Sorry, but your intent was entirely unobvious, especially in the context of this thread. Exchange servers do go down, after all, and the question that you posed is entirely valid.
If Exchange goes down, this does not stop other accounts (POP3, IMAP) from operating normally.
Outlook today is a decent MUA, primarily because it supports rich text communication. I'm using embedded images all the time when I discuss technical solutions with other people. It is essential to be able to highlight passages, to clearly show quotes, to include screenshots of things...
On the business side of things, Outlook is required for scheduling of meetings, and for reservation of shared resources (if your business is set up this way.) It is simple, and it works. You can share your calendar and you can see other people's calendars. If you want to schedule a meeting with ten participants, you simply cannot do that with Pine; you cannot call everyone fifty times and ask "how about hh:mm on ddd?" - they'd get mad at you.
I used Thunderbird before, and it is also pretty decent. But it does not integrate with Exchange... and there is no Exchange replacement in F/OSS world. If there were, many smaller businesses would drop Exchange instantly - it doesn't support DKIM, it doesn't support DMARC, its autoreplies break Google's SPF checks... but here we are; it's the lesser evil.
Why do you think Windows 8.1 will have a "Start" button?
For the same reason that doors in our buildings are made different from the walls - so that they can be seen.
Technically, there is nothing stopping you from making a building where doors are smooth, painted to the wall color, and the gaps are all but invisible. If you push on the door it will open, just as the real one does. But to see a door you need to stand on your head. Will you like to work in such a building?
Win8 does exactly the same. Its primary facility for starting programs is hidden, and cannot be revealed until you do something very special, something that nobody have ever done before because the gesture was meaningless. But if you do that, everything in front of your eyes changes. It is called change of context. In an instant you lose your email, your documents, your pictures, your whatever it was you were working on, and you now see something completely different, that is navigable by a different set of rules.
Since Win 3.1, many launchers were developed by ISVs to make it possible to start programs with as little distraction as possible - with a little toolbar in a corner, or with a little menu, or with a little search bar, all of which are quick to get out of your way. The Win8 start screen is equivalent to putting an empty metal bucket onto your head and then hitting it with a brick, that much it intrudes into your work.
It's not funny, it's logical. Why would a sober man sit and look at a man who is out of his mind? Why would a drunken man want to sit with a man who does not understand his funny jokes? Those are different universes, behavior-wise. I don't drink, and I never set foot into any drinking establishment. It's better for everyone this way.
I don't drink any form of alcohol, and I don't understand why that would be necessary. Life is too short to waste on liquid drugs. Do something useful instead! Clear head is your friend.
And second, home ownership has been dropping precipitously. My landlords own multiple properties but almost all of them are mortgaged
I'm happy to confess that I am an exception from that rule, in every part of it.
You do realize that Cubans have similar outcomes to Americans in spite of being theoretically vulnerable to all the stuff you're talking about, right?
I have never been to Cuba. Going there from USSR was impossible, and going there from the USA is illegal. Funny that.
Hugo Chavez perhaps has a different opinion about quality of Cuban healthcare. Not easy to ask him now, though.
I understand that his particular case is not a sure indicator of anything. People die in the USA all the time - and wealthy people too, like Steve Jobs. To compare Cuban healthcare with the US one you need to go there and see it for yourself. But it is against the law. Does anyone even remember why the law is in place? Aren't those Fidel's men freedom fighters, or whatever we call "our" SOBs? Do you know what was the final straw that broke the back of USSR? It was the free flow of information. Fidel probably has a secret shrine to US Congress that protected him for all these years. Socialism works best in isolation, just like in North Korea - and the border fence is against crossers from either side.
I personally think that the law must be cancelled, and everyone should be free to go to Cuba and see for themselves how bad (or how good!) the situation is over there. Truth is always the best strategy.
But with regard to "outcomes," did you ever know why 100% of immigrants from USSR have bad teeth? That's the outcome of the socialized healthcare. USSR had no such job even as a dental hygienist; no ultrasound machines; no Plax even, and no electric toothbrushes (until the end of 1980's when import started showing up.) If you must go to a dentist, you will not get an anesthetic in most cases. The drill is not a modern high-RPM one, but the old one from 1930's. There was no UV-cured filling material, no composite crowns... steel and ceramic is all that is available; and gold, if you are rich. As I said, the treatment is *minimal* - just to keep the worker ant alive, if practical. Read this and weep. If that's not enough, read this too. Google is full of those horror tales because *everyone* in USSR had to go through these "procedures."
If you're fine with paying for ERs then you should be fine with paying for preventative medicine
I also heard that eating at McDonald's is not as good for your health as dining in the creme de la creme restaurant. Should we pay hobos to eat there? Surely, if they are eating well they will be healthier, n'est-ce pas?
But of course one always has to draw a line somewhere. We are just haggling about where that line ought to be. We are not the only ones with an opinion on the subject.
That doesn't invalidate the concept of socialized medicine.
