I do want to point out one misconception you seem to have about the existing proposals, including the John Edwards proposal which, right now, is the most detailed.
In their plans, there would still be multiple insurance companies. In fact, the insurance companies themselves would see no difference (or very little..) in the way they operate.
You would, as an individual, be able to chose which insurance company you sign up with. This brings market forces to bear, which will cause companies to compete on the level of services offered. So you go onto the Guv website for such matter, review available insurance plans--probably still a mix of HMO and PPO, each with different co-pays--and select the one you want. Upon doing so, the government simply pays the insurance company in the same way your employer is now.
The money to do this comes from a tax on businesses and a tax on citizens. In Edwards' plan, he levies no taxes upon the middle class, and instead choses to pay for it by restoring the 2000-era tax code for the top 1% of wage earners. In other plans, they raise taxes on all americans by an average of 1 percentage point (NOT one percent).
There would still be competition among providers, there would still be competition among insurance companies. All the existing healthcare infrastructure would be utilized and kept in place. The only companies that WOULD suffer are so called "benefit management services" like UMR who handle the busy-work of maintaining an insurance program. My company, for example, hires UMR and pays them a huge fee every month and they use that money to select the best contact with, say, Aetna. These companies would probably lose much of their revenue and I believe that there should be provisions for 3 months of federal unemployment assistance and training grants for these employees, in addition to their state unemployment compensation.
Furthermore, there will be federal jobs created for this program.
What I am suggesting is a SOCIAL PROGRAM, it doesn't make our government SOCIALIST, despite how many people you try to scare by saying so. It wouldn't make the US any more of a Socialist government than Social Security does.
Furthermore, you once again try to scare people by pointing at Canada and the UK and saying "See! That's what will happen!" Either you KNOW that's bullshit and you're lying to advance your agenda, or you actually just don't understand the difference. I'm not sure which is worse.
Canadas system was originally designed to emulate the UKs NHS. Both are SINGLE PROVIDER systems. Some provinces have recently begun to encourage parallel private-sector development of health care infrustructure that will eventually create a hybrid Single Provider/Single Payer system in that country.
NOTHING LIKE THIS is being suggested in the USA. So when you try to scare people about how Canadians are comming to the US for health care, using that as a dogma to prevent national health care in this country, you're misleading people unless you explain the difference. And the difference is a mile wide and mile deep. The only way their similar at all is that it's the government providing them.
It would be like saying "In italy the average prime minister only has a tenure of one year, so we shouldn't have a head of state in America." It's THAT misleading.
Furthermore, you say that national health care is bad for, among other reasons, "the government can run out of money." And then you suggest that in the private sector, people will just pay more when that have to. This makes me wonder if you really grasp the concept we're working with here. Wealth must be created somehow. At the end of the day, why is it any different if a company pays rising premiums to the Insurance Companies or if they pay rising premiums to the Government? The only difference is that in your world, taxes are bad and corporate profits are good. Giving the GOVERNMENT more money to provide health care is "raising taxes" but paying HUGE INCREASES EVERY YEAR to insurance companies (as has been the norm for 20 years now) is the free-market economy at it's best. Oh please.
Not to mention, your comment that a private sector has a "nearly unlimited pot of money" runs right in the face of consumers who are feeling the sting of compounding health care costs. There is NOT an unlimited pot of money. Our existing system is BROKEN and it needs to be fixed. Furthermore, American corporations are becomming increasing uncompetitive in the world market because they are saddled with the huge cost of subsidizing health care for employees and retirees while their overseas competitors are not.
You talk about how great out healthcare system is. First, it ought to be great, because it's loads more expensive per citizen than any other first world nation (Even those that are Socialized). This takes wind out of your argument that it will somehow drive prices up (As if the free market was pushing them down. Puh-leese). Not to mention, how good do you think it is for the FIFTY MILLION AMERICANS that don't have coverage? We spend TEN PERCENT of our GDP on health care--it's by far the largest industry in America--and still, 50 Million people remain without the health care they need.
In other words, your post showed a complete lack of understanding of the history of American health care, where it is today, and how we compare to other nations.
And please, if you want to argue against it, leave your straw-men out of it. There is no comparsion between any of the Democratic plans and the SINGLE PROVIDER systems used in the UK and Canada. Debate it on it's merits or just keep quiet about it.
...So that you morons will waste all your mod points.
