A quality generic OBDII scan tool with a listing of all of the manufacturer specific trouble codes is all you need for most engine repair. The whole engine OBD system is pretty much standardized as required by law. The only reason I could see you needing the manufacturer's scan tool [software] is if you want to either diagnose issues with other, non-standardized modules (ie ABS, SRS, etc) or tweak various ECU settings.
But yeah, I agree, OBD and such 'scary tech' on cars these days do make your life a bit easier if you know what you're doing. It still requires you to have 2 braincells to rub together to figure out what the trouble codes actually mean.
I should have been more clear - they're designed to throw shrapnel in various patterns with the intent to cut through the fuselage in hopes of removing large vital components. Its kind of like an exploding cut-off saw. This is opposed to your typical artillery that just throws little pieces of shrapnel in all directions which will only make little, potentially non-productive holes.
Antiaircraft guns also depend on shrapnel to get their job done and aren't intended to penetrate anything either. It like the old saying 'close only counts in horse shoes and hand grenades' cause, well, hitting a moving plane in tough
I'd beg to differ on how difficult it is to take down a passenger jetliner. The purpose of a missile isn't just to take out an engine or two, it's to do serious damage to the airframe. Put hole in a wing or damage a control surface or two and that big boy is going down. Most antiaircraft missiles are designed to actually cut through the target's fuselage in hopes of removing large vital components, ie a wing or tail section. And lets not forget they're intended to do this against armored targets, which commercial jets most certainly are not. Oh and finally, most aircraft are designed to be barely strong enough to hold itself together in order to minimize weight; doing major damage doesn't take *that* much force.
One little problem with that plan - actually getting on the plane.
Private flights are deeply concerned about security and do take great measures to ensure their flights are secure. They don't just park their jets in the Burger King parking lot with all the doors unlocked. Most private planes are kept sealed until they are ready for flight or go in for service. Whenever they are unsealed, they are usually under someones watchful eye making it very difficult to just sneak on. Not saying it's not possible, just that it's not as easy as you make it sound. Honestly, it would probably be easier just to stick with the commercial airline route and deal with the passengers.
You're kidding yourself if you seriously think Obama or McCain are going to so much as lift a finger to change this. Both of them believe in rule by the government, for the government. Why the hell would they want to fight to gain the powers of the US president only to give them up to the people?
Plus I assume you are referring to Obama, but lets not forget he voted for FISA. We as a people need to figure it out that charismatic != honest and to take whatever either candidate says with a very large grain of salt. Remember, they only care about your vote and will gladly promise you the moon to get it. You'd think we would have learned this with President Bush II promising us a classical conservative utopia yet delivering a neo-conservative hell, but I guess we're all a little slow on the uptake.
Yeah, Aero will run on any graphics card that handles even the most basic hardware acceleration. The thing is, it does suck up resources and frankly isn't all that great. Now back in the day when my laptop ran Vista, turning on Aero to its maximum settings meant Windows took nearly a GB of memory to sit idle. That to me is not acceptable.
Now if you don't understand why people bash on Aero, I suggest you take a look at Compiz. Not only does it do MUCH more than Aero, it uses far fewer resources. Running Ubuntu on that same laptop with Compiz cranked all the way up, I use a whooping 350 MB of memory. Granted, some of that comparison has to do with the differences in the two OSs, but I assure you Aero is relatively a resource hog.
Hey, don't hate on me, I just clarified what the article he linked to said. It's plain 100% unbiased fact that the 'recorded history' he is referring to is the satellite data recorded since 1978, and not some long historical record he's trying to lead you to believe. Just RTFA, and not just the blatantly slanted/. summery that conveniently leaves out that little tid bit.
And the reason the NW Passage isn't used as a shipping route is it is still iced over a good part of the year. Because of this, there are no ports or any other such infrastructure to facilitate using such a route. Regardless, there have been a number of people using plain-old-run-of-the-mill vessels to sail the passage over the past century; something that wouldn't be possible if there has always been a persistent ice pack as you AGW nuts like to suggest.