Most attempts to establish socialized medicine failed, and people died as result (there are several mechanisms of that.) Does that experience invalidate the concept? No. But if you don't change the ways of doing it you will get exactly what others have gotten before you.
Outcomes in the US are pure shit for most citizens
But they have a say in that. One can always sell their house to pay for a top notch heart surgery, for example. Try that in Zimbabwe. In the old USSR you had no control over your healthcare; if there is a treatment available but your doctor doesn't care about it or about you, you will die. There may be a good surgeon somewhere else, but you will be cut up by a drunkard with shaky hands and foggy memory; and when you die you just become a statistic. I don't really want to argue this from the position of appeal to authority, but I was there and I saw all that, firsthand. Many americans, who never set foot outside of their continent, just don't know how lucky they are. That makes them vulnerable to sweet lies of populists who tell them that the grass is greener on the other side of the fence. But it is not. You will learn that, eventually, but it will be too late.
Actually, pretty much every RTOS-based embedded system does not require reboot, ever, unless you specifically write software to fragment the memory or do other bad things. A modern PC/104 box would run for hundreds of years, until the aluminum traces in chips are destroyed by the flow of current. Even many Win7/Win8 desktop PCs are not rebooted often. Just make sure that the box is shielded from external charged particles.
Human brain, on the other hand, requires reboot every night, unless you can manage without sleep. When you are asleep the brain runs GC, as I understand, but for all practical purposes it is "rebooting" - such as "doing its own necessary internal thing, while being unavailable for its primary purpose." Humans spend 1/3 of their life asleep.
The main problem with your argument is that we are already paying for the treatment of the hobo and the gangbanger, and we always have been. We don't let people die on the curb outside the hospital.
Yes, and an AC also mentioned ERs. Yes, we do pay for those. And that is fine with me - even though many people (from the right-wing nut-cases category that are righter and winger and nutter than myself, somehow:-) say that illegal immigrants abuse ER. Closing ER to those people is not a solution; the country isn't even supposed to have illegal immigrants. But if anyone,legal, illegal or in between, needs an urgent help, the ER should be available for them. ERs don't do long term treatment anyway; anyone who depends on ER for their healthcare will get only what he pays for - a painkiller instead of a surgery, for example.
The problem with mandatory insurance is that it takes away my freedom of association and my free will to purchase - or not purchase - goods and services. Don't we have a name for a person who has to pay a fixed sum of money every year for some remote public good?
The "taxpayer" is not the right word - taxes are calculated as percentage of taxable activity, and you are free to do it or to refrain. Don't like gas taxes? Don't drive. Don't like income taxes? Earn under the threshold, or don't work at all. Don't like property taxes? Don't own property. And so on. You can set up a tent on some BLM property and live there, using bow and arrows to hunt for your food - and you won't have to pay any taxes.
Mandatory healthcare is not tied to your activities; it is tied only to the fact that you are alive - and you have to pay to someone else for that fact. In return, presumably, you will get medical treatment when you need it. But what if you don't want that treatment? What happened to your freedoms? They are gone. You are now just a slave; only instead of working on a plantation you are required to pay your dues in cash - and your master doesn't want to know where you get that cash.
One would say "but hold on, your money is used to treat others, those who don't earn enough, don't you want to help them out?" My answer is "perhaps." I can donate $100 or even $200 per year to such a charity, outside of whatever income and property taxes I'm already paying. But I don't want to donate thousands of dollars per year - this is a significant chunk of my own income! This whole thing is way too expensive.
The costs are factored into the medical bills and insurance of those who can pay.
There is a big difference between "can pay" and "wants to pay." I have no objection against the former category - those are people on honest disability, who cannot work enough to survive. But there are way too many people who just don't want to pay; plenty of outwardly healthy people, for example, are walking back and forth at intersections and begging for money from drivers who wait for green light. It takes a lot of physical health to work a whole shift at the intersection! I'd be dog tired after a day like that, but those guys take it and come next morning for more. This is where the freedom of association comes into play - I may want to share the burden (and the risk) with one group, but not with the other.
It is actually interesting to see such a panhandler on one side of the road and an honest, working sandwich man on another. The latter earns far less, but he is *working* - he is doing something that someone considers useful; he increases the wealth of the society. The former does nothing that would be useful to the society; he leeches from it.
citation?
Citations come from many sources, but since they can be always labeled as "right-wing nut-cases," the statement is unprovable. Until you need a doctor, that is, and cannot find one.
By the way, I was born - and lived for several decades - in a country with universal healthcare. It was a disaster. The healthcare was financed with our taxes; but what
We all pay into fire services so that when someone else's house is burning, it gets put out, because burning houses are toxic and because they might light our house on fire.
Yes, and that is a sensible decision; the same would be made by a commune of independent homeowners. The chance of fire igniting in any given residence is the same for all residences, and the danger is also about the same. So it would make plenty of sense to divide the risk equally.
