Obviously you don't understand the concept of prepaid phones very well. You get the phone, you get the sim card and you update it once a year with some small number of minutes. Then anyone can call you, even if you are quite poor. Then anyone can afford to have a mobile phone, even if they cannot afford to call much. The technology spreads to the point of being universal and accessible and many more services are possible when anyone can have a phone. In 2001 at average there were two active phones per person in Czech Republic. (Some people had a phone with each operator so people could always call them in-network for cheaper calls.) Compare that with not even one mobile phone for 2 people in US even today.
Yes, I know Slashdot is a biased source, but when they make it that blatant I get really annoyed.
Do you realize that as long as you will make comments of this sort in a reaction to a biased articles like this one, it will increase the discussion volume for such articles and they will be more desirable for the slashdot editors to post? The one thing you can do to get less biased and trollish slashdot is to refuse to comment on article which you think is a poor editorial work no matter what the topic. Don't comment, don't read the discussion, just skip it.
New York City, has higher population than half of the European countries and higher population density than pretty much anywhere in the world in a place ideal for cell coverage. Still you cannot get a decent phone, cell service or even broadband at reasonable cost in NYC. Why? Same for San Francisco Bay Area. Again, no luck! You don't even have a 100% coverage like in most European countries in the Sillicon Valley. Now that is not excusable, its down right criminal. And don't get me started on paying for INCOMING calls and SMS, what is with that uniquely US model?!?
"Don't you feel like you're being ripped off paying for the health care of jobless people when you're busting a gut earning a living?"
I do live and work in US and I already pay in taxes for the health care of jobless people. It is called MEDICARE and constitutes approximately 2% of my taxes. On top of this I pay another 8% "tax" out of my paycheck in medical/vision/dental insurance. On top of that my employer has to pay for the "benefit" of health insurance, who's part of the bill is bigger than mine. Let's say 10% on top of my paycheck (and its likely more). Come to think of it, I am paying 20% of my gross salary on healthcare. And on top of it, I still pay at least $1000 in co-pays and other medical expenses a year. That is when I am still young and healthy.
Contrast this with my country of origin with a socialized healthcare, 4.5% in taxes from you and another 4.5% from the employer. No additional expenses.
I have learned this lesson by proxy. Anytime I met someone young gentleman from Texas, he was unfailingly polite. First I was saying, that it must be all the guns everyone is carrying around, but they do that in New Hampshire too and they are some mean sons of witches there. So if its not the guns, it must be the Grannies!
You are GUILTY, you are just not caught yet and its only a matter of time and luck when they decided to prosecute you for one of your many crimes and send you into prison for institutionalized rape. Try to think about it, seriously, ponder it for a while and than tell me how you cope and not go mad without being able to distance yourself from this harshest of realities. Humor is the easiest way for most people to distance themselves from a subject their mind would rather not deal with. Oh, you say you are not guilty? You ARE funny:)
In any case, if an interstellar ship could reach the earth once, why wouldn't they have sent a rescue party looking for their fallen comrades?
The closest star is some 4 light years away, the next one is about 10 or 12, I am not sure. Then it goes up. Lets say they are relatively on our doorstep on a star less than 50 light years away, we still have another 3 years before they will learn their aircraft was shot and about 53 years to get the war declaration message, providing we are able to receive it. And I'd say that around 70 to 100 years before their fleet shows up:)
The problems are a little different. For example in US the market dictates the distribution of hospitals across country, in state healthcare its the politics that dictates it. Which state or county will get more or less will be determined by the favors each congressman can gain in return for other bribes. The insurance companies still exist, but they have so many restrictions on their operation that often they push far into debt, which leads to shortages of medication in some hospitals. Often there is a point system where a doctor can only treat so many patients during a month or write so many prescriptions, which kind of sucks. As in: "I know I pulled all your teeth, but I don't have points to make you the prosthesis this month, sorry." Often its hard to get above standard care even if you are willing to pay extra for it. You might not get the correct medication, but a sort of close one, which is 10 times cheaper. You cannot pay for the more expensive. You might not even be treated for some ailments, since you are old and will die soon and any the medical malpractice insurance is nicely dealt with. There is no way to sue for medical malpractice. If you get radiation treatment overdose and get a stomach cancer as a result. too bad for you. Of course, your stomach cancer is treated for free, but that is all you get. Well not all, the funeral expenses are sometimes covered from the medical insurance. Depends on the system you are in. Half of the above cases are directly from my family medical history.