I hate to tell you this, but the 'recorded history' of the Northwest Passage doesn't cover a very lengthy period of time. In fact its 'recorded history' only began in 1978 and in terms of global trends I'd say 30 years of data doesn't mean jack. But of course you already knew that because you actually read the article you linked to and not just some/.er's slant.
Yeah, I think some people underestimate thieves. I knew a kid in college who would steal laptops and other such equipment on a regular basis. The guy had a serious problem where he almost couldn't *not* steal stuff, and thus I learned to avoid him like the plague. Anyway, he wasn't the brightest crayon in the box, but he certainly knew how to reinstall Windows/OSX and would wipe his stolen wares as soon as he got it back to his room.
Now this probably isn't your average street thug thief, but I would bet it does represent your typical college / corporate campus thief. Basically, not every crook out there is a homeless crack head trying to support their addiction; some are educated and do it for kicks and a few extra bucks.
So are you suggesting that when democracy fails, we should all just give up and accept it? I don't know, I personally would prefer having the tools to defend my liberty, even if it meant a certain death. But I guess some people are just so afraid of dying that they feel safety is more important than freedom.
And what makes you think that people opposing the Federal government to the point that they took up arms wouldn't be mainstream? It's happened before; it was called the 'Civil War'. And during that whole incident, large sections of the military broke off, leading to quite the domestic conflict. I certainly wouldn't doubt the possibility of that happening again, and if it does, the private ownership of arms will initially play a very big role.
And if you think a bunch of pissed off people with small arms can do nothing against our military, take a look at Iraq.
As I read the Tom's Hardware article the other day I had this same thought. My problem with the test was measuring power consumption by battery life which just screams poor proxy measurement. I think a much, much better method would have been to use an ammeter inline with the drives' power supply. This way, they could have measured and calculated the actual power consumption of the different drives over the course of the test.
I tend to believe you are correct though; a processor requesting data on a SSD is going to have to idle for a shorter period of time since the latencies are considerably lower compared to a mechanical drive. This point may be partially concealed in the performance tests due to the lower throughput but I'd think a lower seek time would have a much greater effect on the amount of time a processor idles compared to a higher throughput. Basically the processor is going to idle during the extra several milliseconds that a mechanical drive is searching for a block of data, but it's not going to idle during the extra fraction of a nano second between each byte received on a SSD.
As the technology improves though, I see this becoming a non-issue.
And you're missing the point: you don't have to be a murderer to not be a law abiding citizen (aka criminal). Most non-law abiding citizens that wind up killing don't start out murdering people; they start out with robbery, rape, drugs, etc. All things that would prohibit someone from legally owning a firearm
There are loads of statistics that prove my point here.
And yes, lets make this a racial issue, because that makes perfect sense and fits just perfectly in this discussion.
Did you read this?
Sure there are instances where previously law abiding citizens start killing others, but this is more of an exception than a rule. I think Cho would fit into the 'exception' category that I mentioned. Your argument is like saying that because of the occasional commercial airliner crash, we shouldn't have commercial airlines. Yeah, sometimes people die, but as sad as it is, it's not a good excuse to give up liberties.
First off, most people committing crimes with guns are not law abiding citizens, and probably haven't been that way for a while. In fact, such people are usually very very bad people with a long criminal record. Sure there are instances where previously law abiding citizens start killing others, but this is more of an exception than a rule.
As for the RKBA partially being for the purpose of revolution, I suggest you start by RTFA, namely the decision it links to. Justice Scalia points out that one of the lawful uses of firearms is in the defense against a tyrannical government. Next I suggest you check out the writings of Alexander Hamilton and James Madison in the Federalist Papers as they touch on this topic several times. Furthermore, there are a good number of quotes by other founding fathers that further support this opinion. You must remember, the US was formed after a revolution against a tyrannical colonial government, and this was fresh on the minds of the framers of the constitution when they wrote the 2nd A.
Yeah but how often do people get robbed, assaulted, raped, murdered etc withOUT a gun being involved? Depending on where you live, I bet it's probably quite a bit higher than it is in the US. And don't forget, most of the people getting shot here are not good people anyway; ie gang bangers and the like. In fact, the average gun homicide victim has 4 prior arrests Idk, but as long as I'm not in some ghetto, I feel much safer anywhere in the US than in most European cities I've been to.
