Spam is THEFT. Theft of computer ressources, theft of bandwidth, theft of storage, THEFT OF PEOPLE'S TIME.
No gui distractions standing in the way of getting the work done (when the said work doesn't involve Photoshop or Autocad or Freehand or Illustrator or Quirk Xpress)...
(A Tasp is a device that lets one remotely tickle someone else's brain pleasure center. It's illegal, of course, since very often, the victim, after a moment of pure joy, is bound to get depressed and eventually becomes a wirehead, by having a wire to the pleasure center surgically implanted, then getting high on house current [presumably transformed down to a managable voltage/current] and avoiding normal sundry chores like working, washing-up and eventually eating).
Why not instead push BETTER PROGRAMMING, if needed by the total eradication of the programming languages that happily let you shoot yourselves in the foot by letting you program sloppily?
Also, castration of programmers could help by reducing the need to display machoness by programming in a low-level language (or what looks like a high-level language but is in reality a disguised assembler) could be contemplated.
But, of course, nothing would beat a major clueing-in of programming -spit- managers.
As well as the prohibition of tobacco advertising. Is is only "effective" because all companies do it so everyone is compelled to do it.
(BTW, I'm one of those disgusting frogs who live less than a day's drive from Washington DC).
Prohibiting advertising to the public is the key here to lower drug prices.
What part of "US drugs companies spent 10 times more in marketing than R&D" didn't you get?
Marketing to the public is incredibly expensive. Not marketing to doctors. And marketing to the public is criminally insane, since only doctors should prescribe drugs anyways.Forget swanky commercials, this is done through product monographies presented to doctors who, being well-educated only need logical data rather than the senseless drivel that commercials usually are.
If drug marketing was prohibited, NONE of the pharm companies would have to do it, so the price of drugs would come down naturally.
Notice to hardassed cheap-labour conservatives and martketoïds: *** MARKETING IS NOT DEVELOPMENT NOR MANUFACTURING ***
Drug companies don't invest much in research anyways, as research money comes from governments and is also subject to tax credits; most of their money goes to marketing.
At least, the government has no budget limits when it comes to security, whereas bean-counters are always breathing down the neck of private entreprise employees.
The People will wake-up that what private entreprise has been saying about "efficiency" is nothing but oxdung and claptrap to make them vote for whoever clamours that "we need less government", but in reality, this was only to create a power vacuum that the corporations would fill to suit their own needs, rather than the needs of the people as Government is OBLIGATED to.
Expect the Democrats to win the next elections EN MASSE, and bring back the times of good, big, benevolent government, a government that makes sure the Citizens live properly instead of bowing to the croporates overlords.
Kitbash yourself a computer with an AOPEN AX4B-533 Tube motherboard (picture here).
Period.
Here is a white dwarf; a dwarf signal that can display lunar white...