Just because something is a standard doesn't mean it is free of patent claims.
Then *show me one*. No, seriously. Show me a single fucking patent on any component of the C# language. No, not the library. Not some implementation of something built on.NET. C# itself.
Why? Because if you can't find one, then it's *too late*. MS can't go and patent portions of C# after the fact because the cat's already out of the bag: the USPTO doesn't allow patenting published inventions. And guess what? The C# standard is published.
So, please, show me a patent. Just one. I dare you.
I agree that there could be global warming. However government restrictions on the economy are not the answer. The free market will always have a solution to the problem.
Go look up the term "negative externality". The free market can't solve everything. Christ, even Adam Smith knew that.
I fail to see how this is in any way better than just starting from a progressive tax to begin with.
*shrug* Look, the GST is hardly the first consumption tax to exist. Hell, every province save Alberta has a provincial-level consumption tax (as do many states in the US, by the way), so all of your arguments could just as easily apply to them. Now, I presume consumption taxes are chosen over other types of tax (such as income tax) for a reason... unfortunately, I'm not an expert in macroeconomics and tax law, so I don't have the answers for you.
So, complain all you want. Frankly, I'm not sure why you isolated the GST as an example of the Canadian government not being representative of the people's wishes... you could pick *any* tax and argue the same, because, as I've said already, people are stupid. They bitch about taxes, then bitch that the roads aren't being fixed, or school classroom sizes are too large, or the lines at the emergency room is too long. Luckily, like our neighbours to the south, we have a representative democracy, so these kinds of contradictions don't end up passed into law (well, save for in California, which is evidentally on an irreversible course to insolvency, all thanks to boneheaded laws passed by an ignorant electorate).
First of all, you say the GST is miniscule on an individual level yet provides significant funding. I have no idea what you can possibly mean by this. A miniscule tax, by definition, cannot provide significant funding.
Well that's just silly. If you collect a penny from thirty million people, that's a pretty significant amount of money, no?
The argument that "GST/VAT is deceptively perceived as a small amount relative to the amount of money it actually raises" is to me one of the biggest problems with GST. I dislike policy proposals that exploit public deception.
It has nothing to do with that. The point is that, because the tax is relatively small, it doesn't strongly impact people's lives. The result is a fairly painless tax that can then be used to fund things we *do* use... like our healthcare system. Sounds like a win to me.
Yet the GST is without question strongly regressive.
As is any consumption tax. Which is why certain items, such as basic groceries, are exempt from the GST. This makes the tax less regressive by eliminating it on items that the poor are most likely to spend their money on.
Before I begin, I should point out, once again, that I wasn't comparing the US to Canada. My problem is that the poster listed some sets of values, while asserting that the US met those values... my response was to illustrate that, no, there are many ways in which the US does *not* meet those values, and to claim it does is to, at best, be blinded to the reality.
Now, that said...
Yes, Canadians need to be reminded too. I'm an American living in Canada, and here's some of the problems I see:
* Vastly disproportionate representation in Parliament
* Prorouged Parliament (WTF? and by the way, how is this aspect of being a crown subject a mere formality?)
* Blank media tax
* Almost total ban on handgun ownership and concealed carry.
Well, while I can agree on the first three, the third one is something most Canadians support. You, as an American, may not like it, but that's tough... this is Canada, not the US.:)
Or: whether handgun ownership and concealed carry equate to "freedom" is a matter of opinion (in fact, I think the US is unique in that regard).
Oh really? I've literally never met anyone who supports the GST, so why is it still around?
Uhh... *raises hand*. The tax is miniscule on an individual level but provides significant funding that's used to pay for, among other things, transfer payments to provinces to support healthcare and other facilitates. Frankly, I think the Conservative decision to drop the tax by 2% was a ridiculous public relations ploy, as the change affects virtually no one save the very rich (due to it's small size at an individual level), while putting a decent sized dent in the federal cash flow.
In a broader sense, the reality is that no one you talk to likely supports *any* tax. But that's because people are really fucking stupid.:) For evidence of this fact, see the financial disaster that is direct democracy in California.
I would not go so far as to say that one is any freer than the other -- if anything, they are incomparable.
Yeah, that's almost certainly true. You can pick any number of items (let's take concealed carry and universal healthcare as examples), and then, depending on your political leanings, come to completely different conclusions regarding the relative "freedom" of the country being discussed. As such, it really comes down to determining what things you personally value, and then finding a nation where the values align with your own.
It's not anti-English as much as anti-canadian, we had enough quebec-bashing and disrespect from fellow canadian
Well, as a westerner... I gotta admit, I can't blame you, there's a disgusting amount of anti-fracophone sentiment out here among certain demographics (particularly older people). OTOH, there's been plenty of bigotry on the Quebecois side, as well, and certainly no shortage of anti-anglophone (and, as you say, anti-Canadian) sentiment.
