I would have to agree. I work for a hospital coding the electronic forms for the insurance carriers. That's all I do, and I'm not the only person. The carriers change their requirements all the time, which causes claims to be denied. Then we have to change how we submit those claims and re-submit them and hope they aren't denied again. Sure we get paid, but it costs the hospital quite a bit to have all of us employed to get that money in the door. I can't say if the carriers purposefully change their requirements so that they don't have to pay, but sometimes it really feels like it. Why else would they ask for the same doctor's identification number in three different places on the same electronic file? They're excuse is "but we can't find that doctor" even though we're just copying the same number to a different place.
Unfortunately the money has to come from somewhere. Shortly after WWII (which cost us $238B after inflation it would be about $5T) the highest tax bracket was in the 90% range. People got houses under the new FHA and VA loans, and new companies were created (though not as many as after the top marginal tax rate was reduced by the Johnson administration which Kennedy had been pushing for). Companies didn't move overseas to more favorable countries then, though I would concede that moving overseas would probably have been more of an involved process than it is today and that economic situations of the world were obviously different.
The current Iraq war, so far, has cost us $500B and the highest tax bracket pays something like 35%. That money has to come from somewhere, and unfortunately neither party is willing to actually decrease our deficit in any sort of substantial way, so now we're stuck with a national debt that is almost insurmountable.
We currently owe over $10T which comes out to about $37,747.83 per person in the US (population of 305,363,780 though this number keeps changing). That number also includes children. The average household size is 3.2 (I'll round it to 2 parents and one child). Now the amount to each tax payer (203,575,853 of them) owes is $49,121.74. The problem with that number is that it doesn't account for the people that are in retirement and not contributing to the tax system. According to the same population website, there were 37,191,004 people 65 and older in the year 2006 (we'll have to assume that they are all retired, though that's not entirely the case). Now the amount each tax payer owes is $60,101.63
The madness needs to stop someday. This whole "credit crisis" is all due to everyone living beyond their means (individuals, corporations, and government). We need someone to actually do the tough job of cutting spending so that we can all live within our means. We probably even need to cut back even more than that so that we can repay our debts. It is unfortunate that we live in an unjust world, and so the people who have lived within their means (like me, and probably many people on here) are hit with this credit issue just as hard as the people who were reckless with their money.
I will also state that tax cuts generally do contribute to the growth of the economy, but only as long as the burden of debt interest is under control. If we continue borrowing the amounts of money we are today, and our creditors decide that we cannot pay it back and stop lending to us, then no matter how good our economy is at the time it will decline sharply due to the lack of money in the market. One way to defend against that is to print more money, but that devalues the dollar and makes international trade more and more difficult which also affects the economy negatively.
So, with all that said, who has the most money? Rich people of course. What do they typically do with their money? Try to make more money, which is usually through investments, which help other large companies. Those large companies then probably employ more people. Is it fair to ask the plumber/electrician/factory worker to pay his/her share of the national debt when that amount is so much more of a percent of their savings than
Don't forget those of us who kill every plant they try to bring into their house. Even house plants die at my house. I think I might be the plant Grim Reaper, but it's probably that I just don't know anything about plants (too much, or too little and/or sunlight).
I never said anything about living forever, that's an absurd expectancy. I would not consider (under normal circumstances) that a socialized health care system is "stealing". Most people would be contributing to the system. The people who couldn't afford health care before were still receiving basic care at a cost to the hospitals and state anyway.
I currently work for a hospital, and I can confirm that the cost of the pacemaker itself is about $3,500 to $5,000, but you also have the hospital stay (a day or two), the cost of the other equipment, the cost of the doctors, etc. You're looking at about $10,000+ for the implant. A bi-ventricular implant will run about $20,000+.