Should I choose between the US system and a universal healthcare, I would go for universal healthcare ANYTIME. But did Michael Moore put out a totally onesided view of the universal healthcare? Most definitely! I grew up in universal healthcare system and at 25 I moved to US and now live under the US system and strangely enough Kaiser Permanente in the level of care is actually the closest thing that resembles the universal healthcare we had. Imagine system where everyone is insured under Kaiser, it is the only option, and the only change is they cannot refuse treatment and cannot be sued for malpractice and you have a good picture of how universal healthcare works in most other countries.
I kind of like Michael Moore, but I have the experience of growing up in a state healthcare system and while I do wish that US would have a state healthcare like UK, for example, there is much to be said about the pitfalls of the state healthcare. None of those things were even hinted at by Michael Moore. He could not get his mind over the fact it is free and everyone has access to it. His propaganda piece was so one sided that I am afraid it will serve as a barrier for any attempt to introduce state guaranteed healthcare in US. All republicans have to do to defeat it, is to ignore the arguments of democrats and instead refute arguments of Michael Moore. And they are good at this subject changing game. This movie was a great troll piece. It will stir the debate, it will bring a lot of money to Michael Moore, but it will be detrimental to the efforts of people with real arguments.
The main argument, why you want to pay for healthcare of your neighbor, who cannot afford it, is that it is really hard to stay healthy around sick people. How can US even hope to contain any wide spread epidemics when quarter of the infected people are not going to seek medical care and will walk around spreading the disease further? This is totally insane and a time bomb waiting to explode. I would go as far as to suggest that in today's terrorism age a national healthcare should be on the top of the list of homeland security department. How else do you want to counter a biological WMD? And tell me, which one do you think is more likely nuclear, chemical or biological attack? I am pretty sure the biological has the lowest barrier to entry for a determined group of people, its far easiest to execute and far hardest to detect.
It also has geopolitical significance; "take my side or I shut off the taps" makes a nice threat, even when not spoken.
There is an old joke in Czech Republic (from the time when it was heavily under Russian influence in the 70'). We have just won the World Championship in ice hockey beating Russian team and when the Russian president sends in a telegram: "Congratulations to victory STOP Oil Pipeline STOP Gas Pipeline STOP"
No, he cannot. Our company has problem to get people in Bangalore to do much less demanding jobs than mine. And if we ever get someone they don't stick for long enough to learn my job. I am feeling so utterly safe that I will gladly go to Bangalore anytime and train any number of people they hire to do my job, knowing I am still going to have it 2 years from now. Besides, going there and doing that is a nice stress free vacation in India. Can you say "personal chauffeur" and not smile? Oh, and I love other people folding my clothes.
Employment is still low
The unemployment rate is below 5%. It doesn't get much better without forced labor!
What you don't understand is that both facts can be true. Unemployment rate in US is counted as a number of people who are on some sort of unemployment benefits, which means they lost their job in the last 6 months, mostly. While in Europe it is counted as number of people who don't have a job. So that is why Europe has higher numbers and it seems to you like the US numbers are low, but that is not the case. There are so many people who didn't have a job in years and already gave up, or people who only get a part time job or a salary which does not even cover their living expenses. And I am not even talking about the high jail population, which is not counted in these 5% either. The employment rate in US, the number of people who have jobs, divided by number of people eligible to work (not childern and seniors) is rapidly declining.
