Where's your evidence for your assertion? Sounds to me like you're just blowing smoke... well, smoke and selfishness. As for not paying for lazy people to eat, do you audit the companies whose goods and services you buy to ensure they're not employing lazy wasteful scoundrels as well? Or is laziness acceptable so long as an employer provides a check?
Go ahead and prove...I'd be interested to see how you propose to do this. What standards of proof shall we apply? Legal criminal (beyond reasonable doubt); legal civil (balance of probabilities); scientific/statistical (some p-value)?
Do you believe that all people on welfare are too lazy to support themselves? Are you blind to the possibility that people may, through unfortunate circumstances, find themselves reliant on welfare? Do you believe that everyone has friends and family they can turn to in times of crisis? Or that everyone is talented and lucky enough to find work, no matter where they live or what the economic circumstances? Robert Heinlein, a man with no particular love for the lazy, once wrote "People who go broke in a big way never miss any meals. It is the poor jerk who is shy a half slug who must tighten his belt." You can be a libertarian or a minarchist or a conservative and still retain compassion for others less fortunate than yourself. For instance, you don't have to assume that everyone on welfare is undeserving lazy scum. Try it sometime...
Um, you don't need a sovereign in the sense you mean to be a sovereign country. Sovereign has more than one meaning. In the US, the people are sovereign.
Your comments are interesting and cogently put. I'd like to point out a couple of things. First, I agree that it is not the job of the US government to provide healthcare because that is how your constitution is written. Other countries have chosen other paths. Second, while there are inherent inefficiencies in a state-provision or state-funded health system, there are inherent inefficiencies in a private-provision system too. In a state-provision system, there is bureaucracy and the lack of a competitive incentive. In a private system, there is over-supply (else there couldn't be competition), potential gaps (there is no market incentive to provide any particular service beyond its being profitable and not all services will be profitable), and the generation of huge amounts of information related to billing because of the third-party payer system. Additionally, there are micro- and macro-economic efficiencies associated with state-provision--for instance, a state-provision system gains efficiencies of scale as an insurer of risk and as a purchaser by virtue of universal coverage. See the Wanless report produced for the UK gov't by that notorious socialist Derek Wanless (ex-CEO of a big UK retail bank and not a man to look kindly on unnecessary state involvement in health) for examples. My third point is, you already do pay a lot for healthcare through taxes -- about 7% of GDP. You pay another 8% of GDP in health insurance/direct payments. For that, you get potentially excellent healthcare but lack of coverage for some people (c40m) and variable coverage of some diseases. Here in the UK, by contrast, we pay about 8% (shortly to be somewhat more...) and we get universal coverage, more variable care and never up to the top standards that your CEOs and rockstars can afford, and some diseases also not properly covered. There are no 100% correct choices, but there are advantages and disadvantages to each and it's important to be clear-eyed and clear-minded about them.
a) what makes you think TB is easy and simple to cure? TB is resurgent across much of the world. b) while your point about the value of commercial research is true, it is nonetheless the case that many drugs originated in government or other publicly funded labs and were brought to market by drugcos. the pharmacos provided the deep pockets to run large scale phase III trials and to market the drugs. of course, many other drugs have been developed commercially, and many have been derived from natural materials.
OK, so we have a boundary problem. At what stage do you feel that it gets to be unfair on authors? When they are selling 500 books instead of 5000? 50 instead of 500? 5? 1? If you wish to see a healthy market for new writing, you will wish to distinguish between copies of Catcher in the Rye that are passed down reverently from generation to generation and the scenario that most authors are worried about.
It did happen. If you want to get an idea of the enormity of what happened, you can learn some of the basics by visiting Yad VaShem's website or by reading Guido Knopp's "Hitler's Holocaust", or by watching Claude Lanzmann's "Shoah". You may also want to read some of the artistic responses to the Holocaust, which will in many ways provide a clearer, starker, insight into what happened. You could read "Maus", by Art Spiegelman, "The Drowned and the Saved" by Primo Levi, or "The Last of the Just" by Andre Schwarz-Bart. Each of these last three is a profound work of art, and deserves a wider audience.
