> I see. On your PC that you bought from Best Buy 11 years ago... [blah blah deleted]
I had a video capture card in 1994.... with Linux support. The only reason I didn't build a PVR was it didn't capture in MPEG so the files were either very large or crap, software encoding was way too slow and hard drives weren't nearly big enough to be practical. But I certainly had the notion that using a computer instead of a VCR for timeshifting TV would be a good idea that would soon be practical way back then when I did my first capture.
TIVO didn't invent any of the stuff that made a PVR possible. They didn't invent big drives, they didn't invent MPEG, they didn't invent hardware MPEG encoder/decoders. They didn't invent the Internet or putting TV schedules on a computer. They certainly didn't invent software to schedule or resolve conflicts.
Seeriously, what the hell do you DO with an MPEG encode/decode chip other than store and playback video? As soon as that existed and hard drives big enough to store a few hours were affordable and quiet enough to make it practical the PVR was a forgone conclusion.
While mostly unspoken it is the argument behind most of the current debate. And it is important to argue this point out instead of letting the media/Democrats just put this notion in as a settled matter because the right question is a big one.
> Nobody has a right to a free education, but it's in our interest to provide one.
But that is a question of cost/benefit not of a 'right'. And I mostly agree making sure everyone gets an education is a net benefit to society. I disagree that the State should have a monopoly on schools though. Same as the public option => single payer leads to a government monopoly on health care eventually.
> Universal healthcare has the potential to be cheaper than what we've got now
That is the theory we are being sold but if it is cheaper why do we need to find a Trillion or two in extra cash to fund it? And it hasn't worked out as a savings anywhere else without fairly brutal rationing. More basically, I'd ask those making the cost saving argument to point to a single large government program that has ran for a decade and came close to the origional cost estimates or delivered the services promised in a way that didn't turn out as a bad joke on the citizenry. One would do.
And rationing is a given if we accept the left's arguments. Follow me here. The argument is we have millions of people currently not receiving care. I debunked the 47M figure above, but here lets accept their argument. The supply of doctors is what it is, and it takes about a decade to get a new one from high school graduate to M.D. so even if we started today the supply of new doctors will be limited to what is currently in the pipeline for at least a decade. But the number of patients will be jumping dramatically much sooner. See the problem? And if we are going to be making the practice of medicine less attractive by having the government set the payment schedules, and if there is to be cost savings they will be going down, keeping enrollment at current levels will be the challenge and raising the numbers a fantasy.
> Certainly none of them are being forced or coerced,...
But if we accept the 'Right' argument SOMEONE must be forced or coerced. If not the Dr. then taxpayers. And if it IS a 'Right' then the Dr. is morally obligated to be a servant should the State stop paying him. And that is the point I was going at, sorry if I didn't make it clearly enough. That is you have a 'Right' to healthcare then you have the right to walk up to a Dr. and demand he serve you whether he will be compensated or not. And that is how we know it isn't a Right, because it requires a claim on the labor or property of another in a way a real Right doesn't. Again, you Right to Free Speech makes zero demands on your fellow citizens other than they NOT oppress you by taking your life, liberty or property away from you for exercising a fundamental Right.
> All rights are human inventions. To pretend otherwise is meaningless.
Not unless you buy into moral relativism. But that is bullcrap and has lead to horrors every time the notion has taken hold somewhere. A is A. Good and Evil are real. We might still be discovering the Truth but that doesn't mean it doesn't exist. And btw, that imperfection in our knowledge of morality is why we aren't yet ready for a real Libertarian society. Doesn't mean we shouldn't head towards Liberty though, we do know enough to know the grass is greener in that direction and we can keep working on the details.
> And all rights are meaningless without at least the possibility of having the means and ability > to make use of them. First and foremost that means actually staying alive and in good health.
And that line of 'reasoning' also implies the rest of the welfare state. You need food, shelter, education... before long an XBox is a 'basic right.' Been there, done that. We know that way leads to the madness of mass populations of the useless, dependent on handouts for their existence.
Not saying charity isn't a good thing, only that government welfare isn't charity and corrodes the human spirit in ways private charity doesn't.
> This is not a *new* idea...
No it isn't. Socialism, Fascism, Communism, Progrissivism, etc. are old ideas that have been tried and found wanting. The hundred million mass graves, the millions more war dead should have been sufficient to convince any sane person, but alas. The idea of a select elite guiding the poor masses is such a seductive idea (for both the select and the poor masses who get freebies) that it just doesn't seem to die regardless how many times it fails.
> Horrors are tens of millions of people with no right to healthcare, how can this even be up for discussion?
I agree, how can we even have a discussion about some mythical 'right' to healthcare? Hint: It isn't a 'right' if it requires the enslavement of someone else. Doctors and the rest of the healthcare industry are not required to serve you. You do not have a moral claim on their services.
This is the problem with all of the new progressive 'rights' they kee on inventing compared to real human rights. To illustrate, free speech is a fundamental Right possessed by every human being, regardless whether they live in a hellhole that oppresses them. But the right to speak does not give me the right to demand a printing press be given to me, it doesn't include the right to storm into a speech being given by someone else and demand a turn at the microphone, etc. It doesn't include an obligation on you to even listen to me. But Freedom of Speech does imply a right to listen/read whoever the heck you want to.
Regarding health care you have a Right to trade freely with anyone you can come to a mutually agreeable deal with. Any government that interferes with that right is oppressing you to varying degrees.
And there aren't tens of millions of Americans without health care. That is a lie invented by the progressives to try and scare us into doing something stupid. The number they throw around is usually 47M. An instant with Google gets this:
---
The Breakdown
The largest, overlapping, groups of uninsured in the US include:
* 9,000,000 Millionaires
* 27,000,000 people who make more than $50,000 per year, but choose not to get insurance
* 22,000,000 Young adults who can afford insurance, but choose not to
* 14,000,000 People who can already get medicaid, but choose not to
* 11,000,000 Illegal Immigrants
* 23,000,000 People who are actually insured. That's right; you've been lied to...surprised?
This adds up to more than forty seven million, because of the overlap - for example young adults who are millionaires and change insurance companies fit into four categories, above.
---
And anybody can walk into an emergency room and get care regardless of their ability to pay, that is Federal Law. Dumb perhaps but it is our current law. Of course since we don't have universal health care you can usually go to an emergency room and get to see someone before you die, unlike the routine horror stories coming out of the British press.
> It's not really in the people's interest to create a serf class of actual Americans.
But it fair to make them wards of the state?
I am amazed at how many otherwise thinking people fail to understand the minimum wage's actual purpose. It sets a point below which you can't hire an American. It sets a bar where anyone who is incapable of producing a minimum output is considered useless and it is better to stick em on the government teat forever because they won't ever get a chance to grab the bottom rung and work their way up.
Below that magic line you mist either hire an illegal, offshore the position or invest in automation. There is a little wiggle room where someone's labor with a market value only a little less than minimum might be hired anyway because an employer won't want to bother with the alternatives but not much. Most people who are working for the minimum won't stay there long, it's entry level. But if we set the bar for entry into the workforce too high a lot of people won't ever get a chance to enter.
But if you really want to understand why raising the minimum wage is such an important political issue all you need to know is that most union contracts are keyed to the minimum wage. Thus raising the minimum wage instantly raises every union worker's paycheck without even waiting for the current contract to expire.
