"Would it help if you could choose what is shared and what is not?"
As someone who has not experienced malpractice but spent a lot of time with doctors-HELL NO.
I wan't my medical records HARD to get. I can't think of a situation where rapid access to your records would be needed. Not to say that there might not be certain situations.
But do you really think the ER is going to look up your name (if they have it), find your record and spend the time looking at it before they treat you? And heaven forbid if the file is the wrong one or their is some important inaccurate information (and there always is).
"I believe most of them are competent and not acting out of greed."
In my experience, most doctors know less than me on the relevant diagnoses. It is unusual when a doctor suggests a novel treatment. The primary reason I go to a doctor is for a referral or prescription. Hell, most GP's send me to a specialist for something they SHOULD be able to treat. As for greed, well lots of them choose fields based on money....
"I also want them to know things about me even when I'm unconscious or otherwise unreliable."
No medical record is accurate. There are always ommissions or just plain errors. Couple that with the fact that E-records will be made to the lowest common denominator (otherwise it would be hard to share) and probably take more time to fill out, I would rather it not happen (as probably would most doctors).
I generally consider it a solution to a problem that doesn't exist. Now for certain organizations, it makes sense (like the military). But for most, no.
"Nobody has ever published a single believable argument against having a small secure locker of arms on a merchant ship. Further, this practice was common in all merchant fleets right up to and through the 40s."
Lawyers. Lots of lawyers. They tend to congregate in, but not limited to, large shipping and insurance companies.
To date it has probably been cheaper to pay the ransome than the training costs and lawyer fees involved in implementing such an idea.
I would also guess that it is more likely that the weapons would be used on each other than on pirates. Speaking of liability...
"A little more research might have told you that the studio doesn't get anything close to 100% of the gross revenue, and that the general rule is that a movie has to gross 3x it's budget to make money."
Then maybe the studios should provide the real cost? If the studios won't provide an accurate cost then they shouldn't complain. And they won't provide an accurate picture for a reason....
If a movie makes more than its budget, it made a profit. Period.
"OK, I'm one of those "cranks" who remembers how moviegoing USED to be, and considers the current "experience" extremely inferior."
Yeah, I remember the old days. The same rude people. The same crappy movies, crappy sound, the crappy seating and the crappy prints.
Or were you talking pre-1970's? The movie experience is mcuh better today. And there are still some good movies and a lot of crap. That said, I don't bother to see many movies because the big screen doesn't add much to them. But that is no differenct today than in the past.
"Opportunity cost. $100m invested in The Watchmen can't be invested elsewhere, and if $100m invested in another movie would have given higher profits, then they didn't make as much money as they could have."
If they thought they could have made more money elsewhere they would have-they are rather risk averse. The fact that they didn't means they thought it was a good investment.
I might question their taste but not their goal of making obscene amounts of money.
"Do you want private companies having to compete with the government?"
Yes. Generally better service and cheaper. And I have an actual chance of influence.
And let's face it, the cable and phone companies are given a monopoly BY THE GOVERNMENT when they use the public right of way. If the government is involved anyway, why not let it compete?
"And of course you've also discounted all the processing power required as I said to run complex photo management and editing apps. It takes a lot of heavy lifting to make things like face recognition easy for users, or video effects not drag you down in hours of rendering cycles."
The question will depend on how many people will actually use/need/want those features. I suspect a lot of applications like that never really get used. Probably because it takes time to do it and master it.
On the other hand, maybe instead of hideous low res images we will get hideous high res images. Can't wait for a crappy multi-gigabyte home movie or PowerPoint poison...er...presentation.
"How's that HD video working out for you? Transcode any good movies lately? Edit any movies?"
And how many people do that (percentage wise)? Hence computers are generally good enough. I am probably above average in computer use and use a computer whose newest part is more than five years old...
What this really means is that there will be competition on the low end of processors. Those who need/want the power will have to pay more. Fabs for processors that most people don't need won't cost any less....
"An addiction is an addiction. You seem to mostly be talking about withdrawal and, yes, there are differences between chemical and psychological withdrawal."