I, just like you, have not purchased a new computer in about 6 years. I've saved up a fairly decent amount of money, and I could afford a hospital stay or two. My wife and I just had a new baby boy about 5 months ago. We had planned a home birth for personal and financial reasons (a midwife is a lot less expensive than a hospital birth). We live just a few blocks from the hospital, so if something came up, we knew we'd have adequate medical care. When the baby did come, my wife labored for about 24 hours until we decided it was time to go the hospital. To make a long story short, my son ended up in the NICU for a few days and my wife had an unplanned cesarean. Without insurance, I would have had to pay about $25,000. I do have insurance through my employer, so I was lucky in that regard, but if I was poor and didn't have as good an insurance plan (or none at all), then I would have basically been screwed. Medical costs are the #1 cause of bankruptcy in America (a little old, but I think it's still the case).
I think the doctors deserve to be paid well, but people also deserve to have medical care. I also think that the cost of a socialized health care system is a hard pill to swallow, but I'm currently paying a "tax" into my insurance plan anyway (total cost is over $12,000/yr including what the employer pays). Private care could definitely co-exist, but that's getting a little off-topic.
The problem here is with emergency situations. Any normal person would be freaked out, and the last thing on their mind would be money. Now with worrying about living they have to deal with the insurance company stating that some procedure won't be covered, but they're being told that this procedure is the best chance they have. Why should anyone have to make their case to live?
I used to be against a socialized medical system, but over the years I have come to realize that health care should be a right, and not a privilege.
Here's a quote from TFA. It doesn't address the issue of the government not having better repair services than the ISPs, but it does address the issue of multiple service providers.
Monticello's solution is to build an interconnect facility of its own where ISPs can come in and link up to any fiber user who wants their service. The city maintains the lines and the connection facility, but doesn't need to become an ISP.
Wow, there sure are a lot more panics, recessions, and depressions than I had previously known. Unfortunately it looks like history keeps repeating itself.
I just got done reading an article about the Economic Panic of 1873 and how that depression more closely resembles what's currently happening. This might explain why Bryan was talking about bank failures. It was still fresh in their minds.
One time I was trying to remove a hard drive from an older system that was stuck in a tight spot. I had to pull kind of hard and ended up cutting my thumb when it finally sprang free. My son was watching the whole time, and now whenever I'm taking my computer apart he tells me, "Be careful so you don't hurt your thumb."
I guess I was wrong about the ING account numbers, but I was mostly referring to the other account numbers. I just checked, and my other verified accounts I can transfer to do not show the full numbers, so I would not have to worry about my personal banking account number being discovered. I had to enter them when I set up the account, but they do not display that information after the initial setup. Obviously a check has the account number on it (as well as the routing number).
Would it be a good idea to replace the water with mineral oil? I'm sure a lot of you have seen the computers submerged in mineral oil, so it would probably just cause a mess if there was a leak. The problem with mineral oil (based on my limited knowledge from searching just now) is that it's not as efficient at removing heat as water, and after time the oil breaks down and needs replacing to remain at its most efficient. I'm not sure if the heat levels from a server would be high enough to degrade the oil though. I'm also uncertain if the oil would cause any damage to the pumps (or whatever pushes the liquid around) in the water cooling system.
execution speed of javascript has never really been my most important issue
I agree. The performance of JS has never been that big of an issue. The problem I think they're facing is that in order to innovate, you have to break from the standard (or the standard that IE uses) which causes cross-browser compatibility issues. So, instead of possibly causing issues they're looking at improving other areas, which in this case is speed. By doing so they're probably hoping that they'll be able to increase their market share that much more. By having a larger market share, then they can help better to drive innovation. That and the DOM is a completely different standard than JS. The DOM really needs to be revamped. JS is really boring without the DOM, but at least core JS is mostly compatible across browsers.
That's the first I've heard of that. In order to debug JavaScript you either have to have Office installed, or download the MS Script Debugger. IE does report errors, but their description is horrible. I've found that just the error console in Firefox is much, much better than IE's error reporting. You really should look into Firebug. It's invaluable
Can someone explain how they could travel 3 to 5 times faster than the wind is blowing? I'm thoroughly confused on how that's possible. Is the vertical wing producing less air pressure towards the front providing forward momentum?