What is this reinstall business you keep talking about? I have installed Debian on my PC in 1997, why would I need to install it again? It is already installed. I do not understand?!
One of the streets that will be affected by NYC flooding is the Wall Street. Once those people who really make the world move, will need to take a boat to work, things will start happen. On the other hand, they just move the NYSE few blocks away and will be done with the changes:)
I have expressed my opinion through their contact us forms, I have sent a letter to the chief editor and I have also contacted recently an investor from a large venture capital firm that said he plans to make Forbes into a publication that provides a 'trusted opinion'. That is, of course, completely impossible while they publish Rob Enderle. How can I know the other authors at Forbes.com are not trolls as he is if I am not expert in the subject they write about? I often find articles with interesting blurb/headline on Google News that come from Forbes.com, but once I find out the source, I stop reading, I simply cannot trust them.
Rob Enderle is a known troll from the SCO fame, who got bunch of hits by taking the pro-SCO stance. He is generally writing anti-linux articles whenever he can on any subject that comes along. All he cares about is the number of hits his articles generate and posting on slashdot certainly helps that. He is also "THE" reason, why I stopped to read Forbes.com, since they publish his drivel.
So tell me, why do I have a crappy broadband in San Francisco Bay Area, in the very heart of Silicon Valley? Lack of population density? Technological problems? Maybe a lack of technically oriented people? Tell me, why Manhattan, NY doesn't have 100Mb/s connections all over same as Tokyo? Could it be that people there don't want it? That must be it. Damn, this argument sucks. I don't care for broadband in Smallville Arizona. Tell me why is it all crap in the major metro areas?
For some strange reason most Americans seem to me humor challenged. Unless someone specifically says: "I am kidding.", most jokes seem to pass through as a serious opinion. No matter how much out there they would be. Especially if you follow your joke with a serious comment, there is almost zero chance people would get it. What kind of strange land did I make myself live in? *sigh* Or could it be that Slashdotters from U.S. of A. just came to rely on someone nice to moderate such comments as "Funny" for them? Hard to say.
BTW To respond to your comment in a serious way, since you took it like that, I didn't mix up MMOG and parties. I just said that taking his analogy of a party through teleconference, he might not have quite thought it through, before calling it lame. Trust me, there are plenty of parties back in Europe I'd like to attend even just through teleconference. Better than nothing. Also If I remember right, I missed several school reunions, which would make a great candidate for teleconference. Simply, he made a self serving remark in order to get to trolling faster.
And regarding to your 'cool party' example. Your social group has clearly some "not quite so healthy" issues. You might consider to hire sociologist and a shrink. The sociologist to help you untangle the mess in your social group. And the shrink to help the poor sociologist once he is done.
This guy has obviously problem to compare two things and select the better alternative. Lets look at his party analogy:
No virus spreading.
You can control your noise volume.
You can select which people attend the party.
You can override the music selection at the party.
You can take a break to watch your favorite TV show.
Everybody can drink, no drunk driving.
In fact, no driving anywhere at all.
If you don't want to dress up, you can still just watch and listen.
...
I am not even going to mention that he would make friends online and emotionally attach to them even if he never sit in the same room, because that would be obviously lost on the troll who wrote the article.
What are you talking about? I get a CD, rip it to mp3 or I buy an mp3 in digital store. Where is the difference? If EMI is not going very broke from selling 90% of its music on CD, then I see no reason, why they should go broke with selling the rest as mp3. What you say is not insightful, it is repeating the logical fallacy that brought us here!
That is exactly my point. Explaining DRM to someone who does not get it, takes splitting hairs. I hope you enjoy all your rights. No comes DRM and half of them are gone. Not by law, by a technology. Oh and when you try to tamper with the technology, there is another law (DMCA) to prevent that. If someone said, let me repeal the American Homerecording Act, you'd say: "Hell no!". I just want to hear the same response to DRM+DMCA.