It's not my fault that you have no concept of what the moderation system is for. Here's a clue: It's not there for you to editorialize the comments. That's not why it was intended, and if you're using it that way, you're contributing to the cheapening of this community. Why do you even care about Slashdot if you don't care to use it properly.
You're probably the same kind of person that checks Wikipedia and rolls back edits every time they change something that you personally wrote.
So go ahead, mod this -2 Troll. You know you want to. Waste those points so that other people with contradictory opinions can be heard without fearing that some idiot who can't express ideas with his own words will take his aggression out on them.
Google Documents is still very much in it's infancy as well, and not at all ready for wide-spread business use. I was stunned when i tried it out last week that there are a ton of warnings when trying to do something as simple as Find and Replace.
Among other things, that very basic and relied-upon feature is listed as "Experimental," it doesn't offer a "Replace" option, but only a "Replace All" and it is not able to be Un-Done.
That told me volumes about just how far this application has to go.
Just because it's by far the best web-based document editor in existence doesn't mean it's ready to compete head to head with Word.
I think it's great for personal use, especially for people like me who use GMail, but it's just not something I'd be ready to run a business on.
...man, I knew putting the Blu Ray drive in the cell phone was a bad idea...
The good news is that they include a Reality Distortion Field inside every iPhone, so you don't even care about spending 1/2 a weeks salary on something that will still drop calls when you're in the elevator.
PS. Hey you, yea you, with the mod points. Why don't you actually reply to this with your ideas instead of just editorializing by modding me down? I only say this because lets face it, anyone that DARE speak the slightest ill of the Cult of Jobs gets handed their charred karma and asked to leave.
I'm so tired of people just MAKING THINGS UP as they go along.
Federal tax rates in Canada are nowhere NEAR 48% for an average Canadian. Quebec has the highest tax rates of any province and if you made $80k in Quebec, you'd pay (on average) 32.61%. B.C. has one of the lowest tax rates and there you'd only pay about 25% on your $80k a year.
Furthermore, $80k is TWICE what the average Canadian earns. At $40k the tax rates of Quebec and B.C. are 23.7% and 18.7%, respectively.
So please, save it. I'm positive you won't have the gull to actually reply to this considering I just completely owned you, but I encourage you to do so nonetheless.
On a related topic, I'm sick of Republicans fear mongering over socialized medicine. The first things you hear out of their mouths when you talk of it is shit like "Great, let's just nationalize entire industries" and "Wait until we have Government Doctors. You won't even trust going to an American hospital" I've heard both of these comments in the past week alone.
Here's a clue: There is a HUGE DIFFERENCE between socialized medicine and SOCIALISM. There is a radical idea called the "Mixed Market Economy" and it's THRIVING in such backwards places as, oh, I don't know, Germany, UK, Italy, and basically every NATO country EXCEPT the United States.
Furthermore, nobody is advocating a SINGLE PROVIDER health care system in America. What we're talking about is a SINGLE PAYER system. That means the hospitals will still be privately run. Unless you go to a VA Hospital you won't ever meet a "Government Doctor." The _only_ difference is who pays the bills. Right now, most americans with insurance belong to a group plan paid for by their employer. In the Democrats' plans (all of them) the only difference is that your employer will take the money they're spending on insurance, give it to the US Government, they'll raise tax rates nominally on all Americans to supplement his employer money, and the US Government becomes the "Single Payer" to _all_ insurance claims. In most proposals, the insurance companies themselves aren't even affected. You, as a citizen, get to chose which company you sign up with--offering competition and innovation--and the Government pays your premiums.
Yes, it means that I will be paying slightly more for insurance, since I already have it, and my tax rates would likely go up about one percentage point. However, that's a small price to pay. Right now 1 in every $10 dollars spent in America is spent on Health Care, yet we still have a HUGE percentage of our country without coverage. This is got to stop.
Vote Democrat in 2008! (Preferably Obama! Barack the Vote!)
Everyone is entitled to their opinion, but tell me this...
Your comment is that "C# is just VB[.net] with curly braces"
Tell me: What would make it NOT just like VB.Net with curly braces?
I mean, it was written by a separate team. It has a separate compiler (obv) It has features not found in VB.Net (as you mentioned..) It has a different name.
Really, the only thing that _is_ similar about them is that they both compile down to MSIL.
I'm just trying to understand your thinking.
And why is this different, than, say, C++ and C, which both compile down to machine code?
