What I want is MEANINGFUL releases of MAJOR changes in a cohesive, well tested release.
That's called engineering. Sorry, but there's no money in that. What you want is agile development that can turn in an instant to follow the latest trend. If you want reliability, get a horse.
I'm not saying there aren't screwups and bad designs, but that the overall level of reliability for ECU's in the industry has been pretty good. I've never had to replace one, and only know one person who had to once. Their software is also pretty good, with failsoft modes and the likes. If they worked as well as you average smart phone, or whatever the latest consumer geegaw is, we'd all go back to riding horses. Real engineering isn't always as glamorous as the latest toy, but it's what you need for things you actually rely on.
The point I was making is that AOL achieved reliability by dumbing the UI down to what the lowest common denominator was capable of. Not because that represented the optimum user experience but because they dreaded customers choking up their call centres by "confusing" them with features.
But that's not what Netflix is doing. They're trying to ensure reliable delivery of content. That's something that should just work, and not require endless tweaking by a technically sophisticated end user.
However, more recent studies show smokers DO cost more in healthcare than non-smokers: NBCnews
That study is bull. It talks about the insurance cost to employers, but doesn't mention the insurance savings to Medicare. If you count the negatives but not the positives, it's small wonder that you'll get a negative answer. Tell me what conclusion you want to come to, and I can create a "study" to reach it.
Which would be interesting if the "publicly accountable" part were even remotely true.
However unaccountable government bureaucrats are, do you think that insurance company bureaucrats are better?
Several CEO's of health insurance companies testified before congress that their companies practiced recission, and had no plans to stop. Recission is when you get something expensive like cancer, and the insurance company looks for any possible reason to cancel your coverage, Maybe you were treated for acne when you were 14 and didn't report it on your application. Bingo, no insurance!
So far, obamacare sounds a lot like the usual healthcares we enjoy in EU countries
And Canada, Japan, Australia, etc.
Unfortunately it's not. It's structured as a big giveaway to for-profit insurance companies and big pharma. Hopefully that will get fixed before it banrupts us. I've been a big proponent of UHC for decade, but Obamacare is about the worse plan to implement it I've ever seen.
I'm for it. In fact I'm pretty moderate, so I just want socialized health insurance, not full blow socialized medicine (the UK is one the few Western countries with that). It works awfully well for the Evil Frozen Socialists of the North, but rather than relying on empirical data like that the opponents will ignore it and come up with endless pulled-from-their-posterior arguments why it won't work. Guess it sucks when reality gives your ideology a big f-you.
As for broken bones, I've only had one (just above the ankle), which I set myself 22 years ago, braced and splinted it, and just waited for it to heal/walked it off.
That's nothing. Now try performing an appendectomy on yourself.
The real problem is that healthcare costs too much in the first place. You can't just insurance that away. What we really need is for the federal government to tell the whole crooked industry, "Just one more $2 ahh stick or $8 tylenol and we nationalize the whole damned thing!".
I estimate the time between that pronouncement being made and the criterion being met will be 1.72e-8 seconds.
The mandate that people have to buy insurance is the bad part of the law. Having employers provide insurance was the upside.
I don't agree. We should follow the example of the Evil Frozen Socialists of the North, and have everyone covered by a universal insurance policy paid for by taxes. The individual mandate is a burden on people who don't have much money, and they still wind up getting screwed on the price compared to employers who have more bargaining power. The subsidies are also insufficient. OTOH insisting that employers pay for insurance is an unnecessary burden on them What the hell should health insurance have to do with employment? Does you employer also buy your groceries? They give you a paycheck and it's your concern how to spend it.
business gets a reprieve but the rest of us still get the shaft by having to pay for our neighbor's healthcare despite them smoking a pack a week
A pack a week? That's so little that the effect will be negligible. You're better off if your neighbor smokes a pack or two per day, as the lifetime medical costs of smokers is lower. In fact a good way to reduce overall healthcare costs would be to hand out free cigarettes. If you want to burden the system, live to be a 100.
Nothing like having to spend money on something useless because the government tells us we have to do so.