So do you have CDs that you both listen to? Do you feel that is ok? Did you rip those CDs to both of your computers? Do you feel that is ok? If you share your iTunes library over network, can you put unprotected songs from the shared library directly on your iPod? Do you feel that is ok?
Somewhere in there the CDs and MP3s are being treated differently. Why is it ok if you buy a CD to let your wife listen to it, to let her rip it to her iTunes library and put it on her iPOd. Why do you think it is ok for her to listen to the song on her iPod while you can listen to it on your iPod as well? And at the same time? And why when you buy a song from iTunes Store, why don't you have the same liberty? Which one of those is right?
I will give 90% of all the money I will steal from you to charity. Am I supposed to be praised as a "good guy" for doing that? Maybe you had some other uses for the money. It was yours money, why shouldn't you be praised for being a good guy, when the money going to charity were yours? I see Microsoft as a criminal and Bill Gates as profiting from criminal activity. I don't care how much he gives on charity out of his ill gotten money. It is not his money to dispose of in my eyes.
Slashdot Mirror
Obviously you don't understand the concept of prepaid phones very well. You get the phone, you get the sim card and you update it once a year with some small number of minutes. Then anyone can call you, even if you are quite poor. Then anyone can afford to have a mobile phone, even if they cannot afford to call much. The technology spreads to the point of being universal and accessible and many more services are possible when anyone can have a phone. In 2001 at average there were two active phones per person in Czech Republic. (Some people had a phone with each operator so people could always call them in-network for cheaper calls.) Compare that with not even one mobile phone for 2 people in US even today.
Do you realize that as long as you will make comments of this sort in a reaction to a biased articles like this one, it will increase the discussion volume for such articles and they will be more desirable for the slashdot editors to post? The one thing you can do to get less biased and trollish slashdot is to refuse to comment on article which you think is a poor editorial work no matter what the topic. Don't comment, don't read the discussion, just skip it.
New York City, has higher population than half of the European countries and higher population density than pretty much anywhere in the world in a place ideal for cell coverage. Still you cannot get a decent phone, cell service or even broadband at reasonable cost in NYC. Why? Same for San Francisco Bay Area. Again, no luck! You don't even have a 100% coverage like in most European countries in the Sillicon Valley. Now that is not excusable, its down right criminal. And don't get me started on paying for INCOMING calls and SMS, what is with that uniquely US model?!?
I do live and work in US and I already pay in taxes for the health care of jobless people. It is called MEDICARE and constitutes approximately 2% of my taxes. On top of this I pay another 8% "tax" out of my paycheck in medical/vision/dental insurance. On top of that my employer has to pay for the "benefit" of health insurance, who's part of the bill is bigger than mine. Let's say 10% on top of my paycheck (and its likely more). Come to think of it, I am paying 20% of my gross salary on healthcare. And on top of it, I still pay at least $1000 in co-pays and other medical expenses a year. That is when I am still young and healthy.
Contrast this with my country of origin with a socialized healthcare, 4.5% in taxes from you and another 4.5% from the employer. No additional expenses.
Now tell me, who is being ripped off?
I have learned this lesson by proxy. Anytime I met someone young gentleman from Texas, he was unfailingly polite. First I was saying, that it must be all the guns everyone is carrying around, but they do that in New Hampshire too and they are some mean sons of witches there. So if its not the guns, it must be the Grannies!