However this wouldn't be such a simple case if one of your houses is a hovel that is occupied by a druggie who cooks meth while smoking.
In case of healthcare, risks are not equal. Far from it. There are many reasons - genetical, behavioral, occupational, and probably more - why the risks are not equal.
The danger is also not equal to all members of the set. If member A breaks a leg, this results in no danger to member B. His leg is not going to get broken, or even bruised. There is no incentive to pay into the common fund.
There is also yet another reason. Some people have their own arrangements for their healthcare. For example, their trust fund may pay, or their wealthy parents, or they themselves may sit on a couple million dollars, or they have their own insurance arrangements that have nothing to do with anything or anyone else (like having a family diamond ring that is easy to sell if need be.)
Not everyone is obsessed with careful preservation of their precious life either. We can see that among many high risk behaviors (tobacco, drugs, alcohol, crime, thrill-seeking, dangerous sex practices, etc.) IMO, if these people want to risk their life, it's their right - and I don't need to pay up when another gangbanger shows up with a couple new 9mm holes in his stomach.
This inequality is exactly what is undermining the national healthcare. The spectrum of health-related behaviors is too wide. I personally could be persuaded to join a mutual insurance group that contains members just like myself - with the same risk, with the same chance of getting into trouble, and with the same income (that defines how much we all pay into the common fund.) But I have no interest in joining the club if it includes everyone. If smokers want to insure themselves against lung cancer (and finance the treatment when they ultimately need it) - I'm all for it, as long as I have nothing to do with them.
Unless you really are of the mindset that we should simply let the unproductive die, in which case I hope you die of ass cancer.
Well, I'm not into that kind of thing. But it is a complicated question - what to do with unproductive members of the society? Many writers explored this, but there is no working solution.
As you mention, one solution is just to let them fend for themselves - and die, if they are unsuccessful. This is how it was for most of the recorded human history. Perhaps we lost more than a few good men this way. We'll never know how, unless someone can be bothered to go back and fork the timeline. Today, though, in this "enlightened" society, it is considered un-PC to let people die.
If you just want to feed the needy homeless people, that is relatively simple. A human cannot eat more than he can eat, and basic food is cheap enough. A handful of pasta per day will keep a man alive, and that costs what, 50 cents, including the cooking?
But if you want to *treat* such people... well, that is a far more complex problem. There is no upper limit on medical expenses. In fact, they tend to go to infinity. The only limit to that is lack of funds. All humans, rich and poor, die from something that could be prevented, treated, or at least delayed for a day, or a week, or a year. But they die when they die, because they didn't get that treatment - it was too expensive, or simply impractical.
Now take an average homeless man. He is likely to have some serious, maybe even untreatable, diseases. Often these are of psychiatric nature, but they c
In addition to what you already explored, there is yet another aspect. What vehicle are we talking about? A low-riding Corvette is probably capable of better handling at speed than a tall, box-like RV that tows a couple tons of an SUV. That yellow sign "40" that you see before the switchback, who does it apply to? The answer is obvious, of course - the sign is designed for the worst possible vehicle that can venture onto a public road. My car can take these turns at about +10 mph over the recommended speed - but if you go higher then you start hearing noises from the tires that indicate slipping, and that can quickly lead to loss of control. A sports car, with softer tires and lower center of mass, can do much better (just look at F1 cars.)
This results in a situation when the speed limit signs lose meaning. They are not even informative, unless you are driving a 10 ton truck or a double-decker bus. Most drivers use modern cars that are stable at higher speeds.
The most logical solution would be to assign speed groups to specific stretches of roads; the only exception is when the speed is limited by visibility. Each speed group would then be mapped into the physical speed of a given vehicle. Bad vehicles will calculate lower speed, but sports vehicles will be allowed to go faster. Perhaps the easiest way to accomplish that is by using GPS. If the GPS has a black box then it could calculate the maximum speed for your car, and record the actual speed - and warn you with some sound when you go faster. If you don't have the GPS then you drive the speed that is posted, as it is today.
You are too late with your helpful suggestion. Obamacare is a tax on everyone who lives. Doesn't matter if *you* do not need insurance. Big Brother knows best.
Yes, but only if you know exactly what you are doing.
Nobody is going to use this method to extract an HD video, or its key, from a running computer. Even fewer people would be capable of learning the algorithm.
Though, a computer is an observable system. If you just happen to have a logic analyzer with 10,000 probes that can take multi-GHz readings, then you certainly can capture a lot - and if you have a super-computer nearby then perhaps you can make sense out of what you captured. Not even then, likely - internal CPU caches will destroy your ability to follow jumps, and the state of GP registers will remain a secret.
We have no such logic analyzer for a brain. The best analogy I can think of is that scientists run various software and then measure how much this or that component on the board heats up. That does reflect its utilization, in a way, but it's far too imprecise.
Back in the olden days when they still repaired computer boards rather then simply throwing them out, the way they figured out which chip needed to be replaced was by using electrical equipment to test circuits. It took forever even back then, with much simpler circuits, but if you had the right tools you could still do it today.