> universal health insurance is what Canadian and European residents get
> No, it makes sense.
Sorry you are wrong on this one. Yes from a pure language standpoint you are correct, but that misses the forest for the trees. The phrase "Universal Health Care" now has a very specific political meaning and it is a veritable certainty that the person writing the article was fully aware of that, especially in the current time frame. Right now "Universal Health Care" is a non starter because the public associates it with the horrors of Canada and Europe. So the 5th column is working the phrase into stories in ways that are positive in an attempt to reform the term.
> Since all you need is an e-mail, wasn't it just a matter of time before someone without > the right to issue a DMCA notice issued one to take down a politically inconvenient image?
The scenario you describe will happen, probably HAS happened. But in that case they would provide the email they received to the user. No, they took it down on their own for one or all of the following:
1. Pure political activism on the part of someone at Flickr/Yahoo. Remember Citizen, Dissent is Patriotic... unless Democrats are in charge then you must Doublethink; To Question the State is Treason.
2. Simple risk aversion. Fear that as word of where the subversive, treasonous art originated that their reputation would be tainted.
3. Avoiding the traffic spike when half the blogs on the planet linked to them.
> The funny thing is that you actually believe that. Yes, Apple is considered a "luxury brand", > but to suggest that Apple would prefer not to sell their products that they spend such a > large amount of money marketing and advertising in order to preserve their "cache" is one > of the most ridiculous things I've heard.
Why can't it be both? There is a lot of money to be had in luxury brands. Look at the other option, which would be to compete on mass volume. To think they could beat Dell at their core competency is silly. So if that is their upside if they go for volume it is better to be Apple with a permanent single digit market share but a market cap of $150B instead of Dell's 28.47B.
>...when Windows 7 is released, expect it to conquer the small remaining Linux holdouts...
Uh, no. Those of us who are actually watching this impending battle are asking a different question. Can Windows 7 defeat Windows XP? XP is likely to be the bigger threat to 7 than Linux on ia32 and lpia. Linux will be mounting a last ditch defense on ARM while that Windows vs Windows fight plays out.
You see Microsoft was forced to defend the bottom end against the encroaching penguins so they pulled XP out of retirement and sent it in. But it didn't win until Microsoft cut the price to rock bottom prices, reportedly nwo down to as low as $15. They can't do that with Win7, even Win 7 Starter. So vendors this Xmas are planning on shipping both. So we will finally see if average customers actually see the value in a Windows upgrade.
To date they have never really been offered a choice, new systems ship with the current version and how much of the sticker price is Windows is a secret closer guarded than the government managed to keep the bomb. Lots of speculation, no hard data in these long years of the Microsoft monopoly. But now, this Xmas, customers will see two identical products, differing only in price and operating system and they will be asked to choose. If most choose XP vendors will keep shipping it and Microsoft is going to have a problem on it's hands.
And the future is even more bleak. Microsoft, like any corporation, must produce year over year revenue and profit gains to avoid the wrath of the shareholders. They only have two profitable products, Windows and Office. Windows revenue is best seen as a tax on hardware sales. But the unit price on hardware is going one direction, down. The netbook market is only the sharp end of the spear, all PC pricing is heading downward and the losses per unit aren't being made up with volume. Their current fixed license price model is increasingly a problem as it makes an ever growing share of the hardware cost the embedded Windows Tax. Sooner or later vendors will rebel on the desktop and laptop like they did with the netbook. And even if the penguin never ships on many units, the netbook has proven that waving the flag (or better, shipping a couple million) forces price concessions from Microsoft, proving which side has the leverage. Don't expect the hard pressed hardware makers to forget that lesson.
> Actually if I remember correctly it is Netbook Ubuntu or something similar..
You are thinking of Ubuntu Netbook Remix. It is only for netbooks, specifically netbooks with the Intel Atom. To get the best battery life from that processor you have to recompile EVERYTHING so it is a full port to a new arch, the lpia (Low Power Intel Arch). You can install most packages from the i386 repos but the theory is running them uses more battery life than an lpia package.
> If Apple's dream does in fact come true and the majority of desktop users switch to Macs,
That has never been a dream of Apple's and certainly not of their users.
Apple sees themselves as selling a luxury brand experience. That means it must NEVER become too popular lest it lose it's cache. The success of the iPod and iPhone are already pushing Apple market share to dangerous levels but they are just 'consumer electronics' and not the Mac itself.
To illustrate by analogy, let us consider Harley Davidson. They don't mind the hoi poli buying the branded merch but the actual motorcycles are a status symbol reserved for those willing to part with major coin to own one. If they ever introduced a model that blew away Honda and such, thus gaining major market share, the hard core would quickly adopt another brand since the Harley Davidson emblem would no longer serve to instantly communicate to onlookers the owner's 'serious biker' status.
Same with Apple, to see the gaudy glowing logo instantly communicates one's status as a member of the elite to all who behold it. If Walmart were selling Macs to ordinary folk it just wouldn't be the same. I suspect Apple sees the iPods and iPhones more like Harley sees the branded merc, stuff the wannabees can afford and promote the brand yet they are still not among the select who own actual Macs.
And unless Apple finds a business model that doesn't depend on insanely great margins it is a moot point anyway since they will never be a mass market player.
> 1. After cutting the upper-class taxes there was a recession. Regan did it in the 80s and Bush did it in the last decade.
I really shouldn't reply to something this bogus but you made such a long and to the untrained eye clueful post I had to bust it up a bit.
Reagan inherited a economy swirling the toilet. It took a couple of years to get the economy going because the Democrats controlled the House so Reagan had to compromise and phase in his tax cuts over a couple of years.
That brings us to Bush. History here has been rewritten but most of us lived through it so lets remember what actually happened around the turn of the century, ok? During the 2000 election season the.com bubble was busy bursting on the business pages while the front page continued to hail the 'greatest economy since records began' as the reason to continue the good times by electing the Goracle. As soon as the election was over of course the real situation found its way to the front page, DOOM! DOOM! DOOM! Bush responded with a tax cut and the economy grew fast enough to absorb the.bomb with only a minor recession. Then we got 9/11, two wars and compromise everything but the war Republicans spending like drunken sailors. The economy survived all of it until when? Until Princess Pelosi and Dingy Harry took over Congress in '07.
> 3. You talk abut how socialism is such a weak systems but Russia had essentially 3rd world > infrastructure and yet was a superpower on par with the US for most of our lifes.
You are joking, right? The Soviet Union was a third world country with fusion bombs. Bombs they probably couldn't have built for decades had not traitors in our own program given them the plans. For all their apparent military might they had almost zero ability to project power beyond their own borders. They had a massive numerical advantage that in the end meant almost nothing because of our technical advantage. Witness what happened whenever Soviet hardware met American on the battlefield between proxies. Soviet Union vs Afgans with Stingers, Israel vs. most of the Middle East, Iraq vs. USA, etc. Thankfully we never got the opportunity to match USA vs Soviet directly, but now that we can look back with modern knowledge a war in Europe probably wouldn't have had the outcome most thought at the time of us being forced to use tactical nukes to stave off an unstoppable armored juggernaught.
And I suspect we will soon find out how well Russian SAMs perform against American made fighter bombers.
> Every company founder I personally have known has gotten kicked out when the company stabilized > and an interm CEO (who gets along with the VC and board) has been appointed to manage the > continued growth of the company.