While there _is_ a finite number of writes, that is _per sector_ not _per chip_. So after a while you will notice gradually decreasing capacity, it won't just fail outright.
Furthermore, the numbers I've been seeing have been closer to 1MM erase-write cycles per sector.
from Wikipedia:
"Another limitation is that flash memory has a finite number of erase-write cycles (most commercially available flash products are guaranteed to withstand 1 million programming cycles). This effect is partially offset by some chip firmware or file system drivers by counting the writes and dynamically remapping the blocks in order to spread the write operations between the sectors. This technique is called wear levelling. Another mechanism is to perform write verification and remapping to spare sectors in case of write failure, which is named Bad Block Management (BBM)."
I really _am_ a true American patriot. Probably equal to or greater to any you've ever met. I git misty eyed when they play the national anthem and I suck down history and historical biography like most Americans suck down quarter pounders. (Yes, I've been known to have an affinity to the Quarter Pounders, too, I'm not pointing fingers).
That being said, even _I_ can see the awesome irony and humor in the fact that these immigrants--seeking freedom from opression--sailed across the Atlantic and basically immediately began a systematic genocide of the indigenous people. I mean, slavery was horrible and bad, but nothing like the American genocide.
And I really do try to empathize with the Natives. I really do. It's difficult, because my only background is traditional European, but I try. The 'humor' comment shouldn't be taken as me minimizing the situation. The humor is only the fact that these people--seeking freedom--basically had no issues with brutually murdering millions of innocents.
the geek in my pictures the flying saucer landing. The green men walking out. "We come in peace" they say. Then they whip out their ray guns and start Vaporizing humans.
Your guess is certainly as good as mine, but my question is this: If googles plan was _really_ just to index YouTube as part of it's mission to blah blah all the worlds data, why would they need to BUY the site? I mean, they can index it without owning it. Witness: every other fricken site on the internet.....So....
My theory is that Google is going to use YouTube as it's platform for jumping into Video-based advertising.
Everyone knows that they're an advertising company. Their purchase of dMarc last year confirmed that. They say they're having a tough go of the radio advertising industry but they have enough revenue that they can keep trying and trying until something sticks.
Eventually, they're going to want to distribute targeted advertising via IPTV. I think it _will_ happen eventually, but you don't just go from text ads to serving targeted video to 175MM households. You need some stepping stones, of which YouTube, I'm convinced, is just the first.
I am _positive_ that Nextel ran a GSM network, as my phone from a previous employer had a sim in it. So, at the very minimum, Sprint (which, of course, owns Nextel now) runs a dual mode network.
That isn't unheard of: Cingular operates both networks, as well, due to their AT&T Acquisition. They are, however, phasing out the CDMA network.
I hope you're right, because if that article is correct, we'll all be speaking more often with Filipinos.
And, for what it's worth, I'm certain that Filipinos would prefer that their jobs stay in the Philippines and are not exported to the mainland USA. Same thing for India. I'm certain that Indian cellphone companies would prefer NOT to have to talk to an American with a fake Indian name.
When Cingular needs Apple more than Apple needs Cingular?
i think you're over-estimating Apples command in this market. Even if they reach iPod-like sales numbers (which that maybe could, but I'm skeptical), they won't have iPod like control in the market. The MP3 player industry basically didn't EXIST until Apple created the iPod. They say that pioneers get the arrows and settlers get the land. Well, Apple was the one big settler in that market. The cell phone market is already very mature. Motorola, for example, has been making them for nearly 30 years. It doesn't mean that it won't be an enormous success, but even then...
Not to mention, Cingular is the largest cell phone provider. That would be like closing the Apple stores in New York, LA, and Chicago. It wouldn't KILL them, but it would be a disservice to their shareholders to ignore the largest markets.
I'm pretty sure that Verizon is the only non-GSM american carrier. I could be wrong, but I KNOW that Cingular and T-Mobile are, and I think that Alltel and Sprint are, but I'm not positive.
But they're STILL going to give them American names. And they're STILL going to train them to lie about "setting of fireworks" and "eating turkey on thanksgiving" and they're STILL not going to understand all slang and they're STILL not going to understand common pop-culture references. Training can help, but things still will be far inferior to American based tech support. What's more, the companies KNOW THIS. That's why if you call American Express for your Green Card (as in Green American Express Card), you get their indian line. But if you call for your Black Card, you get Americans. Or if you call Dells premium tech support, you get American, etc.