Really, the amusing reality is that western Canada (particularly Alberta) and Quebec have a great deal in common. Both have people who think their province is the best province in the country, both have people who think the federal government is constantly stepping on their rights, and both have people who think secession is the answer to all their woes. As such, you'd think we'd get along better than we do.:)
It's when you live here many years and still doesnt speak French, in a majority of 80%+ French population (but a minority or 23% in canada) that quite some disrespect dont you agree ? Or you get a superiority complex we like to shit on.
Really, that's the two options? Learn French, or develop a superiority complex? Who's being bigoted now, hmm?:) Maybe some people, like me, are simply embarrassed by their ignorance of the French language (I've taken classes, but my grasp of the language is rudimentary at best), and feel it's just easier to not butcher it.:) Or maybe they've just gotten frustrated with attempting to use French, only to have the locals switch to English without giving you the chance (been there, done that... not that I can blame them).
It's a complex issue. Boiling it down to "speak french or you're an arrogant anglophone" does nothing but promote bigotry on *both* sides.
Because I next week I get to blow up all kinds of shit while pumping Pour Some Sugar on Me out of very large speakers mounted on my roof and hotties dance and people cheer me.
Americans spend a great deal of time talking about freedom, Canadians actually are free.
Well, I'm not sure I would take it that far. As a Canadian, I think we do a pretty good job overall (our record for personal privacy, for example, is quite strong, and I think our system of democracy is more representative of the people's wishes, thanks to the weaker influence of lobbying groups), but things like the Canadian Human Rights Commission, a "court" system completely outside the regular system of jurisprudence, would suggest we still have plenty we could improve on.
Really, my post wasn't to illustrate why the US sucks and <insert country here> is better. Rather, certain Americans (and Canadians, for that matter) sometimes need to be reminded that their nation *isn't* the greatest, most free, most awesome country in the world... that it is flawed, and often *doesn't* live up to its lauded ideals.
As someone who was born, raised, and lives in Alberta... I'd say the same is true of Alberta, minus the Edmonton area. I love my country, but god I hate this province sometimes. The bigotry alone, particularly to easterners and francophones, is truly disgusting (I kid you not, in an issue of the Sun (for the record, I normally don't read that rag), someone wrote in to complain about Harper coming out to Alberta and performing a speech which included french passages... the author of said letter complained that Harper should "speak white" out here *boggle*).
Given a choice, I'd say Vancouver, if you can stomach the cost of living, Edmonton or Saskatoon if you can handle the slower lifestyle (both are very nice cities, but quiet for those who prefer a more metropolitan environment), or the Toronto or Ottawa areas (yes, Manitoba, I skipped you... suck it up, and alas, I haven't yet visited the maritimes). Out east, I personally prefer Ottawa... smaller, very clean, nice proximity to Quebec (just a couple hours to Montreal), Toronto, and the US.
The famous american chess player was notoriously anti-american.
Not to mention notoriously anti-semitic... like, "It's time to start randomly killing Jews" (yes, that really is a quote) anti-semitic. Seriously, the guy was crazy.
#1: We have rights of expression, assembly, thought, speech, and, yes, privacy enshrined in the Constitution.
assembly: Three words for you - Free speech zones thought: Didn't we just see a story about a man arrested for possessing child porn that didn't actually depict children? privacy: Well, minus the wiretapping... and the GOP's insane desire to dictate what goes on in people's bedrooms.
Speech I'll give you, though... the US has been pretty strong about protecting speech... to the point that donating money even qualifies as speech, hence why bribary... err, that is, lobbying is legal.
#2: As a culture, we prize freedom the way Israel prizes "never again" or Iran prizes "Islam".
Well, unless you're caught using harmless drugs, or urinating in public, in which case you'll get a disproportionate sentence, and in the latter case, a scarlet letter as a bonus.
And if you want to be free to, say, marry the person you love, well, you're screwed there, too.
Basically you're free to do whatever you want as long as the moral majority has decided it's okay.
#3: America is currently in the beginings of its post-Bush era.
I'd ask the LGBT community how that's going. They might disagree.
Alright alright, yeah, he's better than Bush... but that ain't saying much, and thus far, I'd say the jury's out on just how much better.
#4: you'd be in the same country as/.!
I thought this was a list of reasons to move to the US...:)
#5: From a feudalistic standpoint, you would go from being a subject of a crown to a citizen of a country
*snicker* Please... anyone who's lived in a commonwealth country will tell you that the "subject of a crown" BS is nothing but a formality. You know, kinda like American representative democracy. *duck*!;)
However, I have to say I disagree with the assertion that child pornography is a substitute.