It's not just the size of your gun that matters, it's also how you use it. Look at Iraq; insurgents with nothing more than small arms have been giving the worlds most powerful military a run for their money.
Not to mention such an action wouldn't be as simple as 'US government vs civilians'. I would imagine as more and more people began to rebel, you'd start to have sections of the military and even entire states join in the effort. In essence, it would be another civil war; not a happy thought, but it does give us some level of guarantee that things can only get *so* bad.
You are somewhat right by saying $4 gas isn't a supply problem, but I think the rest of your analysis is filled with conspiracy theories that have nothing to do with why gas prices are what they are. Bush, Cheney, and Co have nothing to do with oil prices, just because they may have connections to oil companies doesn't mean they can effect the oil prices. You see, oil prices are determined by the market, ie supply vs demand, as they are publicly traded commodities. When demand exceeds supply, prices go up, it's basic economics. Government officials, no matter how devious, have no impact in this trade.
The real reason why gas is getting expensive is on the demand side. With a combination of the exponential world population growth and the exponential growth in China's and India's economies, the demand for oil is going through the roof. Then add in the fact that the US has an ever growing trade deficit and the falling value of the dollar, and you get a situation where US oil purchasers are less competitive than they once were. This all means higher prices for us.
Furthermore, it really bothers me when I hear people complain about the record profits of oil companies and how they should be punished with increased taxes. As I think I've explained pretty clearly, they have little if anything to do with how much we pay for oil; the market decides that. What the oil companies do have control over is their extraction and refinement costs, which remain constant for the most part. So when we are willing to pay more for a product, and it still costs the company the same amount of money to produce that product, obviously they're going to get better profits. So what do you suggest they do, give oil away for free? Taxing them as punishment for doing NOTHING wrong does nothing more than making the uninformed population feel better about themselves. Also, by taxing them what's to say they won't pass the cost of the taxes onto the end user, making our gas even more expensive?
Basically, blaming this on the Bush administration is just dumb and a waste of time. Blame the average American for buying more than they can afford or blame our ENTIRE government for doing the same. Heck, blame the sitting presidents during the Korean and Vietnam wars for not nuking China into the stone age thus eliminating our main competitor for oil (not that I really think this is a good idea). Just don't solely blame a handful of people in our ever growing government for what boils down to a free market forcing.
Sweet, you managed to bring Iraq into the discussion. Now someone needs to figure out how to link in the iPhone and we'll be all set!:)
In any case, that 500 billion dollars is 500 billion dollars that we don't have. Not only should it probably have not been spent in Iraq, it shouldn't have been spent on anything. Having the Fed fire up their Xerox machine to run off some Benjamins is not the solution to solving any of the world's problems.
But hey, if you want to feel better about it, think of it as a 500 billion dollar investment into controlling the worlds overpopulation problem.
This isn't too uncommon, but it is pretty understandable. The DEA and other law enforcement agencies have thrown a number of doctors in jail for 'over prescribing' pain killers. Sure there are a number of instances where doctors do abuse their prescription writing powers, but even doctors who treat patients with legitimate chronic pain have been locked up.
This has created a bit of a fear to prescribe such drugs, and now you'll find a lot of doctors reluctant to give these drugs even if they are the best option. It really is sad when what is or is not considered 'over prescribing' is decided by a bunch of cops and lawyers instead of doctors.
I wonder if the popularity of this distributor is an indicator of problems with the legal drug industry? If these drugs were more available and affordable (i.e., fewer patent-enforced limitations on supply artificially driving the prices up), maybe people wouldn't be turning to criminal organizations to buy them.
First, without those patent limitations, no one would be willing to invest the hundreds of millions of dollars that it costs to bring a drug to market in the US. If you want to suggest anything, it'd be to lengthen patent life so companies have more time earn a decent ROI and thus can lower their prices. Personally I don't think this is what needs to be done. If anything, allow consumers to purchase drugs that haven't undergone the strict FDA approval process, thus making the drugs cheaper (albeit less safe)
Next, I strongly disagree with the whole premise that people illegally buy drugs online to save money. No, I don't think that's it. I think it's because they want their painkillers or ED meds to abuse but can't get a legit prescription. I think this way because these are the only drugs these companies sell and they certainly aren't much, if at all, cheaper than buying the same drugs legitimately.