It's sad to see that so many Slashdotters are so uncomfortable with that fact. Authors aren't objecting to just any old store offering used books. They're objecting to *Amazon* doing it. That's because they recognise that Amazon controls a significant share of the market: Amazon can potentially affect the buying habits of a huge number of consumers and so destroy the chances of authors making a living. And for every JK Rowling who can live without an extra $10m, there are literally thousands, possibly tens of thousands of authors who rely on royalties to pay the rent. What is happening is that Amazon is making the market much more price-competitive. The response will be the same as in any other market: consolidation, with small businesses (ie authors who aren't best-sellers) going under. That's where they're coming from.
Tell you what, mate, here's a challenge for you. Rather than sitting on your fat fucking arse spouting idiotic "theories" you just barely managed to copy from vicious pigs who have more wit, if not more conscience, than you, why don't you go and look all over Eastern Europe and tell me where half my family's buried? When you've finished failing to find their graves--they went up in smoke in your favourite butcher's camps-- you can spend some time contemplating who the fuck you think you are to insult the memory of the dead like that. On the way home, you can stop for a little wankfest with David Irving, consoling him on losing his court battle.
You're a real bright spark, aren't you? How do you think that the advertiser pays for the media space? That's right, client fees! And where does the client make its money from, in order to pay fees? That's right, us, you big dummy! TANSTAAFL
I presume that was a joke or a troll, in which case it was quite funny. Just on the wild off-chance it wasn't, Robert Heinlein died a rich and happy man in May 1988, and much to my dismay, didn't give me a cut of his royalties in his Will.
"The door into summer"
on
Hospital Robots
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
Robert Heinlein's record at predictions never ceases to amaze me: not only did he decribe robots working in this way in a hospital, he also depicted a number of the problems and solutions that are talked about here. Check out "The Door Into Summer" to see what I mean.
I too, "actually read" your post. Actually, you didn't say "some Apple designs add to usability"; what you said was "we get all kinds of physical gimmickry that raises the price of the product. Sometimes these actually add value, like the easy-to-setup iMac cases. But mostly they're just pandering to the Distintive Brand and Design cult".
Clearly, I was calling you on the second part of your statement, not the first. You have now added some examples of design that you don't think adds value, as I'd asked for. Now at least there is something to discuss other than banal generalities ("mostly they're just pandering to the Distintive Brand and Design cult").
Your examples include a no-longer manufactured mouse, a networking feature that you don't yourself value that highly but that others do, clear cases that are difficult to keep clean (one of two valid examples, I think), and monitors that frustrate you by not breaking with the fundamental Apple branding principle of providing cool stuff for Apple Mac users only (viz iTunes, iPod, most of the iTools, etc etc).
You also raise the GUI of Mac OS X: while it is true that there are many problems that Apple introduced in redesigning its OS, and that some of these appear (there's no published comment on this from Apple, after all) to be driven by aesthetics instead of HCI principles, it's also true that the situation is much improved from the early days, that important new innovations have been introduced, and that some of the complaints (including some of AskTog's) are either idiosyncratic or misdirected. It is also true that your original post, about which you sardonically commented "I got modded up because somebody actually read my post", implying that I hadn't, talked about "all kinds of physical gimmickry". Mr Pot, can I introduce you to your friend, Mr Kettle?
I could well believe that you've been involved in rebranding efforts. Doesn't mean that you did a good job. You seem to believe that brand, style and image are separable and separately manipulable from a product's inherent characteristics. However, outside the world of commodities, they are fundamentally connected. As I said before, commoditising Apple's offering is a margin-killer and a really dumb way for them to do business.
Finally, I suggest you re-read my original sentence about champagne carefully, think about the likely intent in the context of the statements I had previously made, and consider a retraction of your floridly mis-directed riposte on the grounds that you completely missed the point. [And I'll bet that I'm more familiar with methode champenoise than you as well...]