The fact still remains that people use IE, because that's "the Internet" on their computer. It's been suggested that Adobe might include these plugins (there's also one in the works for the canvas element) with their Flash installer. That would greatly increase the number of people with IE that would support some of the features that are already available in FF/Opera/Safari.
I think that people who don't have permission to install the plugins just won't be able to do so, but they wouldn't be able to install FF anyway.
The same plants that could have been fed directly to vegetarians.
As the GP pointed out, the plants in question are prairie grass, for the most part (I'm talking beef here). Sometimes people even use the straw and chaff from the harvesting of grains, but it's not as nutritious for the cows. The last I checked, humans weren't capable of breaking down the fibers in grass or straw.
Disclaimer: I grew up farming, and relatives raised cattle, pigs, and chicken.
Disclaimer 2: we buy organic milk, mostly because the dairy cows are typically fed better which affects the taste of the milk.
Does anyone have some links to programming tools for the Victor-70? A BASIC interpreter was mentioned in one of the articles. I know I should STFW, but I'm at work and/. has already degraded my productivity enough.
I personally do not want to build my applications on Javascript. I think that its a) slow b) ugly and c) spaghetti code, right?
He definitely has a point with A. and some with B. (though it's a matter of opinion), but C. is just FUD. He obviously doesn't understand JavaScript (not the DOM, JavaScript is not just the DOM). JavaScript can produce very elegant code if you know what you're doing. I'm sure you can get some pretty nasty C# spaghetti code too (though it may not be as likely). I doubt that any language will replace JavaScript any time soon. All the different browsers would have to support whatever replaces it almost simultaneously. Flash is getting close, but it seems the community is treating Silverlight as a "me too" offering from MS./rant
His comments about Mozilla are pretty interesting. I appreciate the work on Mono that they've been doing, but it's still strange to be at the mercy of MS whenever they make a change to their setup. That alone will leave Mono/Moonlight at least one step behind and could be used as an argument for only using Windows.
I've had the book for about a month now. I've read most of it, but I haven't finished it yet due to work and personal projects and tv and games... Anyway, I think it is really well written. Doug is definitely has a very intimate knowledge of the subject, but his writing comes across more like a guide than an expert. He takes an approach kind of like taking you on a tour of the language. It's a pretty short book, so in theory it should be a quick read. I'd suggest you pick it up if even for only understanding JavaScript better.
Doug Crockford recently wrote a book about this very issue of avoiding problems. It's called Javascript: The Good Parts I've been reading it (haven't finished yet) and it's quite good. He's very detailed about how the internals of the language work so you know why to use the "good parts" and a few reasons to avoid the really "bad parts". It's worth the few dollars for anyone that uses JavaScript regularly.
There are already some Javascript games out there. Two examples I can think of off the top of my head are:
Processed Tower Defense is a strategy game where you try to defeat waves of dangerous monsters before they reach your tower. Of course, its less of a tower and more of a blueish square on the right side of the screen, but the idea stands.
It is created using the Canvas element and the Processing.js Library by John Resig
Track Attack is a puzzle game where you have to lay out the tracks to to the destination so that the train does not crash. Yes, I am aware that I made this game, and I am aware it's still a work in progress.
I know for a fact that your first loophole does exist. The time limit is 18 months since the last time you contacted them that they can call you back. That also pertains to finishing any business you have with them as well. I used to work in the student loan industry, and it was really common for Freshmen to call and want to consolidate their loans for a lower interest rate. The problem with that was that they couldn't consolidate until they got out of school (graduated or otherwise). If they didn't call back before 18 months, then we could not call them again to remind them of their interest in consolidating. I can't remember if it also applied to sending them something in the mail, but I doubt it.
We hadn't ever tried selling on behalf of another company, but I can see how a greedy PHB would think of that.