You're right-- I don't know any NATIVE Filipinos. I do know some AMERICAN Filipinos, but that's different. (Yes, I understand that the Phillipines are an American protectorate so they could all be considered somewhat 'american' but you know what I meant)
My post wasn't meant to insult Filipinos or any other nationality. I hope you don't take it as such.
On a late night public radio call-in show (put out by American Public Media), they had a story about the overseas call centers. It was a great story. They played clips of the training classes where they teach these indians to lie about what they did on the 4th of july or what they ate for Thanksgiving. It was sickening.
But then they interview this "industry representitive" who basically said what we all have been: The American people are not satisfied with the level of service they get from Indian call centers, and that many companies are closing them.
I momentarily though "wow, thank god, that's a trend that can't be over too soon."
Then he pulls out the punchline: Many of the closed Indian operations are being moved to the Phillipines, because people have less of a negative impression when the phillipino accent is played back to them.
I swear to god it's like the RIAA is running the call center industry.
I was SCREAMING at the radio that the only reason Filipino accents don't score as badly as Indian accents are that Americans haven't called tech support yet and had to deal with under-trained Filipinos nearly as much as they've had to deal with under-trained Indians.
So yes, that's their bright idea. So if Dell does accept the "Close your indian call centers" suggest, don't expect much of an improvement. Maybe we should be a little more specific and suggest that they move their call centers only to NATO countries, and preferably the US, Canada or the UK.
I'm not sure of the source, but this is the first definition I found in a few mins of googling:
"An agent of the state is an individual or incorporated entity that, by formal contractual arrangement with the state, exerts authority over other individuals and/or incorporated entities, beyond the authorities defined in contracts entered between the former and the latter, in fulfillment of state responsibilities as enumerated in law."
Slashdot Mirror
How did I insinuate they were stupid?
I do want to point out one misconception you seem to have about the existing proposals, including the John Edwards proposal which, right now, is the most detailed.
In their plans, there would still be multiple insurance companies. In fact, the insurance companies themselves would see no difference (or very little..) in the way they operate.
You would, as an individual, be able to chose which insurance company you sign up with. This brings market forces to bear, which will cause companies to compete on the level of services offered. So you go onto the Guv website for such matter, review available insurance plans--probably still a mix of HMO and PPO, each with different co-pays--and select the one you want. Upon doing so, the government simply pays the insurance company in the same way your employer is now.
The money to do this comes from a tax on businesses and a tax on citizens. In Edwards' plan, he levies no taxes upon the middle class, and instead choses to pay for it by restoring the 2000-era tax code for the top 1% of wage earners. In other plans, they raise taxes on all americans by an average of 1 percentage point (NOT one percent).
There would still be competition among providers, there would still be competition among insurance companies. All the existing healthcare infrastructure would be utilized and kept in place. The only companies that WOULD suffer are so called "benefit management services" like UMR who handle the busy-work of maintaining an insurance program. My company, for example, hires UMR and pays them a huge fee every month and they use that money to select the best contact with, say, Aetna. These companies would probably lose much of their revenue and I believe that there should be provisions for 3 months of federal unemployment assistance and training grants for these employees, in addition to their state unemployment compensation.
Furthermore, there will be federal jobs created for this program.
The numbers I gave are the combo Province + Federal.
_ Calculators_-_2005_Personal_Tax
See:
http://www.ey.com/global/content.nsf/Canada/Tax_-
I meant to include the link in my OP but I left it out..
What I am suggesting is a SOCIAL PROGRAM, it doesn't make our government SOCIALIST, despite how many people you try to scare by saying so. It wouldn't make the US any more of a Socialist government than Social Security does.
Furthermore, you once again try to scare people by pointing at Canada and the UK and saying "See! That's what will happen!" Either you KNOW that's bullshit and you're lying to advance your agenda, or you actually just don't understand the difference. I'm not sure which is worse.
Canadas system was originally designed to emulate the UKs NHS. Both are SINGLE PROVIDER systems. Some provinces have recently begun to encourage parallel private-sector development of health care infrustructure that will eventually create a hybrid Single Provider/Single Payer system in that country.
NOTHING LIKE THIS is being suggested in the USA. So when you try to scare people about how Canadians are comming to the US for health care, using that as a dogma to prevent national health care in this country, you're misleading people unless you explain the difference. And the difference is a mile wide and mile deep. The only way their similar at all is that it's the government providing them.