It is incredible that comments like this get modded insightful. If you're going to complain about Apple's industrial design being purely for the sake of design, it would be nice if you could point out a couple of examples of where form hasn't followed function. What, precisely, in a TiBook or a G4 tower is an example of "physical gimmickry that raises the price of the product"? The case material? The screenshape on the former? The side-opening catch on the latter? Really, I'm at a loss to think what you could be referring to. What's more, your comments about competition show you don't understand the fundamentals of business. Apple tries to steer clear of price-based competition where possible, this being a commoditised and therefore low-value market segment. Instead, it tries to deliver premium products for a premium niche, and focuses on reliability, ease-of-use and user-experience, as you'd expect. Your comments sound as dumb as a complaint that champagne manufacturers keep on insisting in using expensive cork enclosures rather than nice cheap screwtops.
Pile of bollocks. I have one hotmail account that has never received spam and another that constantly receives spam. It's all a question of how the address you choose.
Re:Always overstated --- IQ FALLACY! Wrong
on
Cracking the Smartcards
·
· Score: 0, Offtopic
But not of shutting up, hm?
Had you read my reply with due care, you will have picked up on the clear implication that I have read "The Bell Curve". You would also have picked up on the clear implication that I thought it was crap. And not very well argued crap, at that.
FWIW, I know that cards can be cracked and that it doesn't take huge teams to do it. I just don't believe your claims to privileged insight.
I'm going to take a wild guess here that you think of yourself as falling in the group of "people with high IQs", don't you? I'll bet you also think that IQ is an adequate proxy for intelligence. And I'll bet that while you read that old potboiler Messrs Murray and Herrnstein cobbled together, you've never read "The Mismeasure of Man". As for your excitable claims about chipcracking -- put up or shut up.
I'm certainly in awe of your stupidity. There was a moral difference between the Blitz and the Shoah, even though both were calculated to kill civilians. If you're going to make a ridiculous assertion such as "we claim civillian [sic] targets are never acceptable", you might back your statement up with a little evidence. You might also clarify who the "we" is. The trouble with being a dumb twat in public is that you will be called on it. Assertions that "civilian targets are never acceptable" are up there in the idiocy tables with statments like "violence never settles anything", demonstrating a refusal to begin to grapple with the moral issues at stake, a wilful blindness to the evidence of history, and a confusion of the normative and the declarative modes of speech.
Something else as well. You write "by your logic, a private road is a public good". A private road may or may not be a public good. The same is true for a public road. The issue is whether an attempt is made to limit access to the road to fee-paying users. You would immediately have grasped this, if you had bothered to learn about what is meant in economics by the concept of a "public good".
*Ding* wrongo! Try re-reading what I wrote. I wrote that most roads were *not* toll roads. Your reading standards are as poor as your grasp of economics. You clearly have not bothered to have read the link that I sent you as you still do not understand what a public good is. Public goods can have externalities, just as private goods can. As for your specific point: are you seriously trying to suggest that the reason we have streetlights is because the mean ol gummint is installing them against our wishes? What on earth makes you think that private individuals and organisations would not install streetlights if government's didn't? May I remind you that light pollution sources, in addition to streetlights, include business lighting (private), home lighting (private), increased urbanisation (driven by the choice of individuals to benefit from city life, something that a lover of freedom such as yourself would never *dream* of interfering with) and car lighting (private choice). While none of these sources is by itself as significant as streetlighting, collectively they ensure that light pollution would be significant even were every gummint-installed light turned off. You should spend a little less time with Ludwig and a little more time learning some real economics. You know, the sort you could learn at Cambridge or Harvard or Chicago. By the way, the Mises Institute has an insignia. It is the Mises family coat-of-arms! The irony of a government-hating organisation choosing as its symbol a government award of patronage, granted by an Emperor, fer gossake, is too sweet to be true.
You are *surely* joking, aren't you? With a few exceptions, virtually every road in history has not been a toll-road. Therefore, virtually every road in history has not been primarily funded by users at the point of use. Roads, like streetlamps, are understood by those of us who have actually cracked open an economics textbook in our time to be public goods. Public goods are a standard part of economic theory, not something foisted on freemarketeers by a liberal elite. To learn what a public good is, try this site: http://www.bized.ac.uk/stafsup/options/aec/ glos.ht m
Actually, they don't have to worry about vandalism. Not when the kiddies can have so much fun pissing off the passengers by standing in front of the vehicles. And you thought your bus stopped a lot en-route...