It's good to see someone understands why drugs cost what they do. While a billion dollars per drug may be a bit on the high side, it is not an exaggeration as bringing drugs to market in the US is INSANELY expensive. FDA requires very strict processes that take years to approve a new drug.
This is further compounded by the fact that the amount of time a company has to earn a return on their investment is limited by the life of their patent. Once a patent expires, the drug goes generic and the company that originally produced it will never be able to compete with all the generic companies that do nothing more than synthesize low cost drugs. Furthermore, the life time of the patent includes the FDA approval process, so it's not unheard of for a drug to only have a few years remaining on its patent by the time it is approved.
Finally, one needs to understand that for every popular allergy or ED medication that brings in big bucks, there are a number of not so common drugs that barely bring in anything. In fact, most major pharma companies produce a number of drugs that treat some disease that is so rare that they actually lose money on them. But hey, it's cool, hip, and trendy these days to ignore how things work and just blame everything on the evil elite few.
Oh gee, I don't know, maybe the end of the little ice age? It only makes sense that seeing as the world was much colder than normal 150+ year ago, that the last hundred or so years would see some noticeable warming.
I hate to tell you this, but seeing as the temperature in 1998 is still the warmest year on record, that doesn't indicate warming. Worst case it indicates no change for the past decade. Furthermore, this goes counter to what the majority of the climate models have predicted: that the world would continue to warm almost exponentially. Personally, I find it amusing that 'global warming' has officially been replaced with 'climate change' for this very reason, yet people still try to defend global warming.
No, EV-DO is a flavor of Qualcomm's CDMA2000, not GSM. That article is simple talking about Verizon upgrading their EV-DO network to the newer and faster Rev A version.
What is happening though is Verizon will be switching to a GSM technology called LTE for their 4G network. So maybe with the next iteration of the iPhone will be available on Verizon. But until then, I'll stick with my HTC 6800 and a network that actually has 3G coverage.
Things like this make me wonder where the 'nanny state' ends and where the 'police state' begins. It's bad enough when you think about it from the nanny state perspective: "lets protect all the the children so they don't have to worry about reading unkind words." It's even worse when you look at it from the police state perspective: "lets throw people in jail just for saying something mean."
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A quality generic OBDII scan tool with a listing of all of the manufacturer specific trouble codes is all you need for most engine repair. The whole engine OBD system is pretty much standardized as required by law. The only reason I could see you needing the manufacturer's scan tool [software] is if you want to either diagnose issues with other, non-standardized modules (ie ABS, SRS, etc) or tweak various ECU settings.
But yeah, I agree, OBD and such 'scary tech' on cars these days do make your life a bit easier if you know what you're doing. It still requires you to have 2 braincells to rub together to figure out what the trouble codes actually mean.
I should have been more clear - they're designed to throw shrapnel in various patterns with the intent to cut through the fuselage in hopes of removing large vital components. Its kind of like an exploding cut-off saw. This is opposed to your typical artillery that just throws little pieces of shrapnel in all directions which will only make little, potentially non-productive holes.
Antiaircraft guns also depend on shrapnel to get their job done and aren't intended to penetrate anything either. It like the old saying 'close only counts in horse shoes and hand grenades' cause, well, hitting a moving plane in tough
I'd beg to differ on how difficult it is to take down a passenger jetliner. The purpose of a missile isn't just to take out an engine or two, it's to do serious damage to the airframe. Put hole in a wing or damage a control surface or two and that big boy is going down. Most antiaircraft missiles are designed to actually cut through the target's fuselage in hopes of removing large vital components, ie a wing or tail section. And lets not forget they're intended to do this against armored targets, which commercial jets most certainly are not. Oh and finally, most aircraft are designed to be barely strong enough to hold itself together in order to minimize weight; doing major damage doesn't take *that* much force.
One little problem with that plan - actually getting on the plane.