Slashdot Mirror
I would have to agree. I work for a hospital coding the electronic forms for the insurance carriers. That's all I do, and I'm not the only person. The carriers change their requirements all the time, which causes claims to be denied. Then we have to change how we submit those claims and re-submit them and hope they aren't denied again. Sure we get paid, but it costs the hospital quite a bit to have all of us employed to get that money in the door. I can't say if the carriers purposefully change their requirements so that they don't have to pay, but sometimes it really feels like it. Why else would they ask for the same doctor's identification number in three different places on the same electronic file? They're excuse is "but we can't find that doctor" even though we're just copying the same number to a different place.
Unfortunately the money has to come from somewhere. Shortly after WWII (which cost us $238B after inflation it would be about $5T) the highest tax bracket was in the 90% range. People got houses under the new FHA and VA loans, and new companies were created (though not as many as after the top marginal tax rate was reduced by the Johnson administration which Kennedy had been pushing for). Companies didn't move overseas to more favorable countries then, though I would concede that moving overseas would probably have been more of an involved process than it is today and that economic situations of the world were obviously different.
The current Iraq war, so far, has cost us $500B and the highest tax bracket pays something like 35%. That money has to come from somewhere, and unfortunately neither party is willing to actually decrease our deficit in any sort of substantial way, so now we're stuck with a national debt that is almost insurmountable.
We currently owe over $10T which comes out to about $37,747.83 per person in the US (population of 305,363,780 though this number keeps changing). That number also includes children. The average household size is 3.2 (I'll round it to 2 parents and one child). Now the amount to each tax payer (203,575,853 of them) owes is $49,121.74. The problem with that number is that it doesn't account for the people that are in retirement and not contributing to the tax system. According to the same population website, there were 37,191,004 people 65 and older in the year 2006 (we'll have to assume that they are all retired, though that's not entirely the case). Now the amount each tax payer owes is $60,101.63
The madness needs to stop someday. This whole "credit crisis" is all due to everyone living beyond their means (individuals, corporations, and government). We need someone to actually do the tough job of cutting spending so that we can all live within our means. We probably even need to cut back even more than that so that we can repay our debts. It is unfortunate that we live in an unjust world, and so the people who have lived within their means (like me, and probably many people on here) are hit with this credit issue just as hard as the people who were reckless with their money.
I will also state that tax cuts generally do contribute to the growth of the economy, but only as long as the burden of debt interest is under control. If we continue borrowing the amounts of money we are today, and our creditors decide that we cannot pay it back and stop lending to us, then no matter how good our economy is at the time it will decline sharply due to the lack of money in the market. One way to defend against that is to print more money, but that devalues the dollar and makes international trade more and more difficult which also affects the economy negatively.
So, with all that said, who has the most money? Rich people of course. What do they typically do with their money? Try to make more money, which is usually through investments, which help other large companies. Those large companies then probably employ more people. Is it fair to ask the plumber/electrician/factory worker to pay his/her share of the national debt when that amount is so much more of a percent of their savings than
Don't forget those of us who kill every plant they try to bring into their house. Even house plants die at my house. I think I might be the plant Grim Reaper, but it's probably that I just don't know anything about plants (too much, or too little and/or sunlight).
I saw a guy with a big nose wearing a party hat when looking at it right to left.
I never said anything about living forever, that's an absurd expectancy. I would not consider (under normal circumstances) that a socialized health care system is "stealing". Most people would be contributing to the system. The people who couldn't afford health care before were still receiving basic care at a cost to the hospitals and state anyway.
I currently work for a hospital, and I can confirm that the cost of the pacemaker itself is about $3,500 to $5,000, but you also have the hospital stay (a day or two), the cost of the other equipment, the cost of the doctors, etc. You're looking at about $10,000+ for the implant. A bi-ventricular implant will run about $20,000+.