Slashdot Mirror
Where's your evidence for your assertion? Sounds to me like you're just blowing smoke... well, smoke and selfishness. As for not paying for lazy people to eat, do you audit the companies whose goods and services you buy to ensure they're not employing lazy wasteful scoundrels as well? Or is laziness acceptable so long as an employer provides a check?
Go ahead and prove...I'd be interested to see how you propose to do this. What standards of proof shall we apply? Legal criminal (beyond reasonable doubt); legal civil (balance of probabilities); scientific/statistical (some p-value)?
Do you believe that all people on welfare are too lazy to support themselves? Are you blind to the possibility that people may, through unfortunate circumstances, find themselves reliant on welfare? Do you believe that everyone has friends and family they can turn to in times of crisis? Or that everyone is talented and lucky enough to find work, no matter where they live or what the economic circumstances? Robert Heinlein, a man with no particular love for the lazy, once wrote "People who go broke in a big way never miss any meals. It is the poor jerk who is shy a half slug who must tighten his belt." You can be a libertarian or a minarchist or a conservative and still retain compassion for others less fortunate than yourself. For instance, you don't have to assume that everyone on welfare is undeserving lazy scum. Try it sometime...
Um, you don't need a sovereign in the sense you mean to be a sovereign country. Sovereign has more than one meaning. In the US, the people are sovereign.
Apart from that, good response.
Your comments are interesting and cogently put. I'd like to point out a couple of things. First, I agree that it is not the job of the US government to provide healthcare because that is how your constitution is written. Other countries have chosen other paths.
Second, while there are inherent inefficiencies in a state-provision or state-funded health system, there are inherent inefficiencies in a private-provision system too. In a state-provision system, there is bureaucracy and the lack of a competitive incentive. In a private system, there is over-supply (else there couldn't be competition), potential gaps (there is no market incentive to provide any particular service beyond its being profitable and not all services will be profitable), and the generation of huge amounts of information related to billing because of the third-party payer system. Additionally, there are micro- and macro-economic efficiencies associated with state-provision--for instance, a state-provision system gains efficiencies of scale as an insurer of risk and as a purchaser by virtue of universal coverage. See the Wanless report produced for the UK gov't by that notorious socialist Derek Wanless (ex-CEO of a big UK retail bank and not a man to look kindly on unnecessary state involvement in health) for examples.
My third point is, you already do pay a lot for healthcare through taxes -- about 7% of GDP. You pay another 8% of GDP in health insurance/direct payments. For that, you get potentially excellent healthcare but lack of coverage for some people (c40m) and variable coverage of some diseases. Here in the UK, by contrast, we pay about 8% (shortly to be somewhat more...) and we get universal coverage, more variable care and never up to the top standards that your CEOs and rockstars can afford, and some diseases also not properly covered. There are no 100% correct choices, but there are advantages and disadvantages to each and it's important to be clear-eyed and clear-minded about them.
And all that for "expect highs of 14 degrees today, with a slight chance of showers in the east"
who'da thunk it?
a) what makes you think TB is easy and simple to cure? TB is resurgent across much of the world.
b) while your point about the value of commercial research is true, it is nonetheless the case that many drugs originated in government or other publicly funded labs and were brought to market by drugcos. the pharmacos provided the deep pockets to run large scale phase III trials and to market the drugs. of course, many other drugs have been developed commercially, and many have been derived from natural materials.
Fabulous! Why don't you have a chat with Rose Brooks about sterilization?
OK, so we have a boundary problem. At what stage do you feel that it gets to be unfair on authors? When they are selling 500 books instead of 5000? 50 instead of 500? 5? 1? If you wish to see a healthy market for new writing, you will wish to distinguish between copies of Catcher in the Rye that are passed down reverently from generation to generation and the scenario that most authors are worried about.
It did happen. If you want to get an idea of the enormity of what happened, you can learn some of the basics by visiting Yad VaShem's website or by reading Guido Knopp's "Hitler's Holocaust", or by watching Claude Lanzmann's "Shoah". You may also want to read some of the artistic responses to the Holocaust, which will in many ways provide a clearer, starker, insight into what happened. You could read "Maus", by Art Spiegelman, "The Drowned and the Saved" by Primo Levi, or "The Last of the Just" by Andre Schwarz-Bart. Each of these last three is a profound work of art, and deserves a wider audience.