You are GUILTY, you are just not caught yet and its only a matter of time and luck when they decided to prosecute you for one of your many crimes and send you into prison for institutionalized rape. Try to think about it, seriously, ponder it for a while and than tell me how you cope and not go mad without being able to distance yourself from this harshest of realities. Humor is the easiest way for most people to distance themselves from a subject their mind would rather not deal with. Oh, you say you are not guilty? You ARE funny :)
The closest star is some 4 light years away, the next one is about 10 or 12, I am not sure. Then it goes up. Lets say they are relatively on our doorstep on a star less than 50 light years away, we still have another 3 years before they will learn their aircraft was shot and about 53 years to get the war declaration message, providing we are able to receive it. And I'd say that around 70 to 100 years before their fleet shows up :)
Should I choose between the US system and a universal healthcare, I would go for universal healthcare ANYTIME. But did Michael Moore put out a totally onesided view of the universal healthcare? Most definitely! I grew up in universal healthcare system and at 25 I moved to US and now live under the US system and strangely enough Kaiser Permanente in the level of care is actually the closest thing that resembles the universal healthcare we had. Imagine system where everyone is insured under Kaiser, it is the only option, and the only change is they cannot refuse treatment and cannot be sued for malpractice and you have a good picture of how universal healthcare works in most other countries.
The main argument, why you want to pay for healthcare of your neighbor, who cannot afford it, is that it is really hard to stay healthy around sick people. How can US even hope to contain any wide spread epidemics when quarter of the infected people are not going to seek medical care and will walk around spreading the disease further? This is totally insane and a time bomb waiting to explode. I would go as far as to suggest that in today's terrorism age a national healthcare should be on the top of the list of homeland security department. How else do you want to counter a biological WMD? And tell me, which one do you think is more likely nuclear, chemical or biological attack? I am pretty sure the biological has the lowest barrier to entry for a determined group of people, its far easiest to execute and far hardest to detect.
There is an old joke in Czech Republic (from the time when it was heavily under Russian influence in the 70'). We have just won the World Championship in ice hockey beating Russian team and when the Russian president sends in a telegram: "Congratulations to victory STOP Oil Pipeline STOP Gas Pipeline STOP"
The GPLv3 does not turn developers into aliens, the USCIS does that :)
No, he cannot. Our company has problem to get people in Bangalore to do much less demanding jobs than mine. And if we ever get someone they don't stick for long enough to learn my job. I am feeling so utterly safe that I will gladly go to Bangalore anytime and train any number of people they hire to do my job, knowing I am still going to have it 2 years from now. Besides, going there and doing that is a nice stress free vacation in India. Can you say "personal chauffeur" and not smile? Oh, and I love other people folding my clothes.
What you don't understand is that both facts can be true. Unemployment rate in US is counted as a number of people who are on some sort of unemployment benefits, which means they lost their job in the last 6 months, mostly. While in Europe it is counted as number of people who don't have a job. So that is why Europe has higher numbers and it seems to you like the US numbers are low, but that is not the case. There are so many people who didn't have a job in years and already gave up, or people who only get a part time job or a salary which does not even cover their living expenses. And I am not even talking about the high jail population, which is not counted in these 5% either. The employment rate in US, the number of people who have jobs, divided by number of people eligible to work (not childern and seniors) is rapidly declining.
What is this reinstall business you keep talking about? I have installed Debian on my PC in 1997, why would I need to install it again? It is already installed. I do not understand?!
One of the streets that will be affected by NYC flooding is the Wall Street. Once those people who really make the world move, will need to take a boat to work, things will start happen. On the other hand, they just move the NYSE few blocks away and will be done with the changes :)
If you bring a wolf to get rid of a fox in your hen house, what do you do to get rid of the wolf?
I have expressed my opinion through their contact us forms, I have sent a letter to the chief editor and I have also contacted recently an investor from a large venture capital firm that said he plans to make Forbes into a publication that provides a 'trusted opinion'. That is, of course, completely impossible while they publish Rob Enderle. How can I know the other authors at Forbes.com are not trolls as he is if I am not expert in the subject they write about? I often find articles with interesting blurb/headline on Google News that come from Forbes.com, but once I find out the source, I stop reading, I simply cannot trust them.