Private flights are deeply concerned about security and do take great measures to ensure their flights are secure. They don't just park their jets in the Burger King parking lot with all the doors unlocked. Most private planes are kept sealed until they are ready for flight or go in for service. Whenever they are unsealed, they are usually under someones watchful eye making it very difficult to just sneak on. Not saying it's not possible, just that it's not as easy as you make it sound. Honestly, it would probably be easier just to stick with the commercial airline route and deal with the passengers.
You're kidding yourself if you seriously think Obama or McCain are going to so much as lift a finger to change this. Both of them believe in rule by the government, for the government. Why the hell would they want to fight to gain the powers of the US president only to give them up to the people?
Plus I assume you are referring to Obama, but lets not forget he voted for FISA. We as a people need to figure it out that charismatic != honest and to take whatever either candidate says with a very large grain of salt. Remember, they only care about your vote and will gladly promise you the moon to get it. You'd think we would have learned this with President Bush II promising us a classical conservative utopia yet delivering a neo-conservative hell, but I guess we're all a little slow on the uptake.
Yeah, Aero will run on any graphics card that handles even the most basic hardware acceleration. The thing is, it does suck up resources and frankly isn't all that great. Now back in the day when my laptop ran Vista, turning on Aero to its maximum settings meant Windows took nearly a GB of memory to sit idle. That to me is not acceptable.
Now if you don't understand why people bash on Aero, I suggest you take a look at Compiz. Not only does it do MUCH more than Aero, it uses far fewer resources. Running Ubuntu on that same laptop with Compiz cranked all the way up, I use a whooping 350 MB of memory. Granted, some of that comparison has to do with the differences in the two OSs, but I assure you Aero is relatively a resource hog.
Hey, don't hate on me, I just clarified what the article he linked to said. It's plain 100% unbiased fact that the 'recorded history' he is referring to is the satellite data recorded since 1978, and not some long historical record he's trying to lead you to believe. Just RTFA, and not just the blatantly slanted /. summery that conveniently leaves out that little tid bit.
And the reason the NW Passage isn't used as a shipping route is it is still iced over a good part of the year. Because of this, there are no ports or any other such infrastructure to facilitate using such a route. Regardless, there have been a number of people using plain-old-run-of-the-mill vessels to sail the passage over the past century; something that wouldn't be possible if there has always been a persistent ice pack as you AGW nuts like to suggest.
I hate to tell you this, but the 'recorded history' of the Northwest Passage doesn't cover a very lengthy period of time. In fact its 'recorded history' only began in 1978 and in terms of global trends I'd say 30 years of data doesn't mean jack. But of course you already knew that because you actually read the article you linked to and not just some /.er's slant.
Yeah, I think some people underestimate thieves. I knew a kid in college who would steal laptops and other such equipment on a regular basis. The guy had a serious problem where he almost couldn't *not* steal stuff, and thus I learned to avoid him like the plague. Anyway, he wasn't the brightest crayon in the box, but he certainly knew how to reinstall Windows/OSX and would wipe his stolen wares as soon as he got it back to his room.
Now this probably isn't your average street thug thief, but I would bet it does represent your typical college / corporate campus thief. Basically, not every crook out there is a homeless crack head trying to support their addiction; some are educated and do it for kicks and a few extra bucks.
So are you suggesting that when democracy fails, we should all just give up and accept it? I don't know, I personally would prefer having the tools to defend my liberty, even if it meant a certain death. But I guess some people are just so afraid of dying that they feel safety is more important than freedom.
And what makes you think that people opposing the Federal government to the point that they took up arms wouldn't be mainstream? It's happened before; it was called the 'Civil War'. And during that whole incident, large sections of the military broke off, leading to quite the domestic conflict. I certainly wouldn't doubt the possibility of that happening again, and if it does, the private ownership of arms will initially play a very big role.
And if you think a bunch of pissed off people with small arms can do nothing against our military, take a look at Iraq.
As I read the Tom's Hardware article the other day I had this same thought. My problem with the test was measuring power consumption by battery life which just screams poor proxy measurement. I think a much, much better method would have been to use an ammeter inline with the drives' power supply. This way, they could have measured and calculated the actual power consumption of the different drives over the course of the test.