I, just like you, have not purchased a new computer in about 6 years. I've saved up a fairly decent amount of money, and I could afford a hospital stay or two. My wife and I just had a new baby boy about 5 months ago. We had planned a home birth for personal and financial reasons (a midwife is a lot less expensive than a hospital birth). We live just a few blocks from the hospital, so if something came up, we knew we'd have adequate medical care. When the baby did come, my wife labored for about 24 hours until we decided it was time to go the hospital. To make a long story short, my son ended up in the NICU for a few days and my wife had an unplanned cesarean. Without insurance, I would have had to pay about $25,000. I do have insurance through my employer, so I was lucky in that regard, but if I was poor and didn't have as good an insurance plan (or none at all), then I would have basically been screwed. Medical costs are the #1 cause of bankruptcy in America (a little old, but I think it's still the case).
I think the doctors deserve to be paid well, but people also deserve to have medical care. I also think that the cost of a socialized health care system is a hard pill to swallow, but I'm currently paying a "tax" into my insurance plan anyway (total cost is over $12,000/yr including what the employer pays). Private care could definitely co-exist, but that's getting a little off-topic.
The problem here is with emergency situations. Any normal person would be freaked out, and the last thing on their mind would be money. Now with worrying about living they have to deal with the insurance company stating that some procedure won't be covered, but they're being told that this procedure is the best chance they have. Why should anyone have to make their case to live?
I used to be against a socialized medical system, but over the years I have come to realize that health care should be a right, and not a privilege.
Wow, there sure are a lot more panics, recessions, and depressions than I had previously known. Unfortunately it looks like history keeps repeating itself.
I just got done reading an article about the Economic Panic of 1873 and how that depression more closely resembles what's currently happening. This might explain why Bryan was talking about bank failures. It was still fresh in their minds.
http://chronicle.com/temp/reprint.php?id=477k3d8mh2wmtpc4b6h07p4hy9z83x18
One time I was trying to remove a hard drive from an older system that was stuck in a tight spot. I had to pull kind of hard and ended up cutting my thumb when it finally sprang free. My son was watching the whole time, and now whenever I'm taking my computer apart he tells me, "Be careful so you don't hurt your thumb."
I guess I was wrong about the ING account numbers, but I was mostly referring to the other account numbers. I just checked, and my other verified accounts I can transfer to do not show the full numbers, so I would not have to worry about my personal banking account number being discovered. I had to enter them when I set up the account, but they do not display that information after the initial setup. Obviously a check has the account number on it (as well as the routing number).
The full numbers of the accounts are never displayed after you create an account. All they would get would be the last four digits.
For JavaScript I head over to
developer.mozilla.org
It's pretty clear, but unfortunately you still have to watch out for browser incompatibilities. They sometimes will have a note about it though.
Would it be a good idea to replace the water with mineral oil? I'm sure a lot of you have seen the computers submerged in mineral oil, so it would probably just cause a mess if there was a leak. The problem with mineral oil (based on my limited knowledge from searching just now) is that it's not as efficient at removing heat as water, and after time the oil breaks down and needs replacing to remain at its most efficient. I'm not sure if the heat levels from a server would be high enough to degrade the oil though. I'm also uncertain if the oil would cause any damage to the pumps (or whatever pushes the liquid around) in the water cooling system.
execution speed of javascript has never really been my most important issue
I agree. The performance of JS has never been that big of an issue. The problem I think they're facing is that in order to innovate, you have to break from the standard (or the standard that IE uses) which causes cross-browser compatibility issues. So, instead of possibly causing issues they're looking at improving other areas, which in this case is speed. By doing so they're probably hoping that they'll be able to increase their market share that much more. By having a larger market share, then they can help better to drive innovation. That and the DOM is a completely different standard than JS. The DOM really needs to be revamped. JS is really boring without the DOM, but at least core JS is mostly compatible across browsers.
At least IE natively will let you debug JS!