It would be like saying "In italy the average prime minister only has a tenure of one year, so we shouldn't have a head of state in America." It's THAT misleading.
Furthermore, you say that national health care is bad for, among other reasons, "the government can run out of money." And then you suggest that in the private sector, people will just pay more when that have to. This makes me wonder if you really grasp the concept we're working with here. Wealth must be created somehow. At the end of the day, why is it any different if a company pays rising premiums to the Insurance Companies or if they pay rising premiums to the Government? The only difference is that in your world, taxes are bad and corporate profits are good. Giving the GOVERNMENT more money to provide health care is "raising taxes" but paying HUGE INCREASES EVERY YEAR to insurance companies (as has been the norm for 20 years now) is the free-market economy at it's best. Oh please.
Not to mention, your comment that a private sector has a "nearly unlimited pot of money" runs right in the face of consumers who are feeling the sting of compounding health care costs. There is NOT an unlimited pot of money. Our existing system is BROKEN and it needs to be fixed. Furthermore, American corporations are becomming increasing uncompetitive in the world market because they are saddled with the huge cost of subsidizing health care for employees and retirees while their overseas competitors are not.
You talk about how great out healthcare system is. First, it ought to be great, because it's loads more expensive per citizen than any other first world nation (Even those that are Socialized). This takes wind out of your argument that it will somehow drive prices up (As if the free market was pushing them down. Puh-leese). Not to mention, how good do you think it is for the FIFTY MILLION AMERICANS that don't have coverage? We spend TEN PERCENT of our GDP on health care--it's by far the largest industry in America--and still, 50 Million people remain without the health care they need.
In other words, your post showed a complete lack of understanding of the history of American health care, where it is today, and how we compare to other nations.
And please, if you want to argue against it, leave your straw-men out of it. There is no comparsion between any of the Democratic plans and the SINGLE PROVIDER systems used in the UK and Canada. Debate it on it's merits or just keep quiet about it.
...So that you morons will waste all your mod points.
It's not my fault that you have no concept of what the moderation system is for. Here's a clue: It's not there for you to editorialize the comments. That's not why it was intended, and if you're using it that way, you're contributing to the cheapening of this community. Why do you even care about Slashdot if you don't care to use it properly.
You're probably the same kind of person that checks Wikipedia and rolls back edits every time they change something that you personally wrote.
So go ahead, mod this -2 Troll. You know you want to. Waste those points so that other people with contradictory opinions can be heard without fearing that some idiot who can't express ideas with his own words will take his aggression out on them.
Google Documents is still very much in it's infancy as well, and not at all ready for wide-spread business use. I was stunned when i tried it out last week that there are a ton of warnings when trying to do something as simple as Find and Replace.
Among other things, that very basic and relied-upon feature is listed as "Experimental," it doesn't offer a "Replace" option, but only a "Replace All" and it is not able to be Un-Done.
That told me volumes about just how far this application has to go.
Just because it's by far the best web-based document editor in existence doesn't mean it's ready to compete head to head with Word.
I think it's great for personal use, especially for people like me who use GMail, but it's just not something I'd be ready to run a business on.
...man, I knew putting the Blu Ray drive in the cell phone was a bad idea...
The good news is that they include a Reality Distortion Field inside every iPhone, so you don't even care about spending 1/2 a weeks salary on something that will still drop calls when you're in the elevator.
PS. Hey you, yea you, with the mod points. Why don't you actually reply to this with your ideas instead of just editorializing by modding me down? I only say this because lets face it, anyone that DARE speak the slightest ill of the Cult of Jobs gets handed their charred karma and asked to leave.
I'm so tired of people just MAKING THINGS UP as they go along.
Federal tax rates in Canada are nowhere NEAR 48% for an average Canadian. Quebec has the highest tax rates of any province and if you made $80k in Quebec, you'd pay (on average) 32.61%. B.C. has one of the lowest tax rates and there you'd only pay about 25% on your $80k a year.
Furthermore, $80k is TWICE what the average Canadian earns. At $40k the tax rates of Quebec and B.C. are 23.7% and 18.7%, respectively.
So please, save it. I'm positive you won't have the gull to actually reply to this considering I just completely owned you, but I encourage you to do so nonetheless.