Unfortunately many (maybe most) people don't understand the difference between addiction and dependence. They are two different things but are routinely conflated.
"Nuke plants must be designed like modern chemical plants, which are more complex than nuke plants, handle boatloads of hazardous chemicals and have high availability."
Hell no. I want a nuclear reactor that is safe. Ever see the safety record of oil refineries for instance (and I would consider them chemical plants)?
"Especially unmanned warplanes: while the current generation are remotely controlled by some guy with a joystick, future models are expected to be fully autonomous - which means that somebody, somewhere, right now, is working on the AI code to control them."
As the current generation of planes require software to fly, I assume the answer would be the same.
"Planes now are just missile launch platforms, and the contest between them mostly a matter of getting the first radar lock and then letting rip..."
Except that you generally want to see who you are shooting at. And when you have visual, cannons suddenly are very useful. One of the first retrofits to the F4 involved cannons for that very reason (and because the missiles sucked-I assume they are better now).
"Do you seriously think the vast majority of americans want the kind of insane spending that our government is doing??"
Yes. If they didn't, it wouldn't happen. As long as there is no consequence for spending money like a drunken sailor and in fact many benefits (reelection), don't expect it to change.
Remember, when your representative brings home money, it's pork, when mines does, it is essential spending:)
"NO!!!! What we need to do is stop accumulating debt by getting renegade government spending under control!"
So what do you want to cut? Medicare and SS are no different than welfare-if you are eligible, you get it. Suggest cutting the military and see where that gets you. ETC.
Ultimately only a small portion of the population wants to cut spending AND is willing to vote on it. Consider that about 25% of the eligible electorate decides who wins office. And they generally vote for the guy who promises the most.
"...(although the requirement to invest only in T-Bills was a stroke of genius; if the trust fund were in private investments I can only imagine the pork-barreled SNAFU that would be.)"
That decision was a disaster for people paying taxes. I would prefer the latter. Because then the fund would have actual reserves to cover the increasing costs. Currently the reserve has a bunch of IOU's in the form of T-bills-we overpaid and get a tax increase to boot.
"News flash for you: we are over taxed, this is not new we have been saying this for a long time."
Define "over-taxed". If people want certain services provided by the government then expect to pay for them. If you want less but most people don't, you are going to lose. I suggest moving to a tax-free country.
"You want to talk about savings to a company, lets talk about every person in the company waiting for a PC to boot."
If every employee only wastes five minutes a day, you would have a point. There won't be any additional lost productivity because they spent five minutes getting ready to work. Time wasted by a worker in a day is pretty large.
"Frankly, I'm tired of people clinging to the old wives tale that it's a simple equation of [number of calories in food eaten] - [number of calories expended in exercise] = [number of calories stored as fat]."
If you take in more calories than you consume, you will gain weight. Period.
Now whether it will be fat, muscle, or other is debatable. Some people obviously are more efficient at burning calories.
But the only way to be "fat" is to take in more calories than you expend. Period.
Probably because we want relatively mainstream wackjobs in power.
There are excellent reasons not to have proportional allocation. You tend may get better representation of smaller constituencies at the cost of fracturing the electorate. It tends to reduce the incentive to compromise or creates bad policy if you have to pander to a certain group.
Whether or not that is a feature or a bug is hard to tell....
"I don't think the NIMBY bastards have been put out to pasture, given the response we've seen in some communities to wind farms."
Try the same thing with any power source near the people who use it. There are the local NIMBYs and BANANNAs and there are the industry specific NIMBYs and BANANAs.
BANANA=Build abolutely nothing anywhere near anyone.
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"Would it help if you could choose what is shared and what is not?"
As someone who has not experienced malpractice but spent a lot of time with doctors-HELL NO.
I wan't my medical records HARD to get. I can't think of a situation where rapid access to your records would be needed. Not to say that there might not be certain situations.
But do you really think the ER is going to look up your name (if they have it), find your record and spend the time looking at it before they treat you? And heaven forbid if the file is the wrong one or their is some important inaccurate information (and there always is).
"I believe most of them are competent and not acting out of greed."