I'm quite aware of that because when I was studying in university I was also working as a tech, repairing IBM/360 [alike] video terminals, like this and like this - though marginally newer.
I must tell you, there is nothing you can do, regardless of how many tools and test equipment you pile up, unless you have the detailed schematics of everything in that box, and placement diagrams of all components. And even then you would be completely baffled now and then; for example, when you have a multiple component failure.
I'm glad that medication helps you and others. Computers sometimes can also be medicated like that. I have a box that, until recently, was crashing randomly when it is cold. Keeping it running 24/7 prevented the crashes. (In the end, it was the HDD that was the cause.)
The brain is clearly chemical in nature and at some point reductionist medication SHOULD point the way to detailed understanding and treatment.
[just an example below]
I have a problem with my Windows computer. Now and then Firefox crashes when I visit a certain site. Since the computer is clearly electrical in nature, I'm considering taking this here 120V AC wires and sticking them into various places on the motherboard. Random places, actually - because I have no idea how the motherboard works. Will that help with the problem?
Thinking aloud a bit more now. Will *any* electrical interference with operation of a CPU give me *any* hints how the software works?
The key issues here are questions that you have no reason to answer (like "how much money is in your wallet?") and the authority of the questioner that makes answering them mandatory.
Or I can explain it in a different way. What is the difference between the following two scenarios?
a) You are arrested, handcuffed, brought into the police station, have a light pointed into your face, and a detective asks questions that he wants answered. Fearing for your well-being, you answer them all.
b) You are sent a letter on paper. The letter lists the same questions and demands answers. Fearing for your well-being, you answer them all.
The difference to you is that you were spared the indignity of being dragged, in handcuffs, to the police station. However there is no difference to the detective - he gets his answers just as well if he asks politely and mentions a big government-issued stick if you fail to answer.
You are right that all citizens are in danger of the IRS looking at their financial records - but so what?
Godwin is applicable here because all tyrants begin with small, soft steps. They make things difficult for their opponents. Stalin, for example, destroyed NEP by raising taxes until having a business became a money-losing proposition. Stalin's counterpart in that period of time was also busy, for about a decade, with slowly changing the society to suit his grandiose plans.
The actions of IRS here indicate that their leadership received very specific marching orders to suppress or intimidate the legitimate political opposition. We associate these actions with dictatorships - and certainly such a country has no freedom of opinion, speech, or association; what it has instead is secret police. This time the role of that police was played by IRS - but the interrogation that they unleashed is fitting the police, not a tax collection agency.
I actually have no stickers on my car. I don't want any lawmen to give me roadside political training. My car is nearly identical to millions of others, just like it. Even the color is typical. I cannot imagine how I can benefit from being recognized and remembered. (For details, see that lecture "Never talk to the police" - the lawyer explains how that can ruin your day.)
Embrace reality, you are going to die and there is nothing you can do about it.
Depends on what do you mean by "you." If your mind is copied into a machine (and possibly replicated) then you (as an independent, thinking person) can live infinitely long. Cloned bodies are less sturdy, but they will work too.
I see your point, thanks! I only want to comment on this:
And microsofts feedback, and measurement metrics all showed a clear trend AWAY from using the start menu in favor of pinned apps, and search.
Those metrics captured habits of only those users who, for one reason or another, failed to disable reporting of those metrics. Probably I will not be too wrong if I say that most of those users, who were sending those metrics, are pretty clueless about computers.
these powerusers minds are closed and they just want to cling to the old-way whether it was any good or not.
... and that drags us into a completely different discussion, about "what is good?"
In fact, Cell Phones are sold at losses providing you get a service plan with them.
It's not a loss, it's a credit. The phone company will never have a loss on a cell phone; you will either pay for it via the plan fees, or you will pay the early termination fee. Either way they get their money. Of course once the term of the contract ends, you become a pure profit center.
A child will fail this test. A person who is not familiar with slang will fail this test. But they both are intelligent. That's the problem with the TT - it's testing for a characteristic that we cannot define, much like one of US judges, who proclaimed that "hard-core pornography" was hard to define, but that "I know it when I see it."
Similarly, a TT cannot be conducted if the parties don't speak the same language, or don't share the same culture, or just are of different genders. How would you think a man can sustain a conversation with several girls about fashions? Wouldn't his replies be somewhat mechanistic? A man could say "I don't care, dear, what color is your dress, because I have no use of the dress; the content of it is far more attractive." However a similar reply might be obtained just by googling, and that can be done by a pretty simple algorithm. Siri probably would win the TT today against most of its users.
Slashdot Mirror
Sorry, but your intent was entirely unobvious, especially in the context of this thread. Exchange servers do go down, after all, and the question that you posed is entirely valid.
If Exchange goes down, this does not stop other accounts (POP3, IMAP) from operating normally.