Anyone in that position should have cashed out as a happy camper. Assuming they aren't a fool who didn't understand how the VC game is played. If you understand how the world works you smile as you cash out and go start a fresh company, this time with enough funds you don't have to give a majority stake to the Vulture Capitalists. And in many cases the VC types are right, and the sort of person who can start a company isn't best suited to run one long term.
> Everything is more expensive in the ghetto because of crime rates, causing higher prices, > local shortages, more dispair, fewer options, which feeds more crime, and so on. It's a > self-sustaining cycle, heading downwards.
So why doesn't a 'community organizer' come along and do the one thing that would improve the situation? Organize the people to police their own area and cut the crime rate to managable levels, i.e. low enough the police aren't afraid to be on the streets after dark. Then when the area is safe, attract some businesses in and from there some industry. Then you have jobs and a hope for prosperity.
Never happens does it. Observe what community organizers actually do, for example what our God King did a few years ago. Does history record ONE act from his 'community organizing' days that had the principle result of helping the community instead of improving the political position of his chosen faction in the Chicago machine?
Thought experiment. Imagine we actually solved poverty. Who benefits politically? And there is your answer.
> The distinction between rich and poor is really all about teh stupids.
Ya, good point you and other posters raised about the difference between stupid and ignorant/rancid culture. But good grief, I got enough karma hit to lose my Karma bonus for the first time in years with what I did say. Imagine the howls of rage had I actually implied the culture most of/. embraces as a primary cause. But I'm cynical enough and libertarian enough to hold people just a little bit accountable for their own situation, regardless how often MTV culture tries to tell ya knowledge is for suckers, to drop out get high and hook up you still have a brain and can make a smarter choice.
And in my defense I have pointed out in other posts in this thread that almost anyone who tries CAN attain the middle class. Even people who really are a bit stupid.
> I would agree if higher education was free to the poor. Which if you haven't noticed is not...
If it is good enough for Congressman Frank.... What planet are you from?
It is really simple. It doesn't matter how poor your parents are, it doesn't matter much how crappy your school is. If you have the will you CAN learn to read in almost any school, from there the library has all you need. These days if you just show up every day (or at least 95% attendance) you will pass. And if you actually apply yourself just a bit you can pass with good enough grades to get a scholarship. For those following along as dim as you, that is 'free higher education for the poor." No, it probably won't be to Harvard. (poor community organizers only get to Harvard when Arab Sheiks put up the cash for inscrutable reasons) but it will be enough. If you put down the beer bong, take a major that is actually valued by society and study hard you will come out with a marketable skill and a fair amount of debt. Work a job during college (like most students USED to do and they managed to find time to study) and you can greatly minimize the debt. Do these things and you are almost certain to attain at least lower middle class. No special ability or luck is required, just being willing to play the game. If you have even a modicum of either of those factors going for you making it into the top 5% by age 40 should be a very attainable goal if material wealth is what you are seeking, regardless of where you started life.
> I guess they could join the military, but there is that whole dying and killing > people which many may not morally agree with.
You are only free to sit around in your progressive angst because previous generations manned up and served. And remember, the GI Bill after WWII put a LOT of people through college. Nothing dishonorable about military service and these days they really do hand out the bonuses. Again, there is yet another path out of poverty open to almost anyone willing to put in a little effort. Graduate from high school without a criminal record, do a four year hitch and go to college on Uncle Sam's dime. But again, you dismiss it as not an option to sustain your preconceived idea that America is a mean wicked place where the game is rigged to keep the poor in poverty. Remmember, our system only promised you the freedom PURSUE happiness, we don't promise to hunt it down and bring it to you on a silver platter.
> Of course, the problem is that the ailing schools need money fix their problems.
No they don't. Two choices really.
1. End the unions and tenure in K12 education. Tenure is a means of protecting freedom of thought in the academy, to allow intellectuals to study, teach and write in an environment free from undue influence. That is a good idea for a university but a lousy one for a K12 environment. A K12 teacher has a very different task than a university professor. A K12 teacher isn't supposed to be creating knowledge, they are supposed to be teaching the basics and hopefully getting some of the kids to think a bit. But they are supposed to be instilling a standardized curriculum, not pushing their own agenda in the classroom, the kids should get to wait for college for that. All tenure (and the education unions) do is make it impossible to get rid of teachers who burn out. Once it is actually possible to clean out the deadwood, get control as close to the local parents as possible by clearing out as much of the state and federal crapola as possible.
2. Or just do the right thing and end the government monopoly on schools. If education of the young is seen as a imperative (moral or policy) for the State then hand out vouchers. And just like the 'public option' being discussed currently in health care, if the State schools were forced to compete on a level field they would quickly die out. So make sure it IS a level field by ensuring the public schools received only the funding in the vouchers or tuitions from parents, exactly like the private schools would be funded with.
> Not in a "dump cash in them until they're better" way, but in a "we're not going to be able to > attract good teachers and bring facilities up to par without spending some money.
I really don't understand this mindset. We have been doing exactly this 'dumping' of good money after bad for several generations now and expecting a different result from past performance each time. Insanity! Unless and until you change the basic assumptions built into the failed government education system it is irrational to expect a different result from yet another cash infusion. Yet if we DID fix the defects in the system improvement would be possible with the current funding.
> The even bigger problem is that we don't have a way to judge success in a reliable manner. > Standardized tests are the worst method,
You state that like it were a uncontroversial fact. It isn't. A standardized test is a lousy way to judge writing ability, creativity, etc. It is a wonderful way to judge most of what a child needs to learn in the earlier grades. Set them a hundred random arithmetic problems of the sort they should be able to solve and if one child answers 80% of them that student is almost certainly doing better than one who only answered 50%. And neither is ready to advance. Same for basic reading comprehension, spelling, etc.
If you object to standardized testing you must be prepared to propose something better. Keep in mind that in the real world (and the same effect will taint any proposal you advance for K12) standardized testing is almost universal. They have proven themselves as the best defense against the EEOC and the trial lawyers.
> However, that would be another bill, that people can vote against if they'd like.
No it wouldn't. Let the public option pass (or the co-ops that are Freddie Med) and the logical conclusion is single payer. Jacob Hacker[1] was correct when he said:
"Someone told me this was a Trojan horse for single-payer. Well, it's not a Trojan horse, right? It's just right there. I'm telling you. We're going to get there, over time, slowly, but we'll move away from reliance on employer-based health insurance as we should, but we'll do it in a way that we're not going to frighten people into thinking they're going to lose their private insurance. We're going to give them a choice of public and private insurance when they're in the pool, and we're going to let them keep their private employer-based insurance if their employer continues to provide it."
> I used to be a little conservative, but in my view, the Republicans aren't anymore.
Amen to that. But remember this: Almost all Conservatives are (at least nominal) Republicans but many Republicans are not Conservatives. Especially so for Republicans who have been in elected office for long or live in the New York/DC corridor. It is our task to find and elect leaders who can correct this problem... while fighting the Socialists currently in power. Yes it was probably a needful thing to turn the Republicans out into the wilderness in response to the 'spending like drunken sailors' and corruption during the Bush years. But Obama and Princess Pelosi as the result certainly proves the Law of Unintended Consequences.
[1] And if anyone asks who he is I say two things, 1) YOu are too uninformed to be discussing this issue intelligently and 2) Google is yer friend.
> The real question is what happens to the children of these "nitwits"?