It's sad to see that so many Slashdotters are so uncomfortable with that fact. Authors aren't objecting to just any old store offering used books. They're objecting to *Amazon* doing it. That's because they recognise that Amazon controls a significant share of the market: Amazon can potentially affect the buying habits of a huge number of consumers and so destroy the chances of authors making a living. And for every JK Rowling who can live without an extra $10m, there are literally thousands, possibly tens of thousands of authors who rely on royalties to pay the rent. What is happening is that Amazon is making the market much more price-competitive. The response will be the same as in any other market: consolidation, with small businesses (ie authors who aren't best-sellers) going under. That's where they're coming from.
Tell you what, mate, here's a challenge for you. Rather than sitting on your fat fucking arse spouting idiotic "theories" you just barely managed to copy from vicious pigs who have more wit, if not more conscience, than you, why don't you go and look all over Eastern Europe and tell me where half my family's buried? When you've finished failing to find their graves--they went up in smoke in your favourite butcher's camps-- you can spend some time contemplating who the fuck you think you are to insult the memory of the dead like that. On the way home, you can stop for a little wankfest with David Irving, consoling him on losing his court battle.
You're a real bright spark, aren't you? How do you think that the advertiser pays for the media space? That's right, client fees! And where does the client make its money from, in order to pay fees? That's right, us, you big dummy! TANSTAAFL
I presume that was a joke or a troll, in which case it was quite funny. Just on the wild off-chance it wasn't, Robert Heinlein died a rich and happy man in May 1988, and much to my dismay, didn't give me a cut of his royalties in his Will.
Robert Heinlein's record at predictions never ceases to amaze me: not only did he decribe robots working in this way in a hospital, he also depicted a number of the problems and solutions that are talked about here. Check out "The Door Into Summer" to see what I mean.
I too, "actually read" your post. Actually, you didn't say "some Apple designs add to usability"; what you said was "we get all kinds of physical gimmickry that raises the price of the product. Sometimes these actually add value, like the easy-to-setup iMac cases. But mostly they're just pandering to the Distintive Brand and Design cult".
Clearly, I was calling you on the second part of your statement, not the first. You have now added some examples of design that you don't think adds value, as I'd asked for. Now at least there is something to discuss other than banal generalities ("mostly they're just pandering to the Distintive Brand and Design cult").
Your examples include a no-longer manufactured mouse, a networking feature that you don't yourself value that highly but that others do, clear cases that are difficult to keep clean (one of two valid examples, I think), and monitors that frustrate you by not breaking with the fundamental Apple branding principle of providing cool stuff for Apple Mac users only (viz iTunes, iPod, most of the iTools, etc etc).
You also raise the GUI of Mac OS X: while it is true that there are many problems that Apple introduced in redesigning its OS, and that some of these appear (there's no published comment on this from Apple, after all) to be driven by aesthetics instead of HCI principles, it's also true that the situation is much improved from the early days, that important new innovations have been introduced, and that some of the complaints (including some of AskTog's) are either idiosyncratic or misdirected. It is also true that your original post, about which you sardonically commented "I got modded up because somebody actually read my post", implying that I hadn't, talked about "all kinds of physical gimmickry". Mr Pot, can I introduce you to your friend, Mr Kettle?
I could well believe that you've been involved in rebranding efforts. Doesn't mean that you did a good job. You seem to believe that brand, style and image are separable and separately manipulable from a product's inherent characteristics. However, outside the world of commodities, they are fundamentally connected. As I said before, commoditising Apple's offering is a margin-killer and a really dumb way for them to do business.
Finally, I suggest you re-read my original sentence about champagne carefully, think about the likely intent in the context of the statements I had previously made, and consider a retraction of your floridly mis-directed riposte on the grounds that you completely missed the point. [And I'll bet that I'm more familiar with methode champenoise than you as well...]