Outlook today is a decent MUA, primarily because it supports rich text communication. I'm using embedded images all the time when I discuss technical solutions with other people. It is essential to be able to highlight passages, to clearly show quotes, to include screenshots of things...
On the business side of things, Outlook is required for scheduling of meetings, and for reservation of shared resources (if your business is set up this way.) It is simple, and it works. You can share your calendar and you can see other people's calendars. If you want to schedule a meeting with ten participants, you simply cannot do that with Pine; you cannot call everyone fifty times and ask "how about hh:mm on ddd?" - they'd get mad at you.
I used Thunderbird before, and it is also pretty decent. But it does not integrate with Exchange... and there is no Exchange replacement in F/OSS world. If there were, many smaller businesses would drop Exchange instantly - it doesn't support DKIM, it doesn't support DMARC, its autoreplies break Google's SPF checks... but here we are; it's the lesser evil.
Why do you think Windows 8.1 will have a "Start" button?
For the same reason that doors in our buildings are made different from the walls - so that they can be seen.
Technically, there is nothing stopping you from making a building where doors are smooth, painted to the wall color, and the gaps are all but invisible. If you push on the door it will open, just as the real one does. But to see a door you need to stand on your head. Will you like to work in such a building?
Win8 does exactly the same. Its primary facility for starting programs is hidden, and cannot be revealed until you do something very special, something that nobody have ever done before because the gesture was meaningless. But if you do that, everything in front of your eyes changes. It is called change of context. In an instant you lose your email, your documents, your pictures, your whatever it was you were working on, and you now see something completely different, that is navigable by a different set of rules.
Since Win 3.1, many launchers were developed by ISVs to make it possible to start programs with as little distraction as possible - with a little toolbar in a corner, or with a little menu, or with a little search bar, all of which are quick to get out of your way. The Win8 start screen is equivalent to putting an empty metal bucket onto your head and then hitting it with a brick, that much it intrudes into your work.
Granted, there is an unfortunate number of people who cannot regulate their intake, but they drink for different reasons.
Unfortunately, it's them, not you, who are the visible face of the drinking community.
When I was young I saw too many drunks around. This gave me a life-long immunity aganst alcohol. That's how I explain it, at least.
It's not funny, it's logical. Why would a sober man sit and look at a man who is out of his mind? Why would a drunken man want to sit with a man who does not understand his funny jokes? Those are different universes, behavior-wise. I don't drink, and I never set foot into any drinking establishment. It's better for everyone this way.
I don't drink any form of alcohol, and I don't understand why that would be necessary. Life is too short to waste on liquid drugs. Do something useful instead! Clear head is your friend.
And second, home ownership has been dropping precipitously. My landlords own multiple properties but almost all of them are mortgaged
I'm happy to confess that I am an exception from that rule, in every part of it.
You do realize that Cubans have similar outcomes to Americans in spite of being theoretically vulnerable to all the stuff you're talking about, right?
I have never been to Cuba. Going there from USSR was impossible, and going there from the USA is illegal. Funny that.
Hugo Chavez perhaps has a different opinion about quality of Cuban healthcare. Not easy to ask him now, though.
I understand that his particular case is not a sure indicator of anything. People die in the USA all the time - and wealthy people too, like Steve Jobs. To compare Cuban healthcare with the US one you need to go there and see it for yourself. But it is against the law. Does anyone even remember why the law is in place? Aren't those Fidel's men freedom fighters, or whatever we call "our" SOBs? Do you know what was the final straw that broke the back of USSR? It was the free flow of information. Fidel probably has a secret shrine to US Congress that protected him for all these years. Socialism works best in isolation, just like in North Korea - and the border fence is against crossers from either side.
I personally think that the law must be cancelled, and everyone should be free to go to Cuba and see for themselves how bad (or how good!) the situation is over there. Truth is always the best strategy.
But with regard to "outcomes," did you ever know why 100% of immigrants from USSR have bad teeth? That's the outcome of the socialized healthcare. USSR had no such job even as a dental hygienist; no ultrasound machines; no Plax even, and no electric toothbrushes (until the end of 1980's when import started showing up.) If you must go to a dentist, you will not get an anesthetic in most cases. The drill is not a modern high-RPM one, but the old one from 1930's. There was no UV-cured filling material, no composite crowns... steel and ceramic is all that is available; and gold, if you are rich. As I said, the treatment is *minimal* - just to keep the worker ant alive, if practical. Read this and weep. If that's not enough, read this too. Google is full of those horror tales because *everyone* in USSR had to go through these "procedures."
If you're fine with paying for ERs then you should be fine with paying for preventative medicine
I also heard that eating at McDonald's is not as good for your health as dining in the creme de la creme restaurant. Should we pay hobos to eat there? Surely, if they are eating well they will be healthier, n'est-ce pas?
But of course one always has to draw a line somewhere. We are just haggling about where that line ought to be. We are not the only ones with an opinion on the subject.
That doesn't invalidate the concept of socialized medicine.