Very good question. To start trying to answer it we can begin with the sad list of things we have already tried and know don't work.
1. Progressivism in general. Redistribution of wealth, class envy, the workers seizing the means of production, all that rot.
2. Government schools. We already throw away more money per student than most countries and we piss away a lot on the worst schools. See our nation's capital, Washington D.C. for a vivid example.
3. The welfare state, Progressivism's compromise between full blown socialism and the old Classical Liberalism they are seeking always to supplant. Bring up a kid watching mom walk to the mailbox on the first of the month and you can forget em seeing the value of getting an education and a job.
The problem isn't one of money. And it isn't a lack of government. Add up the Sagan's of cash we have taxed and spent away in the War on Poverty and the answer is clear, that money in the private sector would have lifted a lot more people up by a general increase in GDP than the multigenerational poverty the Great Society bought us.
We have a long history of people showing up on our border with the cloths on their backs, living poor but boosting their children into the middle class and and few of their children making it to the upper ranks. Katrina flushed out tens of thousands of forth and fifth generation wards of the state. There is your problem. The problem is a moral and philosophical one, not an economic one.
> Seems like it's going downhill in all the heavily Republican parts of the country. They're human garbage anyway.
Folks in red states might die a few years sooner but we are outbreeding you blue folk. If we had the time we could win the Freedom vs. Socialism battle purely on birth rates. But alas.
Hint: gays don't reproduce even if they play like they are married.
Ok, let me pee on everyone's parade and burn some karma.
> those who were already disadvantaged did not benefit from the > gains in life expectancy experienced by the advantaged, and > some became even worse off
Oh stop already with the politics. Stop with the infernal 'progressive' talking points and bringing class into everything. Simplify to this:
"Stupid people do stupid things that cause them to die sooner." Not that there aren't stupid people everywhere, but in America we still have the right to be wrong to a much greater extent than the nanny states in Europe.
And since I'm burning karma anyway lemme toss another sacred cow onto the grill. Enough with this continual blather about the 'disadvantaged/poor/etc.' if you nitwits aren't going to deal with the actual problem. To a very high degree of correlation, the 'poor' aren't living in poverty because of a lack of money. They lack money because they have make poor lifestyle decisions that RESULT in a lack of money. Things like failure to get an education (or worse reject the value of knowledge entirely), become a single parent, waste money on substance abuse or Xbox... but I repeat myself.
Normally I wouldn't flame so hard but this entire article so reeks of slashkos politics I just couldn't hold back. Enough with the thinly disguised political stories outside the politics topic. Raise your hand if you actually think this was 'news for nerds' and not the DNC talking points being put into action.
I mean, seriously, take this bit:
>..because an oft-stated aim of the US health system is the improvement > of the health of "all people, and especially those at greater risk of > health disparities.
WTF? I thought that was what the current argument was about, whether we were going to HAVE a single "US health system" or not. We currently don't have a single system so how does this asshat ascribe policies to the current industry? The 'aim' of most of the people in the current semi free market system is the same as any business. Balance customer (patient) service against earning a living.
> Do that many people really want PS2 compatibility? It would be nice, but is it all that crucial?
> I'd argue most consumers are clamoring for the latest games. And for anyone who owns a decent library of PS2 games I have to assume they > already own a PS2 otherwise what's the point of all the games.
Ok, I'm not typical but I'd like it. Here is my reasoning. I haven't bothered with owning a console since the A2600 but have thought about trying it again. Also have grandkids around the house nowadays. The kiddies have access to a Gamecube and Xbox360 at home so I'd like to go with something that would let them play different stuff. Also important is that there is a metric boatload of games for preschoolers for the PS2 and they are cheap. Spongebob doesn't really need next gen power after all. A look at the offerings at Walmart & Game Stop don't show many titles for Xbox360 or Wii that kids could or should be playing and what few there are cost twice the price of typical NEW PS2 titles.
Wii is another option; games for kids are available but are almost as expensive as PS3 or Xbox since Wii is a current gen platform. Good grief, why is a schlock movie tie in game twice as expensive as the DVD of the movie itself? The trade off is a serious shortage of titles for adults.
Meanwhile most titles that catch my eye are next gen. My TV is still a fairly good but SD unit with only one set of inputs still unused. (Home theater, MythTV, etc. filled it up) So unless I want to add yet more complexity (which lowers WAF) and install a game switch box the limit is ONE system. So unless backward compatibility comes back to the PS3 they are going to lose a sale to the PS2 and I'll game on a PC and take a look situation again when the wheel turns to the next generation.
>..we will NOT be moving to 7 unless it comes installed on a computer.
And that will be the big test. If people just get it on new computers Microsoft gets little out of the deal. All (99%) of PCs are going to ship with Windows anyway and the price gap between Vista and 7 isn't likely to grow a lot, especially in the current economic environment in general and the PC industry in specific.
So if customers accept 7, i.e. don't actively hate it like they did with Vista, Microsoft doesn't win. They need people to like it enough to buy upgrades for existing XP and Vista installs if they are going to get a cash infusion out of all this development cash they have sunk into 7.
From the PR to date, mobs at Best Buy at midnight like with Win95 doesn't seem likely. At best Windows 7 is a refined Vista, more of Win98SE event, not a searchlights, glitzy parties with celebutards and license a classic rock standard for the multi-million dollar ad campaign sort of product launch.
I hate to be on Microsoft's side but they are right on this one. Maybe if they fight off enough patent trolls they will join in efforts to reform patents out of self preservation.
> Should sites like Facebook make an attempt to restrict access of registered sex offenders from certain > subsets of the population? Perhaps, depending on the crime, what the judge had to say about it, parole board, etc.
Think you are close to the answer. Social networking sites that allow minors access should have a check box for members to mark that they are under court orders not to interract with minors. When checked minors just don't see that member at all.
If a couple of the big sites implemented such a feature it would then be reasonable to require registered offenders to only use those sites and have it set up such that their parole officer can monitor that they are indeed properly flagged.
Extended a little more it would be just as easy to have adults see a small warning icon to note the person they are interacting with is a known offender but it would be all too easy for such a thing to be abused by the same unholy coalition of do gooder Democrats and bible thumping Republicans to the point the warning would be ignored by overuse...
But really, longterm there is a better solution. If somebody can't be trusted not to reoffend don't let their ass out of the joint.
> Micro$oft has enough money to screw this up for a decade - possibly, two.
Oh they still have a boatload of cash, just not as much as they once did. But that isn't their problem. MSFT stock sells for five times what the net assets of the corporation are worth and the stock price has been stuck in a fairly narrow range since the.com bomb blew up; so investors apparently still believe they are going to remain a revenue generating machine as that is the only reason to remain invested. A P/E of 14 ain't exactly horrible outside the tech sector. They figure that eventually some of that cash surging through their veins will get to them by either getting the share price going up again or by bigger dividends than the current puny 2%.
So there is their time limit. The second a critical mass of investors figure out that their current revenue figure is as good as it gets and that it is all downhill from here is when the game is over. Microsoft popping will be the oddly delayed end of the tech bubble bursting back in 2000. Lose the 200B market cap and their cash reserves will only carry them so far. The entire net worth of the corporation is less than a year's profits. They have to find a new source of revenue before people figure out Windows is in decline. Finding a gusher of cash on that scale isn't exactly easy.