On a related topic, I'm sick of Republicans fear mongering over socialized medicine. The first things you hear out of their mouths when you talk of it is shit like "Great, let's just nationalize entire industries" and "Wait until we have Government Doctors. You won't even trust going to an American hospital" I've heard both of these comments in the past week alone.
Here's a clue: There is a HUGE DIFFERENCE between socialized medicine and SOCIALISM. There is a radical idea called the "Mixed Market Economy" and it's THRIVING in such backwards places as, oh, I don't know, Germany, UK, Italy, and basically every NATO country EXCEPT the United States.
Furthermore, nobody is advocating a SINGLE PROVIDER health care system in America. What we're talking about is a SINGLE PAYER system. That means the hospitals will still be privately run. Unless you go to a VA Hospital you won't ever meet a "Government Doctor." The _only_ difference is who pays the bills. Right now, most americans with insurance belong to a group plan paid for by their employer. In the Democrats' plans (all of them) the only difference is that your employer will take the money they're spending on insurance, give it to the US Government, they'll raise tax rates nominally on all Americans to supplement his employer money, and the US Government becomes the "Single Payer" to _all_ insurance claims. In most proposals, the insurance companies themselves aren't even affected. You, as a citizen, get to chose which company you sign up with--offering competition and innovation--and the Government pays your premiums.
Yes, it means that I will be paying slightly more for insurance, since I already have it, and my tax rates would likely go up about one percentage point. However, that's a small price to pay. Right now 1 in every $10 dollars spent in America is spent on Health Care, yet we still have a HUGE percentage of our country without coverage. This is got to stop.
Vote Democrat in 2008! (Preferably Obama! Barack the Vote!)
The one fucking republican on Slashdot got mod point today...
You spelled "Jale" wrong.
Everyone is entitled to their opinion, but tell me this...
Your comment is that "C# is just VB[.net] with curly braces"
Tell me: What would make it NOT just like VB.Net with curly braces?
I mean, it was written by a separate team.
It has a separate compiler (obv)
It has features not found in VB.Net (as you mentioned..)
It has a different name.
Really, the only thing that _is_ similar about them is that they both compile down to MSIL.
I'm just trying to understand your thinking.
And why is this different, than, say, C++ and C, which both compile down to machine code?
Compact Disk Database, Bitch
Technically speaking I misspoke. They _do_ sell GSM phones. This I am positive about. I _had_ one.
While there _is_ a finite number of writes, that is _per sector_ not _per chip_. So after a while you will notice gradually decreasing capacity, it won't just fail outright.
Furthermore, the numbers I've been seeing have been closer to 1MM erase-write cycles per sector.
from Wikipedia:
"Another limitation is that flash memory has a finite number of erase-write cycles (most commercially available flash products are guaranteed to withstand 1 million programming cycles). This effect is partially offset by some chip firmware or file system drivers by counting the writes and dynamically remapping the blocks in order to spread the write operations between the sectors. This technique is called wear levelling. Another mechanism is to perform write verification and remapping to spare sectors in case of write failure, which is named Bad Block Management (BBM)."
I really _am_ a true American patriot. Probably equal to or greater to any you've ever met. I git misty eyed when they play the national anthem and I suck down history and historical biography like most Americans suck down quarter pounders. (Yes, I've been known to have an affinity to the Quarter Pounders, too, I'm not pointing fingers).
That being said, even _I_ can see the awesome irony and humor in the fact that these immigrants--seeking freedom from opression--sailed across the Atlantic and basically immediately began a systematic genocide of the indigenous people. I mean, slavery was horrible and bad, but nothing like the American genocide.
And I really do try to empathize with the Natives. I really do. It's difficult, because my only background is traditional European, but I try. The 'humor' comment shouldn't be taken as me minimizing the situation. The humor is only the fact that these people--seeking freedom--basically had no issues with brutually murdering millions of innocents.
the geek in my pictures the flying saucer landing. The green men walking out. "We come in peace" they say. Then they whip out their ray guns and start Vaporizing humans.
Your guess is certainly as good as mine, but my question is this: If googles plan was _really_ just to index YouTube as part of it's mission to blah blah all the worlds data, why would they need to BUY the site? I mean, they can index it without owning it. Witness: every other fricken site on the internet. ....So....
My theory is that Google is going to use YouTube as it's platform for jumping into Video-based advertising.
Everyone knows that they're an advertising company. Their purchase of dMarc last year confirmed that. They say they're having a tough go of the radio advertising industry but they have enough revenue that they can keep trying and trying until something sticks.