Most attempts to establish socialized medicine failed, and people died as result (there are several mechanisms of that.) Does that experience invalidate the concept? No. But if you don't change the ways of doing it you will get exactly what others have gotten before you.
Outcomes in the US are pure shit for most citizens
But they have a say in that. One can always sell their house to pay for a top notch heart surgery, for example. Try that in Zimbabwe. In the old USSR you had no control over your healthcare; if there is a treatment available but your doctor doesn't care about it or about you, you will die. There may be a good surgeon somewhere else, but you will be cut up by a drunkard with shaky hands and foggy memory; and when you die you just become a statistic. I don't really want to argue this from the position of appeal to authority, but I was there and I saw all that, firsthand. Many americans, who never set foot outside of their continent, just don't know how lucky they are. That makes them vulnerable to sweet lies of populists who tell them that the grass is greener on the other side of the fence. But it is not. You will learn that, eventually, but it will be too late.
Actually, pretty much every RTOS-based embedded system does not require reboot, ever, unless you specifically write software to fragment the memory or do other bad things. A modern PC/104 box would run for hundreds of years, until the aluminum traces in chips are destroyed by the flow of current. Even many Win7/Win8 desktop PCs are not rebooted often. Just make sure that the box is shielded from external charged particles.
Human brain, on the other hand, requires reboot every night, unless you can manage without sleep. When you are asleep the brain runs GC, as I understand, but for all practical purposes it is "rebooting" - such as "doing its own necessary internal thing, while being unavailable for its primary purpose." Humans spend 1/3 of their life asleep.
As a person, I can't help but think that being the person trapped inside the computer would be absolutely horrifying.
You are already trapped inside the computer. To make matters worse, that computer is not very reliable, and cannot be repaired.
The main problem with your argument is that we are already paying for the treatment of the hobo and the gangbanger, and we always have been. We don't let people die on the curb outside the hospital.
Yes, and an AC also mentioned ERs. Yes, we do pay for those. And that is fine with me - even though many people (from the right-wing nut-cases category that are righter and winger and nutter than myself, somehow :-) say that illegal immigrants abuse ER. Closing ER to those people is not a solution; the country isn't even supposed to have illegal immigrants. But if anyone,legal, illegal or in between, needs an urgent help, the ER should be available for them. ERs don't do long term treatment anyway; anyone who depends on ER for their healthcare will get only what he pays for - a painkiller instead of a surgery, for example.
The problem with mandatory insurance is that it takes away my freedom of association and my free will to purchase - or not purchase - goods and services. Don't we have a name for a person who has to pay a fixed sum of money every year for some remote public good?
The "taxpayer" is not the right word - taxes are calculated as percentage of taxable activity, and you are free to do it or to refrain. Don't like gas taxes? Don't drive. Don't like income taxes? Earn under the threshold, or don't work at all. Don't like property taxes? Don't own property. And so on. You can set up a tent on some BLM property and live there, using bow and arrows to hunt for your food - and you won't have to pay any taxes.
Mandatory healthcare is not tied to your activities; it is tied only to the fact that you are alive - and you have to pay to someone else for that fact. In return, presumably, you will get medical treatment when you need it. But what if you don't want that treatment? What happened to your freedoms? They are gone. You are now just a slave; only instead of working on a plantation you are required to pay your dues in cash - and your master doesn't want to know where you get that cash.
One would say "but hold on, your money is used to treat others, those who don't earn enough, don't you want to help them out?" My answer is "perhaps." I can donate $100 or even $200 per year to such a charity, outside of whatever income and property taxes I'm already paying. But I don't want to donate thousands of dollars per year - this is a significant chunk of my own income! This whole thing is way too expensive.
The costs are factored into the medical bills and insurance of those who can pay.
There is a big difference between "can pay" and "wants to pay." I have no objection against the former category - those are people on honest disability, who cannot work enough to survive. But there are way too many people who just don't want to pay; plenty of outwardly healthy people, for example, are walking back and forth at intersections and begging for money from drivers who wait for green light. It takes a lot of physical health to work a whole shift at the intersection! I'd be dog tired after a day like that, but those guys take it and come next morning for more. This is where the freedom of association comes into play - I may want to share the burden (and the risk) with one group, but not with the other.
It is actually interesting to see such a panhandler on one side of the road and an honest, working sandwich man on another. The latter earns far less, but he is *working* - he is doing something that someone considers useful; he increases the wealth of the society. The former does nothing that would be useful to the society; he leeches from it.
citation?
Citations come from many sources, but since they can be always labeled as "right-wing nut-cases," the statement is unprovable. Until you need a doctor, that is, and cannot find one.
By the way, I was born - and lived for several decades - in a country with universal healthcare. It was a disaster. The healthcare was financed with our taxes; but what
We all pay into fire services so that when someone else's house is burning, it gets put out, because burning houses are toxic and because they might light our house on fire.
Yes, and that is a sensible decision; the same would be made by a commune of independent homeowners. The chance of fire igniting in any given residence is the same for all residences, and the danger is also about the same. So it would make plenty of sense to divide the risk equally.