Slashdot Mirror
> I see. On your PC that you bought from Best Buy 11 years ago... [blah blah deleted]
I had a video capture card in 1994.... with Linux support. The only reason I didn't build a PVR was it didn't capture in MPEG so the files were either very large or crap, software encoding was way too slow and hard drives weren't nearly big enough to be practical. But I certainly had the notion that using a computer instead of a VCR for timeshifting TV would be a good idea that would soon be practical way back then when I did my first capture.
TIVO didn't invent any of the stuff that made a PVR possible. They didn't invent big drives, they didn't invent MPEG, they didn't invent hardware MPEG encoder/decoders. They didn't invent the Internet or putting TV schedules on a computer. They certainly didn't invent software to schedule or resolve conflicts.
Seeriously, what the hell do you DO with an MPEG encode/decode chip other than store and playback video? As soon as that existed and hard drives big enough to store a few hours were affordable and quiet enough to make it practical the PVR was a forgone conclusion.
> Why does it have to be a right?
While mostly unspoken it is the argument behind most of the current debate. And it is important to argue this point out instead of letting the media/Democrats just put this notion in as a settled matter because the right question is a big one.
> Nobody has a right to a free education, but it's in our interest to provide one.
But that is a question of cost/benefit not of a 'right'. And I mostly agree making sure everyone gets an education is a net benefit to society. I disagree that the State should have a monopoly on schools though. Same as the public option => single payer leads to a government monopoly on health care eventually.
> Universal healthcare has the potential to be cheaper than what we've got now
That is the theory we are being sold but if it is cheaper why do we need to find a Trillion or two in extra cash to fund it? And it hasn't worked out as a savings anywhere else without fairly brutal rationing. More basically, I'd ask those making the cost saving argument to point to a single large government program that has ran for a decade and came close to the origional cost estimates or delivered the services promised in a way that didn't turn out as a bad joke on the citizenry. One would do.
And rationing is a given if we accept the left's arguments. Follow me here. The argument is we have millions of people currently not receiving care. I debunked the 47M figure above, but here lets accept their argument. The supply of doctors is what it is, and it takes about a decade to get a new one from high school graduate to M.D. so even if we started today the supply of new doctors will be limited to what is currently in the pipeline for at least a decade. But the number of patients will be jumping dramatically much sooner. See the problem? And if we are going to be making the practice of medicine less attractive by having the government set the payment schedules, and if there is to be cost savings they will be going down, keeping enrollment at current levels will be the challenge and raising the numbers a fantasy.
> Certainly none of them are being forced or coerced,...
But if we accept the 'Right' argument SOMEONE must be forced or coerced. If not the Dr. then taxpayers. And if it IS a 'Right' then the Dr. is morally obligated to be a servant should the State stop paying him. And that is the point I was going at, sorry if I didn't make it clearly enough. That is you have a 'Right' to healthcare then you have the right to walk up to a Dr. and demand he serve you whether he will be compensated or not. And that is how we know it isn't a Right, because it requires a claim on the labor or property of another in a way a real Right doesn't. Again, you Right to Free Speech makes zero demands on your fellow citizens other than they NOT oppress you by taking your life, liberty or property away from you for exercising a fundamental Right.
> All rights are human inventions. To pretend otherwise is meaningless.
Not unless you buy into moral relativism. But that is bullcrap and has lead to horrors every time the notion has taken hold somewhere. A is A. Good and Evil are real. We might still be discovering the Truth but that doesn't mean it doesn't exist. And btw, that imperfection in our knowledge of morality is why we aren't yet ready for a real Libertarian society. Doesn't mean we shouldn't head towards Liberty though, we do know enough to know the grass is greener in that direction and we can keep working on the details.
> And all rights are meaningless without at least the possibility of having the means and ability
> to make use of them. First and foremost that means actually staying alive and in good health.
And that line of 'reasoning' also implies the rest of the welfare state. You need food, shelter, education... before long an XBox is a 'basic right.' Been there, done that. We know that way leads to the madness of mass populations of the useless, dependent on handouts for their existence.
Not saying charity isn't a good thing, only that government welfare isn't charity and corrodes the human spirit in ways private charity doesn't.
> This is not a *new* idea...
No it isn't. Socialism, Fascism, Communism, Progrissivism, etc. are old ideas that have been tried and found wanting. The hundred million mass graves, the millions more war dead should have been sufficient to convince any sane person, but alas. The idea of a select elite guiding the poor masses is such a seductive idea (for both the select and the poor masses who get freebies) that it just doesn't seem to die regardless how many times it fails.
> Horrors are tens of millions of people with no right to healthcare, how can this even be up for discussion?
I agree, how can we even have a discussion about some mythical 'right' to healthcare? Hint: It isn't a 'right' if it requires the enslavement of someone else. Doctors and the rest of the healthcare industry are not required to serve you. You do not have a moral claim on their services.
This is the problem with all of the new progressive 'rights' they kee on inventing compared to real human rights. To illustrate, free speech is a fundamental Right possessed by every human being, regardless whether they live in a hellhole that oppresses them. But the right to speak does not give me the right to demand a printing press be given to me, it doesn't include the right to storm into a speech being given by someone else and demand a turn at the microphone, etc. It doesn't include an obligation on you to even listen to me. But Freedom of Speech does imply a right to listen/read whoever the heck you want to.
Regarding health care you have a Right to trade freely with anyone you can come to a mutually agreeable deal with. Any government that interferes with that right is oppressing you to varying degrees.
And there aren't tens of millions of Americans without health care. That is a lie invented by the progressives to try and scare us into doing something stupid. The number they throw around is usually 47M. An instant with Google gets this:
---
The Breakdown
The largest, overlapping, groups of uninsured in the US include:
* 9,000,000 Millionaires
* 27,000,000 people who make more than $50,000 per year, but choose not to get insurance
* 22,000,000 Young adults who can afford insurance, but choose not to
* 14,000,000 People who can already get medicaid, but choose not to
* 11,000,000 Illegal Immigrants
* 23,000,000 People who are actually insured. That's right; you've been lied to...surprised?
This adds up to more than forty seven million, because of the overlap - for example young adults who are millionaires and change insurance companies fit into four categories, above.
---
And anybody can walk into an emergency room and get care regardless of their ability to pay, that is Federal Law. Dumb perhaps but it is our current law. Of course since we don't have universal health care you can usually go to an emergency room and get to see someone before you die, unlike the routine horror stories coming out of the British press.
> It's not really in the people's interest to create a serf class of actual Americans.
But it fair to make them wards of the state?
I am amazed at how many otherwise thinking people fail to understand the minimum wage's actual purpose. It sets a point below which you can't hire an American. It sets a bar where anyone who is incapable of producing a minimum output is considered useless and it is better to stick em on the government teat forever because they won't ever get a chance to grab the bottom rung and work their way up.
Below that magic line you mist either hire an illegal, offshore the position or invest in automation. There is a little wiggle room where someone's labor with a market value only a little less than minimum might be hired anyway because an employer won't want to bother with the alternatives but not much. Most people who are working for the minimum won't stay there long, it's entry level. But if we set the bar for entry into the workforce too high a lot of people won't ever get a chance to enter.
But if you really want to understand why raising the minimum wage is such an important political issue all you need to know is that most union contracts are keyed to the minimum wage. Thus raising the minimum wage instantly raises every union worker's paycheck without even waiting for the current contract to expire.