That's the first I've heard of that. In order to debug JavaScript you either have to have Office installed, or download the MS Script Debugger. IE does report errors, but their description is horrible. I've found that just the error console in Firefox is much, much better than IE's error reporting. You really should look into Firebug. It's invaluable
Can someone explain how they could travel 3 to 5 times faster than the wind is blowing? I'm thoroughly confused on how that's possible. Is the vertical wing producing less air pressure towards the front providing forward momentum?
The fact still remains that people use IE, because that's "the Internet" on their computer. It's been suggested that Adobe might include these plugins (there's also one in the works for the canvas element) with their Flash installer. That would greatly increase the number of people with IE that would support some of the features that are already available in FF/Opera/Safari.
I think that people who don't have permission to install the plugins just won't be able to do so, but they wouldn't be able to install FF anyway.
As the GP pointed out, the plants in question are prairie grass, for the most part (I'm talking beef here). Sometimes people even use the straw and chaff from the harvesting of grains, but it's not as nutritious for the cows. The last I checked, humans weren't capable of breaking down the fibers in grass or straw.
Disclaimer: I grew up farming, and relatives raised cattle, pigs, and chicken.
Disclaimer 2: we buy organic milk, mostly because the dairy cows are typically fed better which affects the taste of the milk.
Does anyone have some links to programming tools for the Victor-70? A BASIC interpreter was mentioned in one of the articles. I know I should STFW, but I'm at work and /. has already degraded my productivity enough.
He definitely has a point with A. and some with B. (though it's a matter of opinion), but C. is just FUD. He obviously doesn't understand JavaScript (not the DOM, JavaScript is not just the DOM). JavaScript can produce very elegant code if you know what you're doing. I'm sure you can get some pretty nasty C# spaghetti code too (though it may not be as likely). I doubt that any language will replace JavaScript any time soon. All the different browsers would have to support whatever replaces it almost simultaneously. Flash is getting close, but it seems the community is treating Silverlight as a "me too" offering from MS. /rant
His comments about Mozilla are pretty interesting. I appreciate the work on Mono that they've been doing, but it's still strange to be at the mercy of MS whenever they make a change to their setup. That alone will leave Mono/Moonlight at least one step behind and could be used as an argument for only using Windows.
I've had the book for about a month now. I've read most of it, but I haven't finished it yet due to work and personal projects and tv and games... Anyway, I think it is really well written. Doug is definitely has a very intimate knowledge of the subject, but his writing comes across more like a guide than an expert. He takes an approach kind of like taking you on a tour of the language. It's a pretty short book, so in theory it should be a quick read. I'd suggest you pick it up if even for only understanding JavaScript better.
Doug Crockford recently wrote a book about this very issue of avoiding problems. It's called Javascript: The Good Parts I've been reading it (haven't finished yet) and it's quite good. He's very detailed about how the internals of the language work so you know why to use the "good parts" and a few reasons to avoid the really "bad parts". It's worth the few dollars for anyone that uses JavaScript regularly.
There are already some Javascript games out there. Two examples I can think of off the top of my head are:
Processed Tower Defense is a strategy game where you try to defeat waves of dangerous monsters before they reach your tower. Of course, its less of a tower and more of a blueish square on the right side of the screen, but the idea stands.
It is created using the Canvas element and the Processing.js Library by John Resig
Track Attack is a puzzle game where you have to lay out the tracks to to the destination so that the train does not crash. Yes, I am aware that I made this game, and I am aware it's still a work in progress.
I know for a fact that your first loophole does exist. The time limit is 18 months since the last time you contacted them that they can call you back. That also pertains to finishing any business you have with them as well. I used to work in the student loan industry, and it was really common for Freshmen to call and want to consolidate their loans for a lower interest rate. The problem with that was that they couldn't consolidate until they got out of school (graduated or otherwise). If they didn't call back before 18 months, then we could not call them again to remind them of their interest in consolidating. I can't remember if it also applied to sending them something in the mail, but I doubt it.
We hadn't ever tried selling on behalf of another company, but I can see how a greedy PHB would think of that.