However this wouldn't be such a simple case if one of your houses is a hovel that is occupied by a druggie who cooks meth while smoking.
In case of healthcare, risks are not equal. Far from it. There are many reasons - genetical, behavioral, occupational, and probably more - why the risks are not equal.
The danger is also not equal to all members of the set. If member A breaks a leg, this results in no danger to member B. His leg is not going to get broken, or even bruised. There is no incentive to pay into the common fund.
There is also yet another reason. Some people have their own arrangements for their healthcare. For example, their trust fund may pay, or their wealthy parents, or they themselves may sit on a couple million dollars, or they have their own insurance arrangements that have nothing to do with anything or anyone else (like having a family diamond ring that is easy to sell if need be.)
Not everyone is obsessed with careful preservation of their precious life either. We can see that among many high risk behaviors (tobacco, drugs, alcohol, crime, thrill-seeking, dangerous sex practices, etc.) IMO, if these people want to risk their life, it's their right - and I don't need to pay up when another gangbanger shows up with a couple new 9mm holes in his stomach.
This inequality is exactly what is undermining the national healthcare. The spectrum of health-related behaviors is too wide. I personally could be persuaded to join a mutual insurance group that contains members just like myself - with the same risk, with the same chance of getting into trouble, and with the same income (that defines how much we all pay into the common fund.) But I have no interest in joining the club if it includes everyone. If smokers want to insure themselves against lung cancer (and finance the treatment when they ultimately need it) - I'm all for it, as long as I have nothing to do with them.
Unless you really are of the mindset that we should simply let the unproductive die, in which case I hope you die of ass cancer.
Well, I'm not into that kind of thing. But it is a complicated question - what to do with unproductive members of the society? Many writers explored this, but there is no working solution.
As you mention, one solution is just to let them fend for themselves - and die, if they are unsuccessful. This is how it was for most of the recorded human history. Perhaps we lost more than a few good men this way. We'll never know how, unless someone can be bothered to go back and fork the timeline. Today, though, in this "enlightened" society, it is considered un-PC to let people die.
If you just want to feed the needy homeless people, that is relatively simple. A human cannot eat more than he can eat, and basic food is cheap enough. A handful of pasta per day will keep a man alive, and that costs what, 50 cents, including the cooking?
But if you want to *treat* such people ... well, that is a far more complex problem. There is no upper limit on medical expenses. In fact, they tend to go to infinity. The only limit to that is lack of funds. All humans, rich and poor, die from something that could be prevented, treated, or at least delayed for a day, or a week, or a year. But they die when they die, because they didn't get that treatment - it was too expensive, or simply impractical.
Now take an average homeless man. He is likely to have some serious, maybe even untreatable, diseases. Often these are of psychiatric nature, but they c
Who decides that the speed was unsafe?
In addition to what you already explored, there is yet another aspect. What vehicle are we talking about? A low-riding Corvette is probably capable of better handling at speed than a tall, box-like RV that tows a couple tons of an SUV. That yellow sign "40" that you see before the switchback, who does it apply to? The answer is obvious, of course - the sign is designed for the worst possible vehicle that can venture onto a public road. My car can take these turns at about +10 mph over the recommended speed - but if you go higher then you start hearing noises from the tires that indicate slipping, and that can quickly lead to loss of control. A sports car, with softer tires and lower center of mass, can do much better (just look at F1 cars.)
This results in a situation when the speed limit signs lose meaning. They are not even informative, unless you are driving a 10 ton truck or a double-decker bus. Most drivers use modern cars that are stable at higher speeds.
The most logical solution would be to assign speed groups to specific stretches of roads; the only exception is when the speed is limited by visibility. Each speed group would then be mapped into the physical speed of a given vehicle. Bad vehicles will calculate lower speed, but sports vehicles will be allowed to go faster. Perhaps the easiest way to accomplish that is by using GPS. If the GPS has a black box then it could calculate the maximum speed for your car, and record the actual speed - and warn you with some sound when you go faster. If you don't have the GPS then you drive the speed that is posted, as it is today.
Lets put a tax on breathing!
You are too late with your helpful suggestion. Obamacare is a tax on everyone who lives. Doesn't matter if *you* do not need insurance. Big Brother knows best.
Yes, but only if you know exactly what you are doing.
Nobody is going to use this method to extract an HD video, or its key, from a running computer. Even fewer people would be capable of learning the algorithm.
Though, a computer is an observable system. If you just happen to have a logic analyzer with 10,000 probes that can take multi-GHz readings, then you certainly can capture a lot - and if you have a super-computer nearby then perhaps you can make sense out of what you captured. Not even then, likely - internal CPU caches will destroy your ability to follow jumps, and the state of GP registers will remain a secret.
We have no such logic analyzer for a brain. The best analogy I can think of is that scientists run various software and then measure how much this or that component on the board heats up. That does reflect its utilization, in a way, but it's far too imprecise.