> universal health insurance is what Canadian and European residents get
> No, it makes sense.
Sorry you are wrong on this one. Yes from a pure language standpoint you are correct, but that misses the forest for the trees. The phrase "Universal Health Care" now has a very specific political meaning and it is a veritable certainty that the person writing the article was fully aware of that, especially in the current time frame. Right now "Universal Health Care" is a non starter because the public associates it with the horrors of Canada and Europe. So the 5th column is working the phrase into stories in ways that are positive in an attempt to reform the term.
> Since all you need is an e-mail, wasn't it just a matter of time before someone without
> the right to issue a DMCA notice issued one to take down a politically inconvenient image?
The scenario you describe will happen, probably HAS happened. But in that case they would provide the email they received to the user. No, they took it down on their own for one or all of the following:
1. Pure political activism on the part of someone at Flickr/Yahoo. Remember Citizen, Dissent is Patriotic... unless Democrats are in charge then you must Doublethink; To Question the State is Treason.
2. Simple risk aversion. Fear that as word of where the subversive, treasonous art originated that their reputation would be tainted.
3. Avoiding the traffic spike when half the blogs on the planet linked to them.
> The funny thing is that you actually believe that. Yes, Apple is considered a "luxury brand",
> but to suggest that Apple would prefer not to sell their products that they spend such a
> large amount of money marketing and advertising in order to preserve their "cache" is one
> of the most ridiculous things I've heard.
Why can't it be both? There is a lot of money to be had in luxury brands. Look at the other option, which would be to compete on mass volume. To think they could beat Dell at their core competency is silly. So if that is their upside if they go for volume it is better to be Apple with a permanent single digit market share but a market cap of $150B instead of Dell's 28.47B.
> ...when Windows 7 is released, expect it to conquer the small remaining Linux holdouts...
Uh, no. Those of us who are actually watching this impending battle are asking a different question. Can Windows 7 defeat Windows XP? XP is likely to be the bigger threat to 7 than Linux on ia32 and lpia. Linux will be mounting a last ditch defense on ARM while that Windows vs Windows fight plays out.
You see Microsoft was forced to defend the bottom end against the encroaching penguins so they pulled XP out of retirement and sent it in. But it didn't win until Microsoft cut the price to rock bottom prices, reportedly nwo down to as low as $15. They can't do that with Win7, even Win 7 Starter. So vendors this Xmas are planning on shipping both. So we will finally see if average customers actually see the value in a Windows upgrade.
To date they have never really been offered a choice, new systems ship with the current version and how much of the sticker price is Windows is a secret closer guarded than the government managed to keep the bomb. Lots of speculation, no hard data in these long years of the Microsoft monopoly. But now, this Xmas, customers will see two identical products, differing only in price and operating system and they will be asked to choose. If most choose XP vendors will keep shipping it and Microsoft is going to have a problem on it's hands.
And the future is even more bleak. Microsoft, like any corporation, must produce year over year revenue and profit gains to avoid the wrath of the shareholders. They only have two profitable products, Windows and Office. Windows revenue is best seen as a tax on hardware sales. But the unit price on hardware is going one direction, down. The netbook market is only the sharp end of the spear, all PC pricing is heading downward and the losses per unit aren't being made up with volume. Their current fixed license price model is increasingly a problem as it makes an ever growing share of the hardware cost the embedded Windows Tax. Sooner or later vendors will rebel on the desktop and laptop like they did with the netbook. And even if the penguin never ships on many units, the netbook has proven that waving the flag (or better, shipping a couple million) forces price concessions from Microsoft, proving which side has the leverage. Don't expect the hard pressed hardware makers to forget that lesson.
> Actually if I remember correctly it is Netbook Ubuntu or something similar..
You are thinking of Ubuntu Netbook Remix. It is only for netbooks, specifically netbooks with the Intel Atom. To get the best battery life from that processor you have to recompile EVERYTHING so it is a full port to a new arch, the lpia (Low Power Intel Arch). You can install most packages from the i386 repos but the theory is running them uses more battery life than an lpia package.
> If Apple's dream does in fact come true and the majority of desktop users switch to Macs,
That has never been a dream of Apple's and certainly not of their users.
Apple sees themselves as selling a luxury brand experience. That means it must NEVER become too popular lest it lose it's cache. The success of the iPod and iPhone are already pushing Apple market share to dangerous levels but they are just 'consumer electronics' and not the Mac itself.
To illustrate by analogy, let us consider Harley Davidson. They don't mind the hoi poli buying the branded merch but the actual motorcycles are a status symbol reserved for those willing to part with major coin to own one. If they ever introduced a model that blew away Honda and such, thus gaining major market share, the hard core would quickly adopt another brand since the Harley Davidson emblem would no longer serve to instantly communicate to onlookers the owner's 'serious biker' status.
Same with Apple, to see the gaudy glowing logo instantly communicates one's status as a member of the elite to all who behold it. If Walmart were selling Macs to ordinary folk it just wouldn't be the same. I suspect Apple sees the iPods and iPhones more like Harley sees the branded merc, stuff the wannabees can afford and promote the brand yet they are still not among the select who own actual Macs.
And unless Apple finds a business model that doesn't depend on insanely great margins it is a moot point anyway since they will never be a mass market player.
> 1. After cutting the upper-class taxes there was a recession. Regan did it in the 80s and Bush did it in the last decade.
I really shouldn't reply to something this bogus but you made such a long and to the untrained eye clueful post I had to bust it up a bit.
Reagan inherited a economy swirling the toilet. It took a couple of years to get the economy going because the Democrats controlled the House so Reagan had to compromise and phase in his tax cuts over a couple of years.
That brings us to Bush. History here has been rewritten but most of us lived through it so lets remember what actually happened around the turn of the century, ok? During the 2000 election season the .com bubble was busy bursting on the business pages while the front page continued to hail the 'greatest economy since records began' as the reason to continue the good times by electing the Goracle. As soon as the election was over of course the real situation found its way to the front page, DOOM! DOOM! DOOM! Bush responded with a tax cut and the economy grew fast enough to absorb the .bomb with only a minor recession. Then we got 9/11, two wars and compromise everything but the war Republicans spending like drunken sailors. The economy survived all of it until when? Until Princess Pelosi and Dingy Harry took over Congress in '07.
> 3. You talk abut how socialism is such a weak systems but Russia had essentially 3rd world
> infrastructure and yet was a superpower on par with the US for most of our lifes.
You are joking, right? The Soviet Union was a third world country with fusion bombs. Bombs they probably couldn't have built for decades had not traitors in our own program given them the plans. For all their apparent military might they had almost zero ability to project power beyond their own borders. They had a massive numerical advantage that in the end meant almost nothing because of our technical advantage. Witness what happened whenever Soviet hardware met American on the battlefield between proxies. Soviet Union vs Afgans with Stingers, Israel vs. most of the Middle East, Iraq vs. USA, etc. Thankfully we never got the opportunity to match USA vs Soviet directly, but now that we can look back with modern knowledge a war in Europe probably wouldn't have had the outcome most thought at the time of us being forced to use tactical nukes to stave off an unstoppable armored juggernaught.
And I suspect we will soon find out how well Russian SAMs perform against American made fighter bombers.
> Every company founder I personally have known has gotten kicked out when the company stabilized
> and an interm CEO (who gets along with the VC and board) has been appointed to manage the
> continued growth of the company.