I tend to believe you are correct though; a processor requesting data on a SSD is going to have to idle for a shorter period of time since the latencies are considerably lower compared to a mechanical drive. This point may be partially concealed in the performance tests due to the lower throughput but I'd think a lower seek time would have a much greater effect on the amount of time a processor idles compared to a higher throughput. Basically the processor is going to idle during the extra several milliseconds that a mechanical drive is searching for a block of data, but it's not going to idle during the extra fraction of a nano second between each byte received on a SSD.
As the technology improves though, I see this becoming a non-issue.
And you're missing the point: you don't have to be a murderer to not be a law abiding citizen (aka criminal). Most non-law abiding citizens that wind up killing don't start out murdering people; they start out with robbery, rape, drugs, etc. All things that would prohibit someone from legally owning a firearm
There are loads of statistics that prove my point here.
And yes, lets make this a racial issue, because that makes perfect sense and fits just perfectly in this discussion.
First off, most people committing crimes with guns are not law abiding citizens, and probably haven't been that way for a while. In fact, such people are usually very very bad people with a long criminal record. Sure there are instances where previously law abiding citizens start killing others, but this is more of an exception than a rule.
As for the RKBA partially being for the purpose of revolution, I suggest you start by RTFA, namely the decision it links to. Justice Scalia points out that one of the lawful uses of firearms is in the defense against a tyrannical government. Next I suggest you check out the writings of Alexander Hamilton and James Madison in the Federalist Papers as they touch on this topic several times. Furthermore, there are a good number of quotes by other founding fathers that further support this opinion. You must remember, the US was formed after a revolution against a tyrannical colonial government, and this was fresh on the minds of the framers of the constitution when they wrote the 2nd A.
Yeah but how often do people get robbed, assaulted, raped, murdered etc withOUT a gun being involved? Depending on where you live, I bet it's probably quite a bit higher than it is in the US. And don't forget, most of the people getting shot here are not good people anyway; ie gang bangers and the like. In fact, the average gun homicide victim has 4 prior arrests Idk, but as long as I'm not in some ghetto, I feel much safer anywhere in the US than in most European cities I've been to.
It's not just the size of your gun that matters, it's also how you use it. Look at Iraq; insurgents with nothing more than small arms have been giving the worlds most powerful military a run for their money.
Not to mention such an action wouldn't be as simple as 'US government vs civilians'. I would imagine as more and more people began to rebel, you'd start to have sections of the military and even entire states join in the effort. In essence, it would be another civil war; not a happy thought, but it does give us some level of guarantee that things can only get *so* bad.
You are somewhat right by saying $4 gas isn't a supply problem, but I think the rest of your analysis is filled with conspiracy theories that have nothing to do with why gas prices are what they are. Bush, Cheney, and Co have nothing to do with oil prices, just because they may have connections to oil companies doesn't mean they can effect the oil prices. You see, oil prices are determined by the market, ie supply vs demand, as they are publicly traded commodities. When demand exceeds supply, prices go up, it's basic economics. Government officials, no matter how devious, have no impact in this trade.
The real reason why gas is getting expensive is on the demand side. With a combination of the exponential world population growth and the exponential growth in China's and India's economies, the demand for oil is going through the roof. Then add in the fact that the US has an ever growing trade deficit and the falling value of the dollar, and you get a situation where US oil purchasers are less competitive than they once were. This all means higher prices for us.
Furthermore, it really bothers me when I hear people complain about the record profits of oil companies and how they should be punished with increased taxes. As I think I've explained pretty clearly, they have little if anything to do with how much we pay for oil; the market decides that. What the oil companies do have control over is their extraction and refinement costs, which remain constant for the most part. So when we are willing to pay more for a product, and it still costs the company the same amount of money to produce that product, obviously they're going to get better profits. So what do you suggest they do, give oil away for free? Taxing them as punishment for doing NOTHING wrong does nothing more than making the uninformed population feel better about themselves. Also, by taxing them what's to say they won't pass the cost of the taxes onto the end user, making our gas even more expensive?