Rob Enderle is a known troll from the SCO fame, who got bunch of hits by taking the pro-SCO stance. He is generally writing anti-linux articles whenever he can on any subject that comes along. All he cares about is the number of hits his articles generate and posting on slashdot certainly helps that. He is also "THE" reason, why I stopped to read Forbes.com, since they publish his drivel.
So tell me, why do I have a crappy broadband in San Francisco Bay Area, in the very heart of Silicon Valley? Lack of population density? Technological problems? Maybe a lack of technically oriented people? Tell me, why Manhattan, NY doesn't have 100Mb/s connections all over same as Tokyo? Could it be that people there don't want it? That must be it. Damn, this argument sucks. I don't care for broadband in Smallville Arizona. Tell me why is it all crap in the major metro areas?
For some strange reason most Americans seem to me humor challenged. Unless someone specifically says: "I am kidding.", most jokes seem to pass through as a serious opinion. No matter how much out there they would be. Especially if you follow your joke with a serious comment, there is almost zero chance people would get it. What kind of strange land did I make myself live in? *sigh* Or could it be that Slashdotters from U.S. of A. just came to rely on someone nice to moderate such comments as "Funny" for them? Hard to say.
BTW To respond to your comment in a serious way, since you took it like that, I didn't mix up MMOG and parties. I just said that taking his analogy of a party through teleconference, he might not have quite thought it through, before calling it lame. Trust me, there are plenty of parties back in Europe I'd like to attend even just through teleconference. Better than nothing. Also If I remember right, I missed several school reunions, which would make a great candidate for teleconference. Simply, he made a self serving remark in order to get to trolling faster.
And regarding to your 'cool party' example. Your social group has clearly some "not quite so healthy" issues. You might consider to hire sociologist and a shrink. The sociologist to help you untangle the mess in your social group. And the shrink to help the poor sociologist once he is done.
- No virus spreading.
- You can control your noise volume.
- You can select which people attend the party.
- You can override the music selection at the party.
- You can take a break to watch your favorite TV show.
- Everybody can drink, no drunk driving.
- In fact, no driving anywhere at all.
- If you don't want to dress up, you can still just watch and listen.
- ...
I am not even going to mention that he would make friends online and emotionally attach to them even if he never sit in the same room, because that would be obviously lost on the troll who wrote the article.What are you talking about? I get a CD, rip it to mp3 or I buy an mp3 in digital store. Where is the difference? If EMI is not going very broke from selling 90% of its music on CD, then I see no reason, why they should go broke with selling the rest as mp3. What you say is not insightful, it is repeating the logical fallacy that brought us here!
That is exactly my point. Explaining DRM to someone who does not get it, takes splitting hairs. I hope you enjoy all your rights. No comes DRM and half of them are gone. Not by law, by a technology. Oh and when you try to tamper with the technology, there is another law (DMCA) to prevent that. If someone said, let me repeal the American Homerecording Act, you'd say: "Hell no!". I just want to hear the same response to DRM+DMCA.
So do you have CDs that you both listen to? Do you feel that is ok? Did you rip those CDs to both of your computers? Do you feel that is ok? If you share your iTunes library over network, can you put unprotected songs from the shared library directly on your iPod? Do you feel that is ok?
Somewhere in there the CDs and MP3s are being treated differently. Why is it ok if you buy a CD to let your wife listen to it, to let her rip it to her iTunes library and put it on her iPOd. Why do you think it is ok for her to listen to the song on her iPod while you can listen to it on your iPod as well? And at the same time? And why when you buy a song from iTunes Store, why don't you have the same liberty? Which one of those is right?
So do you get it now?
I will give 90% of all the money I will steal from you to charity. Am I supposed to be praised as a "good guy" for doing that? Maybe you had some other uses for the money. It was yours money, why shouldn't you be praised for being a good guy, when the money going to charity were yours? I see Microsoft as a criminal and Bill Gates as profiting from criminal activity. I don't care how much he gives on charity out of his ill gotten money. It is not his money to dispose of in my eyes.