Back in the olden days when they still repaired computer boards rather then simply throwing them out, the way they figured out which chip needed to be replaced was by using electrical equipment to test circuits. It took forever even back then, with much simpler circuits, but if you had the right tools you could still do it today.
I'm quite aware of that because when I was studying in university I was also working as a tech, repairing IBM/360 [alike] video terminals, like this and like this - though marginally newer.
I must tell you, there is nothing you can do, regardless of how many tools and test equipment you pile up, unless you have the detailed schematics of everything in that box, and placement diagrams of all components. And even then you would be completely baffled now and then; for example, when you have a multiple component failure.
I'm glad that medication helps you and others. Computers sometimes can also be medicated like that. I have a box that, until recently, was crashing randomly when it is cold. Keeping it running 24/7 prevented the crashes. (In the end, it was the HDD that was the cause.)
The brain is clearly chemical in nature and at some point reductionist medication SHOULD point the way to detailed understanding and treatment.
[just an example below]
I have a problem with my Windows computer. Now and then Firefox crashes when I visit a certain site. Since the computer is clearly electrical in nature, I'm considering taking this here 120V AC wires and sticking them into various places on the motherboard. Random places, actually - because I have no idea how the motherboard works. Will that help with the problem?
Thinking aloud a bit more now. Will *any* electrical interference with operation of a CPU give me *any* hints how the software works?
Cells are not required for interrogation.
The key issues here are questions that you have no reason to answer (like "how much money is in your wallet?") and the authority of the questioner that makes answering them mandatory.
Or I can explain it in a different way. What is the difference between the following two scenarios?
a) You are arrested, handcuffed, brought into the police station, have a light pointed into your face, and a detective asks questions that he wants answered. Fearing for your well-being, you answer them all.
b) You are sent a letter on paper. The letter lists the same questions and demands answers. Fearing for your well-being, you answer them all.
The difference to you is that you were spared the indignity of being dragged, in handcuffs, to the police station. However there is no difference to the detective - he gets his answers just as well if he asks politely and mentions a big government-issued stick if you fail to answer.
You are right that all citizens are in danger of the IRS looking at their financial records - but so what?
Godwin is applicable here because all tyrants begin with small, soft steps. They make things difficult for their opponents. Stalin, for example, destroyed NEP by raising taxes until having a business became a money-losing proposition. Stalin's counterpart in that period of time was also busy, for about a decade, with slowly changing the society to suit his grandiose plans.
The actions of IRS here indicate that their leadership received very specific marching orders to suppress or intimidate the legitimate political opposition. We associate these actions with dictatorships - and certainly such a country has no freedom of opinion, speech, or association; what it has instead is secret police. This time the role of that police was played by IRS - but the interrogation that they unleashed is fitting the police, not a tax collection agency.
I actually have no stickers on my car. I don't want any lawmen to give me roadside political training. My car is nearly identical to millions of others, just like it. Even the color is typical. I cannot imagine how I can benefit from being recognized and remembered. (For details, see that lecture "Never talk to the police" - the lawyer explains how that can ruin your day.)
Embrace reality, you are going to die and there is nothing you can do about it.
Depends on what do you mean by "you." If your mind is copied into a machine (and possibly replicated) then you (as an independent, thinking person) can live infinitely long. Cloned bodies are less sturdy, but they will work too.
As far as I know, I don't think sending MS those metrics are something that are on by default.
These settings are on by default, as I understand. You have to turn them off. They are explained here.
I see your point, thanks! I only want to comment on this:
And microsofts feedback, and measurement metrics all showed a clear trend AWAY from using the start menu in favor of pinned apps, and search.
Those metrics captured habits of only those users who, for one reason or another, failed to disable reporting of those metrics. Probably I will not be too wrong if I say that most of those users, who were sending those metrics, are pretty clueless about computers.
these powerusers minds are closed and they just want to cling to the old-way whether it was any good or not.
In fact, Cell Phones are sold at losses providing you get a service plan with them.
It's not a loss, it's a credit. The phone company will never have a loss on a cell phone; you will either pay for it via the plan fees, or you will pay the early termination fee. Either way they get their money. Of course once the term of the contract ends, you become a pure profit center.
A child will fail this test. A person who is not familiar with slang will fail this test. But they both are intelligent. That's the problem with the TT - it's testing for a characteristic that we cannot define, much like one of US judges, who proclaimed that "hard-core pornography" was hard to define, but that "I know it when I see it."
Similarly, a TT cannot be conducted if the parties don't speak the same language, or don't share the same culture, or just are of different genders. How would you think a man can sustain a conversation with several girls about fashions? Wouldn't his replies be somewhat mechanistic? A man could say "I don't care, dear, what color is your dress, because I have no use of the dress; the content of it is far more attractive." However a similar reply might be obtained just by googling, and that can be done by a pretty simple algorithm. Siri probably would win the TT today against most of its users.