In my experience, most doctors know less than me on the relevant diagnoses. It is unusual when a doctor suggests a novel treatment. The primary reason I go to a doctor is for a referral or prescription. Hell, most GP's send me to a specialist for something they SHOULD be able to treat. As for greed, well lots of them choose fields based on money....
"I also want them to know things about me even when I'm unconscious or otherwise unreliable."
No medical record is accurate. There are always ommissions or just plain errors. Couple that with the fact that E-records will be made to the lowest common denominator (otherwise it would be hard to share) and probably take more time to fill out, I would rather it not happen (as probably would most doctors).
I generally consider it a solution to a problem that doesn't exist. Now for certain organizations, it makes sense (like the military). But for most, no.
"...sit back, relax, and see who gets the post."
And it won't matter anyway. How long have we had a drug czar? Does anybody remember them? Have they ever accomplished anything?
It's like establishing a commission. But less useful. :)
"Nobody has ever published a single believable argument against having a small secure locker of arms on a merchant ship. Further, this practice was common in all merchant fleets right up to and through the 40s."
Lawyers. Lots of lawyers. They tend to congregate in, but not limited to, large shipping and insurance companies.
To date it has probably been cheaper to pay the ransome than the training costs and lawyer fees involved in implementing such an idea.
I would also guess that it is more likely that the weapons would be used on each other than on pirates. Speaking of liability...
"A little more research might have told you that the studio doesn't get anything close to 100% of the gross revenue, and that the general rule is that a movie has to gross 3x it's budget to make money."
Then maybe the studios should provide the real cost? If the studios won't provide an accurate cost then they shouldn't complain. And they won't provide an accurate picture for a reason....
If a movie makes more than its budget, it made a profit. Period.
"OK, I'm one of those "cranks" who remembers how moviegoing USED to be, and considers the current "experience" extremely inferior."
Yeah, I remember the old days. The same rude people. The same crappy movies, crappy sound, the crappy seating and the crappy prints.
Or were you talking pre-1970's? The movie experience is mcuh better today. And there are still some good movies and a lot of crap. That said, I don't bother to see many movies because the big screen doesn't add much to them. But that is no differenct today than in the past.
"Opportunity cost. $100m invested in The Watchmen can't be invested elsewhere, and if $100m invested in another movie would have given higher profits, then they didn't make as much money as they could have."
If they thought they could have made more money elsewhere they would have-they are rather risk averse. The fact that they didn't means they thought it was a good investment.
I might question their taste but not their goal of making obscene amounts of money.
"Do you want private companies having to compete with the government?"
Yes. Generally better service and cheaper. And I have an actual chance of influence.
And let's face it, the cable and phone companies are given a monopoly BY THE GOVERNMENT when they use the public right of way. If the government is involved anyway, why not let it compete?
"And of course you've also discounted all the processing power required as I said to run complex photo management and editing apps. It takes a lot of heavy lifting to make things like face recognition easy for users, or video effects not drag you down in hours of rendering cycles."
The question will depend on how many people will actually use/need/want those features. I suspect a lot of applications like that never really get used. Probably because it takes time to do it and master it.
On the other hand, maybe instead of hideous low res images we will get hideous high res images. Can't wait for a crappy multi-gigabyte home movie or PowerPoint poison...er...presentation.
It will run because the next generation of netbook computers will probably be more powerful than my current desktop. Or they will cut down their OS.
But their margins will be smaller. And their shareholders won't be happy.
But it would be foolish to think they won't or can't compete. You would think that people would learn....
"How's that HD video working out for you? Transcode any good movies lately? Edit any movies?"
And how many people do that (percentage wise)? Hence computers are generally good enough. I am probably above average in computer use and use a computer whose newest part is more than five years old...
What this really means is that there will be competition on the low end of processors. Those who need/want the power will have to pay more. Fabs for processors that most people don't need won't cost any less....
"An addiction is an addiction. You seem to mostly be talking about withdrawal and, yes, there are differences between chemical and psychological withdrawal."
Unfortunately many (maybe most) people don't understand the difference between addiction and dependence. They are two different things but are routinely conflated.