Anyone in that position should have cashed out as a happy camper. Assuming they aren't a fool who didn't understand how the VC game is played. If you understand how the world works you smile as you cash out and go start a fresh company, this time with enough funds you don't have to give a majority stake to the Vulture Capitalists. And in many cases the VC types are right, and the sort of person who can start a company isn't best suited to run one long term.
> Everything is more expensive in the ghetto because of crime rates, causing higher prices,
> local shortages, more dispair, fewer options, which feeds more crime, and so on. It's a
> self-sustaining cycle, heading downwards.
So why doesn't a 'community organizer' come along and do the one thing that would improve the situation? Organize the people to police their own area and cut the crime rate to managable levels, i.e. low enough the police aren't afraid to be on the streets after dark. Then when the area is safe, attract some businesses in and from there some industry. Then you have jobs and a hope for prosperity.
Never happens does it. Observe what community organizers actually do, for example what our God King did a few years ago. Does history record ONE act from his 'community organizing' days that had the principle result of helping the community instead of improving the political position of his chosen faction in the Chicago machine?
Thought experiment. Imagine we actually solved poverty. Who benefits politically? And there is your answer.
> The distinction between rich and poor is really all about teh stupids.
Ya, good point you and other posters raised about the difference between stupid and ignorant/rancid culture. But good grief, I got enough karma hit to lose my Karma bonus for the first time in years with what I did say. Imagine the howls of rage had I actually implied the culture most of /. embraces as a primary cause. But I'm cynical enough and libertarian enough to hold people just a little bit accountable for their own situation, regardless how often MTV culture tries to tell ya knowledge is for suckers, to drop out get high and hook up you still have a brain and can make a smarter choice.
And in my defense I have pointed out in other posts in this thread that almost anyone who tries CAN attain the middle class. Even people who really are a bit stupid.
> I would agree if higher education was free to the poor. Which if you haven't noticed is not...
If it is good enough for Congressman Frank.... What planet are you from?
It is really simple. It doesn't matter how poor your parents are, it doesn't matter much how crappy your school is. If you have the will you CAN learn to read in almost any school, from there the library has all you need. These days if you just show up every day (or at least 95% attendance) you will pass. And if you actually apply yourself just a bit you can pass with good enough grades to get a scholarship. For those following along as dim as you, that is 'free higher education for the poor." No, it probably won't be to Harvard. (poor community organizers only get to Harvard when Arab Sheiks put up the cash for inscrutable reasons) but it will be enough. If you put down the beer bong, take a major that is actually valued by society and study hard you will come out with a marketable skill and a fair amount of debt. Work a job during college (like most students USED to do and they managed to find time to study) and you can greatly minimize the debt. Do these things and you are almost certain to attain at least lower middle class. No special ability or luck is required, just being willing to play the game. If you have even a modicum of either of those factors going for you making it into the top 5% by age 40 should be a very attainable goal if material wealth is what you are seeking, regardless of where you started life.
> I guess they could join the military, but there is that whole dying and killing
> people which many may not morally agree with.
You are only free to sit around in your progressive angst because previous generations manned up and served. And remember, the GI Bill after WWII put a LOT of people through college. Nothing dishonorable about military service and these days they really do hand out the bonuses. Again, there is yet another path out of poverty open to almost anyone willing to put in a little effort. Graduate from high school without a criminal record, do a four year hitch and go to college on Uncle Sam's dime. But again, you dismiss it as not an option to sustain your preconceived idea that America is a mean wicked place where the game is rigged to keep the poor in poverty. Remmember, our system only promised you the freedom PURSUE happiness, we don't promise to hunt it down and bring it to you on a silver platter.
> Of course, the problem is that the ailing schools need money fix their problems.
No they don't. Two choices really.
1. End the unions and tenure in K12 education. Tenure is a means of protecting freedom of thought in the academy, to allow intellectuals to study, teach and write in an environment free from undue influence. That is a good idea for a university but a lousy one for a K12 environment. A K12 teacher has a very different task than a university professor. A K12 teacher isn't supposed to be creating knowledge, they are supposed to be teaching the basics and hopefully getting some of the kids to think a bit. But they are supposed to be instilling a standardized curriculum, not pushing their own agenda in the classroom, the kids should get to wait for college for that. All tenure (and the education unions) do is make it impossible to get rid of teachers who burn out. Once it is actually possible to clean out the deadwood, get control as close to the local parents as possible by clearing out as much of the state and federal crapola as possible.
2. Or just do the right thing and end the government monopoly on schools. If education of the young is seen as a imperative (moral or policy) for the State then hand out vouchers. And just like the 'public option' being discussed currently in health care, if the State schools were forced to compete on a level field they would quickly die out. So make sure it IS a level field by ensuring the public schools received only the funding in the vouchers or tuitions from parents, exactly like the private schools would be funded with.
> Not in a "dump cash in them until they're better" way, but in a "we're not going to be able to
> attract good teachers and bring facilities up to par without spending some money.
I really don't understand this mindset. We have been doing exactly this 'dumping' of good money after bad for several generations now and expecting a different result from past performance each time. Insanity! Unless and until you change the basic assumptions built into the failed government education system it is irrational to expect a different result from yet another cash infusion. Yet if we DID fix the defects in the system improvement would be possible with the current funding.
> The even bigger problem is that we don't have a way to judge success in a reliable manner.
> Standardized tests are the worst method,
You state that like it were a uncontroversial fact. It isn't. A standardized test is a lousy way to judge writing ability, creativity, etc. It is a wonderful way to judge most of what a child needs to learn in the earlier grades. Set them a hundred random arithmetic problems of the sort they should be able to solve and if one child answers 80% of them that student is almost certainly doing better than one who only answered 50%. And neither is ready to advance. Same for basic reading comprehension, spelling, etc.
If you object to standardized testing you must be prepared to propose something better. Keep in mind that in the real world (and the same effect will taint any proposal you advance for K12) standardized testing is almost universal. They have proven themselves as the best defense against the EEOC and the trial lawyers.
> However, that would be another bill, that people can vote against if they'd like.
No it wouldn't. Let the public option pass (or the co-ops that are Freddie Med) and the logical conclusion is single payer. Jacob Hacker[1] was correct when he said:
"Someone told me this was a Trojan horse for single-payer. Well, it's not a Trojan horse, right? It's just right there. I'm telling you. We're going to get there, over time, slowly, but we'll move away from reliance on employer-based health insurance as we should, but we'll do it in a way that we're not going to frighten people into thinking they're going to lose their private insurance. We're going to give them a choice of public and private insurance when they're in the pool, and we're going to let them keep their private employer-based insurance if their employer continues to provide it."
> I used to be a little conservative, but in my view, the Republicans aren't anymore.
Amen to that. But remember this: Almost all Conservatives are (at least nominal) Republicans but many Republicans are not Conservatives. Especially so for Republicans who have been in elected office for long or live in the New York/DC corridor. It is our task to find and elect leaders who can correct this problem... while fighting the Socialists currently in power. Yes it was probably a needful thing to turn the Republicans out into the wilderness in response to the 'spending like drunken sailors' and corruption during the Bush years. But Obama and Princess Pelosi as the result certainly proves the Law of Unintended Consequences.
[1] And if anyone asks who he is I say two things, 1) YOu are too uninformed to be discussing this issue intelligently and 2) Google is yer friend.
> The real question is what happens to the children of these "nitwits"?