So you're never going to get seriously ill or have an accident? And if you do, and don't have insurance, do you pinky swear not to accept any medical care that you can't pay for out-of-pocket? Oddly, people who swear that ahead of time tend to change their minds at the moment of truth, and dump the costs on everyone else. It's people who don't have insurance that wind up being the freeloaders.
I've heard that this law forces people to carry health insurance, my religious belief prohibit purchasing things like insurance
If there isn't already, there'll be a court decision that gives an exemption based on religious beliefs, The 1st Amendment almost always trumps other considerations in the courts. Belong to the right church and you can legally use peyote.
nothing compared to denying Grandma her hip replacement because you voted for the wrong candidate
Suddenly you're worried about that? Whether grandma gets her hip replacement has been a political matter since grandma was a hot young thing. Medicare was enacted in 1965.
most "enterprise" vendors will sell you kit that can tolerate nuclear war, but as far as I know, there are very few solutions to protect from administrator error or malice
Not true. If the nuclear war kills the administrator you're safe.
No wonder nobody takes Netflix seriously. What kind of tech company worries about things like reliability and robustness? That's soooo 20th century. Everyone knows that if you have more than 90% availability or too low of a bug rate it means you're not agile enough and you can't be one of those amazingly innovative social networking outfits.
Current legal precedent says that if an email message has been on the server for over 6 months they can consider it abandoned property and therefor has no privacy protection.... This points out the stupidity of many of our laws in this day of rapid technological change.
I dunno, they seem willing to change the law to accommodate new technology. With every other thing I've ever heard of, it takes 7 years for something to be considered abandoned property. They've moved it up to 6 months.
Slashdot Mirror
No wonder nobody takes Netflix seriously.
Its impact on the market says otherwise.
Many Slashdotters are impervious to irony.
We have been well informed that the Democratic party has written off the white male.
White males don't set sick or injured? As a white male myself I think that's great. Could you cite some studies?
What I want is MEANINGFUL releases of MAJOR changes in a cohesive, well tested release.
That's called engineering. Sorry, but there's no money in that. What you want is agile development that can turn in an instant to follow the latest trend. If you want reliability, get a horse.
I'm not saying there aren't screwups and bad designs, but that the overall level of reliability for ECU's in the industry has been pretty good. I've never had to replace one, and only know one person who had to once. Their software is also pretty good, with failsoft modes and the likes. If they worked as well as you average smart phone, or whatever the latest consumer geegaw is, we'd all go back to riding horses. Real engineering isn't always as glamorous as the latest toy, but it's what you need for things you actually rely on.
The point I was making is that AOL achieved reliability by dumbing the UI down to what the lowest common denominator was capable of. Not because that represented the optimum user experience but because they dreaded customers choking up their call centres by "confusing" them with features.
But that's not what Netflix is doing. They're trying to ensure reliable delivery of content. That's something that should just work, and not require endless tweaking by a technically sophisticated end user.
However, more recent studies show smokers DO cost more in healthcare than non-smokers:
NBCnews
That study is bull. It talks about the insurance cost to employers, but doesn't mention the insurance savings to Medicare. If you count the negatives but not the positives, it's small wonder that you'll get a negative answer. Tell me what conclusion you want to come to, and I can create a "study" to reach it.
Except there is no constitutional protection from taxes.
Then explain how the Amish are exempt from FICA based on their religious beliefs.
Which would be interesting if the "publicly accountable" part were even remotely true.
However unaccountable government bureaucrats are, do you think that insurance company bureaucrats are better?
Several CEO's of health insurance companies testified before congress that their companies practiced recission, and had no plans to stop. Recission is when you get something expensive like cancer, and the insurance company looks for any possible reason to cancel your coverage, Maybe you were treated for acne when you were 14 and didn't report it on your application. Bingo, no insurance!
So far, obamacare sounds a lot like the usual healthcares we enjoy in EU countries
And Canada, Japan, Australia, etc.
Unfortunately it's not. It's structured as a big giveaway to for-profit insurance companies and big pharma. Hopefully that will get fixed before it banrupts us. I've been a big proponent of UHC for decade, but Obamacare is about the worse plan to implement it I've ever seen.