Basically, blaming this on the Bush administration is just dumb and a waste of time. Blame the average American for buying more than they can afford or blame our ENTIRE government for doing the same. Heck, blame the sitting presidents during the Korean and Vietnam wars for not nuking China into the stone age thus eliminating our main competitor for oil (not that I really think this is a good idea). Just don't solely blame a handful of people in our ever growing government for what boils down to a free market forcing.
Sweet, you managed to bring Iraq into the discussion. Now someone needs to figure out how to link in the iPhone and we'll be all set! :)
In any case, that 500 billion dollars is 500 billion dollars that we don't have. Not only should it probably have not been spent in Iraq, it shouldn't have been spent on anything. Having the Fed fire up their Xerox machine to run off some Benjamins is not the solution to solving any of the world's problems.
But hey, if you want to feel better about it, think of it as a 500 billion dollar investment into controlling the worlds overpopulation problem.
This isn't too uncommon, but it is pretty understandable. The DEA and other law enforcement agencies have thrown a number of doctors in jail for 'over prescribing' pain killers. Sure there are a number of instances where doctors do abuse their prescription writing powers, but even doctors who treat patients with legitimate chronic pain have been locked up.
This has created a bit of a fear to prescribe such drugs, and now you'll find a lot of doctors reluctant to give these drugs even if they are the best option. It really is sad when what is or is not considered 'over prescribing' is decided by a bunch of cops and lawyers instead of doctors.
First, without those patent limitations, no one would be willing to invest the hundreds of millions of dollars that it costs to bring a drug to market in the US. If you want to suggest anything, it'd be to lengthen patent life so companies have more time earn a decent ROI and thus can lower their prices. Personally I don't think this is what needs to be done. If anything, allow consumers to purchase drugs that haven't undergone the strict FDA approval process, thus making the drugs cheaper (albeit less safe)
Next, I strongly disagree with the whole premise that people illegally buy drugs online to save money. No, I don't think that's it. I think it's because they want their painkillers or ED meds to abuse but can't get a legit prescription. I think this way because these are the only drugs these companies sell and they certainly aren't much, if at all, cheaper than buying the same drugs legitimately.
It's good to see someone understands why drugs cost what they do. While a billion dollars per drug may be a bit on the high side, it is not an exaggeration as bringing drugs to market in the US is INSANELY expensive. FDA requires very strict processes that take years to approve a new drug.
This is further compounded by the fact that the amount of time a company has to earn a return on their investment is limited by the life of their patent. Once a patent expires, the drug goes generic and the company that originally produced it will never be able to compete with all the generic companies that do nothing more than synthesize low cost drugs. Furthermore, the life time of the patent includes the FDA approval process, so it's not unheard of for a drug to only have a few years remaining on its patent by the time it is approved.
Finally, one needs to understand that for every popular allergy or ED medication that brings in big bucks, there are a number of not so common drugs that barely bring in anything. In fact, most major pharma companies produce a number of drugs that treat some disease that is so rare that they actually lose money on them. But hey, it's cool, hip, and trendy these days to ignore how things work and just blame everything on the evil elite few.
Oh gee, I don't know, maybe the end of the little ice age? It only makes sense that seeing as the world was much colder than normal 150+ year ago, that the last hundred or so years would see some noticeable warming.
I hate to tell you this, but seeing as the temperature in 1998 is still the warmest year on record, that doesn't indicate warming. Worst case it indicates no change for the past decade. Furthermore, this goes counter to what the majority of the climate models have predicted: that the world would continue to warm almost exponentially. Personally, I find it amusing that 'global warming' has officially been replaced with 'climate change' for this very reason, yet people still try to defend global warming.
No, EV-DO is a flavor of Qualcomm's CDMA2000, not GSM. That article is simple talking about Verizon upgrading their EV-DO network to the newer and faster Rev A version.
What is happening though is Verizon will be switching to a GSM technology called LTE for their 4G network. So maybe with the next iteration of the iPhone will be available on Verizon. But until then, I'll stick with my HTC 6800 and a network that actually has 3G coverage.Things like this make me wonder where the 'nanny state' ends and where the 'police state' begins. It's bad enough when you think about it from the nanny state perspective: "lets protect all the the children so they don't have to worry about reading unkind words." It's even worse when you look at it from the police state perspective: "lets throw people in jail just for saying something mean."