Eventually, they're going to want to distribute targeted advertising via IPTV. I think it _will_ happen eventually, but you don't just go from text ads to serving targeted video to 175MM households. You need some stepping stones, of which YouTube, I'm convinced, is just the first.
I am _positive_ that Nextel ran a GSM network, as my phone from a previous employer had a sim in it. So, at the very minimum, Sprint (which, of course, owns Nextel now) runs a dual mode network.
That isn't unheard of: Cingular operates both networks, as well, due to their AT&T Acquisition. They are, however, phasing out the CDMA network.
"But trying to understand Slashdot logic is an exercise in futility, so whatever"
That, my friend, is something we can agree on....
I hope you're right, because if that article is correct, we'll all be speaking more often with Filipinos.
And, for what it's worth, I'm certain that Filipinos would prefer that their jobs stay in the Philippines and are not exported to the mainland USA. Same thing for India. I'm certain that Indian cellphone companies would prefer NOT to have to talk to an American with a fake Indian name.
Come on.... that was a well thought out post and a fair point, whether or not you happen to agree with me....
When Cingular needs Apple more than Apple needs Cingular?
i think you're over-estimating Apples command in this market. Even if they reach iPod-like sales numbers (which that maybe could, but I'm skeptical), they won't have iPod like control in the market. The MP3 player industry basically didn't EXIST until Apple created the iPod. They say that pioneers get the arrows and settlers get the land. Well, Apple was the one big settler in that market. The cell phone market is already very mature. Motorola, for example, has been making them for nearly 30 years. It doesn't mean that it won't be an enormous success, but even then...
Not to mention, Cingular is the largest cell phone provider. That would be like closing the Apple stores in New York, LA, and Chicago. It wouldn't KILL them, but it would be a disservice to their shareholders to ignore the largest markets.
I'm pretty sure that Verizon is the only non-GSM american carrier. I could be wrong, but I KNOW that Cingular and T-Mobile are, and I think that Alltel and Sprint are, but I'm not positive.
But they're STILL going to give them American names. And they're STILL going to train them to lie about "setting of fireworks" and "eating turkey on thanksgiving" and they're STILL not going to understand all slang and they're STILL not going to understand common pop-culture references. Training can help, but things still will be far inferior to American based tech support. What's more, the companies KNOW THIS. That's why if you call American Express for your Green Card (as in Green American Express Card), you get their indian line. But if you call for your Black Card, you get Americans. Or if you call Dells premium tech support, you get American, etc.
You're right-- I don't know any NATIVE Filipinos. I do know some AMERICAN Filipinos, but that's different. (Yes, I understand that the Phillipines are an American protectorate so they could all be considered somewhat 'american' but you know what I meant)
My post wasn't meant to insult Filipinos or any other nationality. I hope you don't take it as such.
On a late night public radio call-in show (put out by American Public Media), they had a story about the overseas call centers. It was a great story. They played clips of the training classes where they teach these indians to lie about what they did on the 4th of july or what they ate for Thanksgiving. It was sickening.
But then they interview this "industry representitive" who basically said what we all have been: The American people are not satisfied with the level of service they get from Indian call centers, and that many companies are closing them.
I momentarily though "wow, thank god, that's a trend that can't be over too soon."
Then he pulls out the punchline: Many of the closed Indian operations are being moved to the Phillipines, because people have less of a negative impression when the phillipino accent is played back to them.
I swear to god it's like the RIAA is running the call center industry.
I was SCREAMING at the radio that the only reason Filipino accents don't score as badly as Indian accents are that Americans haven't called tech support yet and had to deal with under-trained Filipinos nearly as much as they've had to deal with under-trained Indians.
So yes, that's their bright idea. So if Dell does accept the "Close your indian call centers" suggest, don't expect much of an improvement. Maybe we should be a little more specific and suggest that they move their call centers only to NATO countries, and preferably the US, Canada or the UK.
I'm not sure of the source, but this is the first definition I found in a few mins of googling:
_ Construction_all.html
"An agent of the state is an individual or incorporated entity that, by
formal contractual arrangement with the state, exerts authority over
other individuals and/or incorporated entities, beyond the authorities
defined in contracts entered between the former and the latter, in
fulfillment of state responsibilities as enumerated in law."
http://www.mega.nu/webconst/chapter_Principles_of