It is incredible that comments like this get modded insightful. If you're going to complain about Apple's industrial design being purely for the sake of design, it would be nice if you could point out a couple of examples of where form hasn't followed function. What, precisely, in a TiBook or a G4 tower is an example of "physical gimmickry that raises the price of the product"? The case material? The screenshape on the former? The side-opening catch on the latter? Really, I'm at a loss to think what you could be referring to.
What's more, your comments about competition show you don't understand the fundamentals of business. Apple tries to steer clear of price-based competition where possible, this being a commoditised and therefore low-value market segment. Instead, it tries to deliver premium products for a premium niche, and focuses on reliability, ease-of-use and user-experience, as you'd expect. Your comments sound as dumb as a complaint that champagne manufacturers keep on insisting in using expensive cork enclosures rather than nice cheap screwtops.
Pile of bollocks. I have one hotmail account that has never received spam and another that constantly receives spam. It's all a question of how the address you choose.
But not of shutting up, hm?
Had you read my reply with due care, you will have picked up on the clear implication that I have read "The Bell Curve". You would also have picked up on the clear implication that I thought it was crap. And not very well argued crap, at that.
FWIW, I know that cards can be cracked and that it doesn't take huge teams to do it. I just don't believe your claims to privileged insight.
I'm going to take a wild guess here that you think of yourself as falling in the group of "people with high IQs", don't you? I'll bet you also think that IQ is an adequate proxy for intelligence. And I'll bet that while you read that old potboiler Messrs Murray and Herrnstein cobbled together, you've never read "The Mismeasure of Man". As for your excitable claims about chipcracking -- put up or shut up.
I'm certainly in awe of your stupidity. There was a moral difference between the Blitz and the Shoah, even though both were calculated to kill civilians. If you're going to make a ridiculous assertion such as "we claim civillian [sic] targets are never acceptable", you might back your statement up with a little evidence. You might also clarify who the "we" is. The trouble with being a dumb twat in public is that you will be called on it. Assertions that "civilian targets are never acceptable" are up there in the idiocy tables with statments like "violence never settles anything", demonstrating a refusal to begin to grapple with the moral issues at stake, a wilful blindness to the evidence of history, and a confusion of the normative and the declarative modes of speech.
Something else as well. You write "by your logic, a private road is a public good". A private road may or may not be a public good. The same is true for a public road. The issue is whether an attempt is made to limit access to the road to fee-paying users. You would immediately have grasped this, if you had bothered to learn about what is meant in economics by the concept of a "public good".
*Ding* wrongo! Try re-reading what I wrote. I wrote that most roads were *not* toll roads. Your reading standards are as poor as your grasp of economics.
You clearly have not bothered to have read the link that I sent you as you still do not understand what a public good is. Public goods can have externalities, just as private goods can. As for your specific point: are you seriously trying to suggest that the reason we have streetlights is because the mean ol gummint is installing them against our wishes? What on earth makes you think that private individuals and organisations would not install streetlights if government's didn't? May I remind you that light pollution sources, in addition to streetlights, include business lighting (private), home lighting (private), increased urbanisation (driven by the choice of individuals to benefit from city life, something that a lover of freedom such as yourself would never *dream* of interfering with) and car lighting (private choice). While none of these sources is by itself as significant as streetlighting, collectively they ensure that light pollution would be significant even were every gummint-installed light turned off.
You should spend a little less time with Ludwig and a little more time learning some real economics. You know, the sort you could learn at Cambridge or Harvard or Chicago. By the way, the Mises Institute has an insignia. It is the Mises family coat-of-arms! The irony of a government-hating organisation choosing as its symbol a government award of patronage, granted by an Emperor, fer gossake, is too sweet to be true.
You are *surely* joking, aren't you? With a few exceptions, virtually every road in history has not been a toll-road. Therefore, virtually every road in history has not been primarily funded by users at the point of use. Roads, like streetlamps, are understood by those of us who have actually cracked open an economics textbook in our time to be public goods. Public goods are a standard part of economic theory, not something foisted on freemarketeers by a liberal elite. To learn what a public good is, try this site:/ glos.ht m
http://www.bized.ac.uk/stafsup/options/aec
Actually, they don't have to worry about vandalism. Not when the kiddies can have so much fun pissing off the passengers by standing in front of the vehicles. And you thought your bus stopped a lot en-route...