Very good question. To start trying to answer it we can begin with the sad list of things we have already tried and know don't work.
1. Progressivism in general. Redistribution of wealth, class envy, the workers seizing the means of production, all that rot.
2. Government schools. We already throw away more money per student than most countries and we piss away a lot on the worst schools. See our nation's capital, Washington D.C. for a vivid example.
3. The welfare state, Progressivism's compromise between full blown socialism and the old Classical Liberalism they are seeking always to supplant. Bring up a kid watching mom walk to the mailbox on the first of the month and you can forget em seeing the value of getting an education and a job.
The problem isn't one of money. And it isn't a lack of government. Add up the Sagan's of cash we have taxed and spent away in the War on Poverty and the answer is clear, that money in the private sector would have lifted a lot more people up by a general increase in GDP than the multigenerational poverty the Great Society bought us.
We have a long history of people showing up on our border with the cloths on their backs, living poor but boosting their children into the middle class and and few of their children making it to the upper ranks. Katrina flushed out tens of thousands of forth and fifth generation wards of the state. There is your problem. The problem is a moral and philosophical one, not an economic one.
> Seems like it's going downhill in all the heavily Republican parts of the country. They're human garbage anyway.
Folks in red states might die a few years sooner but we are outbreeding you blue folk. If we had the time we could win the Freedom vs. Socialism battle purely on birth rates. But alas.
Hint: gays don't reproduce even if they play like they are married.
Ok, let me pee on everyone's parade and burn some karma.
> those who were already disadvantaged did not benefit from the
> gains in life expectancy experienced by the advantaged, and
> some became even worse off
Oh stop already with the politics. Stop with the infernal 'progressive' talking points and bringing class into everything. Simplify to this:
"Stupid people do stupid things that cause them to die sooner." Not that there aren't stupid people everywhere, but in America we still have the
right to be wrong to a much greater extent than the nanny states in Europe.
And since I'm burning karma anyway lemme toss another sacred cow onto the grill. Enough with this continual blather about the 'disadvantaged/poor/etc.' if you nitwits aren't going to deal with the actual problem. To a very high degree of correlation, the 'poor' aren't living in poverty because of a lack of money. They lack money because they have make poor lifestyle decisions that RESULT in a lack of money. Things like failure to get an education (or worse reject the value of knowledge entirely), become a single parent, waste money on substance abuse or Xbox... but I repeat myself.
Normally I wouldn't flame so hard but this entire article so reeks of slashkos politics I just couldn't hold back. Enough with the thinly disguised political stories outside the politics topic. Raise your hand if you actually think this was 'news for nerds' and not the DNC talking points being put into action.
I mean, seriously, take this bit:
> ..because an oft-stated aim of the US health system is the improvement
> of the health of "all people, and especially those at greater risk of
> health disparities.
WTF? I thought that was what the current argument was about, whether we were going to HAVE a single "US health system" or not. We currently don't
have a single system so how does this asshat ascribe policies to the current industry? The 'aim' of most of the people in the current semi
free market system is the same as any business. Balance customer (patient) service against earning a living.
> Do that many people really want PS2 compatibility? It would be nice, but is it all that crucial?
> I'd argue most consumers are clamoring for the latest games. And for anyone who owns a decent library of PS2 games I have to assume they
> already own a PS2 otherwise what's the point of all the games.
Ok, I'm not typical but I'd like it. Here is my reasoning. I haven't bothered with owning a console since the A2600 but have thought about trying it again. Also have grandkids around the house nowadays. The kiddies have access to a Gamecube and Xbox360 at home so I'd like to go with something that would let them play different stuff. Also important is that there is a metric boatload of games for preschoolers for the PS2 and they are cheap. Spongebob doesn't really need next gen power after all. A look at the offerings at Walmart & Game Stop don't show many titles for Xbox360 or Wii that kids could or should be playing and what few there are cost twice the price of typical NEW PS2 titles.
Wii is another option; games for kids are available but are almost as expensive as PS3 or Xbox since Wii is a current gen platform. Good grief, why is a schlock movie tie in game twice as expensive as the DVD of the movie itself? The trade off is a serious shortage of titles for adults.
Meanwhile most titles that catch my eye are next gen. My TV is still a fairly good but SD unit with only one set of inputs still unused. (Home theater, MythTV, etc. filled it up) So unless I want to add yet more complexity (which lowers WAF) and install a game switch box the limit is ONE system. So unless backward compatibility comes back to the PS3 they are going to lose a sale to the PS2 and I'll game on a PC and take a look situation again when the wheel turns to the next generation.
> ..we will NOT be moving to 7 unless it comes installed on a computer.
And that will be the big test. If people just get it on new computers Microsoft gets little out of the deal. All (99%) of PCs are going to ship with Windows anyway and the price gap between Vista and 7 isn't likely to grow a lot, especially in the current economic environment in general and the PC industry in specific.
So if customers accept 7, i.e. don't actively hate it like they did with Vista, Microsoft doesn't win. They need people to like it enough to buy upgrades for existing XP and Vista installs if they are going to get a cash infusion out of all this development cash they have sunk into 7.
From the PR to date, mobs at Best Buy at midnight like with Win95 doesn't seem likely. At best Windows 7 is a refined Vista, more of Win98SE event, not a searchlights, glitzy parties with celebutards and license a classic rock standard for the multi-million dollar ad campaign sort of product launch.
I hate to be on Microsoft's side but they are right on this one. Maybe if they fight off enough patent trolls they will join in efforts to reform patents out of self preservation.
> Should sites like Facebook make an attempt to restrict access of registered sex offenders from certain
> subsets of the population? Perhaps, depending on the crime, what the judge had to say about it, parole board, etc.
Think you are close to the answer. Social networking sites that allow minors access should have a check box for members to mark that they are under court orders not to interract with minors. When checked minors just don't see that member at all.
If a couple of the big sites implemented such a feature it would then be reasonable to require registered offenders to only use those sites and have it set up such that their parole officer can monitor that they are indeed properly flagged.
Extended a little more it would be just as easy to have adults see a small warning icon to note the person they are interacting with is a known offender but it would be all too easy for such a thing to be abused by the same unholy coalition of do gooder Democrats and bible thumping Republicans to the point the warning would be ignored by overuse...
But really, longterm there is a better solution. If somebody can't be trusted not to reoffend don't let their ass out of the joint.
> Micro$oft has enough money to screw this up for a decade - possibly, two.
Oh they still have a boatload of cash, just not as much as they once did. But that isn't their problem. MSFT stock sells for five times what the net assets of the corporation are worth and the stock price has been stuck in a fairly narrow range since the .com bomb blew up; so investors apparently still believe they are going to remain a revenue generating machine as that is the only reason to remain invested. A P/E of 14 ain't exactly horrible outside the tech sector. They figure that eventually some of that cash surging through their veins will get to them by either getting the share price going up again or by bigger dividends than the current puny 2%.
So there is their time limit. The second a critical mass of investors figure out that their current revenue figure is as good as it gets and that it is all downhill from here is when the game is over. Microsoft popping will be the oddly delayed end of the tech bubble bursting back in 2000. Lose the 200B market cap and their cash reserves will only carry them so far. The entire net worth of the corporation is less than a year's profits. They have to find a new source of revenue before people figure out Windows is in decline. Finding a gusher of cash on that scale isn't exactly easy.