"What I care about is when textbooks start becoming free. It will be a revolution in education."
How exactly? From my teaching experience, it will result in many free books that students won't bother to read.
And who will create textbooks for free? I have been involved in the editing process-it takes time and money.
"Nuke plants must be designed like modern chemical plants, which are more complex than nuke plants, handle boatloads of hazardous chemicals and have high availability."
Hell no. I want a nuclear reactor that is safe. Ever see the safety record of oil refineries for instance (and I would consider them chemical plants)?
"Especially unmanned warplanes: while the current generation are remotely controlled by some guy with a joystick, future models are expected to be fully autonomous - which means that somebody, somewhere, right now, is working on the AI code to control them."
As the current generation of planes require software to fly, I assume the answer would be the same.
"Planes now are just missile launch platforms, and the contest between them mostly a matter of getting the first radar lock and then letting rip..."
Except that you generally want to see who you are shooting at. And when you have visual, cannons suddenly are very useful. One of the first retrofits to the F4 involved cannons for that very reason (and because the missiles sucked-I assume they are better now).
Now if you can get an UAV to do that....
It won't be the end. Prices will rise to where they should have been to begin with.
But I don't order via the internet to save taxes. I order via the internet to get better service (scary but true) and better selection.
"Do you seriously think the vast majority of americans want the kind of insane spending that our government is doing??"
Yes. If they didn't, it wouldn't happen. As long as there is no consequence for spending money like a drunken sailor and in fact many benefits (reelection), don't expect it to change.
Remember, when your representative brings home money, it's pork, when mines does, it is essential spending :)
"NO!!!! What we need to do is stop accumulating debt by getting renegade government spending under control!"
So what do you want to cut? Medicare and SS are no different than welfare-if you are eligible, you get it. Suggest cutting the military and see where that gets you. ETC.
Ultimately only a small portion of the population wants to cut spending AND is willing to vote on it. Consider that about 25% of the eligible electorate decides who wins office. And they generally vote for the guy who promises the most.
And most Americans spend like the feds....
"...(although the requirement to invest only in T-Bills was a stroke of genius; if the trust fund were in private investments I can only imagine the pork-barreled SNAFU that would be.)"
That decision was a disaster for people paying taxes. I would prefer the latter. Because then the fund would have actual reserves to cover the increasing costs. Currently the reserve has a bunch of IOU's in the form of T-bills-we overpaid and get a tax increase to boot.
"News flash for you: we are over taxed, this is not new we have been saying this for a long time."
Define "over-taxed". If people want certain services provided by the government then expect to pay for them. If you want less but most people don't, you are going to lose. I suggest moving to a tax-free country.
"You want to talk about savings to a company, lets talk about every person in the company waiting for a PC to boot."
If every employee only wastes five minutes a day, you would have a point. There won't be any additional lost productivity because they spent five minutes getting ready to work. Time wasted by a worker in a day is pretty large.
"Frankly, I'm tired of people clinging to the old wives tale that it's a simple equation of [number of calories in food eaten] - [number of calories expended in exercise] = [number of calories stored as fat]."
If you take in more calories than you consume, you will gain weight. Period.
Now whether it will be fat, muscle, or other is debatable. Some people obviously are more efficient at burning calories.
But the only way to be "fat" is to take in more calories than you expend. Period.
Probably because we want relatively mainstream wackjobs in power.
There are excellent reasons not to have proportional allocation. You tend may get better representation of smaller constituencies at the cost of fracturing the electorate. It tends to reduce the incentive to compromise or creates bad policy if you have to pander to a certain group.
Whether or not that is a feature or a bug is hard to tell....
Eh. Any shredder that can take decent sized trees will do. Much more spectacular and makes good fertilizer. :) :) :)
"I don't think the NIMBY bastards have been put out to pasture, given the response we've seen in some communities to wind farms."
Try the same thing with any power source near the people who use it. There are the local NIMBYs and BANANNAs and there are the industry specific NIMBYs and BANANAs.
BANANA=Build abolutely nothing anywhere near anyone.