I'm for it. In fact I'm pretty moderate, so I just want socialized health insurance, not full blow socialized medicine (the UK is one the few Western countries with that). It works awfully well for the Evil Frozen Socialists of the North, but rather than relying on empirical data like that the opponents will ignore it and come up with endless pulled-from-their-posterior arguments why it won't work. Guess it sucks when reality gives your ideology a big f-you.
As for broken bones, I've only had one (just above the ankle), which I set myself 22 years ago, braced and splinted it, and just waited for it to heal/walked it off.
That's nothing. Now try performing an appendectomy on yourself.
The real problem is that healthcare costs too much in the first place. You can't just insurance that away. What we really need is for the federal government to tell the whole crooked industry, "Just one more $2 ahh stick or $8 tylenol and we nationalize the whole damned thing!".
I estimate the time between that pronouncement being made and the criterion being met will be 1.72e-8 seconds.
I'm glad for your state. Unfortunately, one size does not fit all.
Thank you for throwing spaghetti against the wall. Can you actually give some reasonable idea why you think it won't work in other states?
Having been tested in reality it has a lot better shot than some ideologically or "reason" based idea that somebody pulled out of their ass.
The mandate that people have to buy insurance is the bad part of the law. Having employers provide insurance was the upside.
I don't agree. We should follow the example of the Evil Frozen Socialists of the North, and have everyone covered by a universal insurance policy paid for by taxes. The individual mandate is a burden on people who don't have much money, and they still wind up getting screwed on the price compared to employers who have more bargaining power. The subsidies are also insufficient. OTOH insisting that employers pay for insurance is an unnecessary burden on them What the hell should health insurance have to do with employment? Does you employer also buy your groceries? They give you a paycheck and it's your concern how to spend it.
business gets a reprieve but the rest of us still get the shaft by having to pay for our neighbor's healthcare despite them smoking a pack a week
A pack a week? That's so little that the effect will be negligible. You're better off if your neighbor smokes a pack or two per day, as the lifetime medical costs of smokers is lower. In fact a good way to reduce overall healthcare costs would be to hand out free cigarettes. If you want to burden the system, live to be a 100.
Nothing like having to spend money on something useless because the government tells us we have to do so.
So you're never going to get seriously ill or have an accident? And if you do, and don't have insurance, do you pinky swear not to accept any medical care that you can't pay for out-of-pocket? Oddly, people who swear that ahead of time tend to change their minds at the moment of truth, and dump the costs on everyone else. It's people who don't have insurance that wind up being the freeloaders.
I've heard that this law forces people to carry health insurance, my religious belief prohibit purchasing things like insurance
If there isn't already, there'll be a court decision that gives an exemption based on religious beliefs, The 1st Amendment almost always trumps other considerations in the courts. Belong to the right church and you can legally use peyote.
nothing compared to denying Grandma her hip replacement because you voted for the wrong candidate
Suddenly you're worried about that? Whether grandma gets her hip replacement has been a political matter since grandma was a hot young thing. Medicare was enacted in 1965.
They have a high percentage of non technical users ... therefore the service should be ... ultra reliable.
Technically sophisticated users shouldn't have reliable service?
most "enterprise" vendors will sell you kit that can tolerate nuclear war, but as far as I know, there are very few solutions to protect from administrator error or malice
Not true. If the nuclear war kills the administrator you're safe.
Mobile operating systems and their associated hardware have a rapid release cycle that significantly outpaces vehicle infotainment systems.
Let's hope car companies don't learn to emulate this, Engine Control Units actually work reliably.
No wonder nobody takes Netflix seriously. What kind of tech company worries about things like reliability and robustness? That's soooo 20th century. Everyone knows that if you have more than 90% availability or too low of a bug rate it means you're not agile enough and you can't be one of those amazingly innovative social networking outfits.
That's absurd - the NSA came up with Facebook.
Current legal precedent says that if an email message has been on the server for over 6 months they can consider it abandoned property and therefor has no privacy protection. ... This points out the stupidity of many of our laws in this day of rapid technological change.
I dunno, they seem willing to change the law to accommodate new technology. With every other thing I've ever heard of, it takes 7 years for something to be considered abandoned property. They've moved it up to 6 months.
So we now don't only use TOR, we now also wear Burqas.
I'd prefer a Guy Fawkes mask.