Well... tough. I'd like to disagree with gravity (who wouldn't want to fly?), but the facts make that a little difficult. Same goes with this. If the studies have shown a decrease in actual child abuse due to the viewing of child pornography by pedophiles, then who are you to disagree?
Communities that practice this behavior legitimize it, if nothing else.
Oh, I know! For example, thanks to the "acceptance" of hard core pornography, everyone around here loves to participate in BDMS and three-ways.
Has she considered writingt books with 10 chapters instead?
I see you missed the point. It has nothing to do with the length of the book, but rather the progress to completion. It goes like this: I've completed 75% of a project. I look at it and think, yeah, 75% done! Problem is, that remaining 25% is probably polish, commenting, documentation... really, the least interesting bits. Meanwhile, I've already gotten a heck of a lot completed, and so I already feel like I've accomplished something... trying to convince myself to now push through to the finish line is *hard*.
Nevertheless, OTP itself *is* foolproof. Key exchange is a whole other ball of wax.
Re:Electronic Health Records is very hard
on
IT and Health Care
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· Score: 1
Please spare me the conspiration theories. A sizeable chunk of the medical industry is composed of small companies whose main selling point is precisely efficiency and subsequent cost savings.
Besides which, if you want conspiracy theories, it makes a *lot* more sense for these companies to switch to EMR to save cash, and then simply not pass on the savings to the customers, thus jacking their profits.
The other simple fact is that Jobs did what he could, within the existing rules, to keep on living. Where is the ethical dilemma there?
So ethics are defined by the established rules? Huh... so, I guess the perfectly legal behaviours that led up to the banking collapse were completely ethical?
Lots of people die here because they can't get a transplant, lacking both money and insurance.
Right. And that is the heart of the moral dilemma. Why should one's income determine whether or not one lives or dies? That's the key. Just because the existing system works that way, doesn't make it right.
Heck, I take advantage of my insurance on a regular basis, and so I'm lots better off than somebody with lower pay and no insurance. Is this a moral failing on my part?
Right. And I'm saying there's an ethical issue with that. Who says healthcare should be provided only to those over a sufficient income threshold? Is healthcare a human rights issue? If so, why should income factor in to accessibility?
If you're going to criticize Jobs for what he did, criticize me for taking advantage of ready access to medical professionals and limits as to how much I have to pay for medications I need. We're doing exactly the same thing, but he has more money and greater needs.
And I'm not criticizing Jobs. I'm criticizing a system that makes what he did possible in the first place. Similarly, I don't criticize you for gaining preferential access to the system. But I think there's an ethical issue with the fact that you *can* gain preferential access to the system based purely on your income or the people you know.
So, is what Jobs did "wrong" in the sense that it broke the rules of the system? No. But the fact that he was able to buy preferential access to the system *is* an ethical issue.
(b) everyone else uses it for all science and egineering.
You've *gotta* be joking. Show me a chemistry lab that measures out compounds in ounces, and I'll eat my hat. Hell, the entire reason that metric/imperial FUBAR happened a while back is specifically because NASA still works in Imperial, while the ESA works in metric. Hell, even your average European car is built in metric.
Honestly, what kind of crack are you on??
Find a carpenter who is good at this to see what I mean.
That's called practice. If carpenters worked strictly in metric, my bet is they'd be pretty good at quick maths in their head using metric, instead.
Same with volume and weight; if you do a lot of cooking and modifying quantities in recipes you can get good at those conversions.
Oh, I know. I love the fact that I have to memorize that a teaspoon is 1/3rd a tablespoon, that a tablespoon is 1/4 of a cup, and so on and so on.
Yeah, thanks but no thanks. I'll take metric any day.
What is that, an ironic "they"? Some mythical "they"? FFS people, quotes are not supposed to be used for emphasis! Seriously, stop it, it's annoying!:)
BTW, for an hilarious take on this, go watch Frisky Dingo. And welcome to your "Doom"!
As someone who has worked with a hospital transplant team, Steve Jobs did absolutely nothing wrong. There is nothing that stops people from doing something similar to what Jobs did
Uhh, just FYI: that doesn't make it right.
The simple fact is there *is* an ethical dilemma here. What Jobs did is a blatant example of how money directly determines one's access to the US healthcare system. If you don't see the ethical issues with that, you're blind.
My home, for instance, burns about one CFL every six months.
You're doing something wrong. I have CFLs that I installed in my house *four years ago* that are still working just fine. At minimum, you should get your electrical checked. And don't buy shitty bulbs.
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Just because something is a standard doesn't mean it is free of patent claims.
Then *show me one*. No, seriously. Show me a single fucking patent on any component of the C# language. No, not the library. Not some implementation of something built on .NET. C# itself.
Why? Because if you can't find one, then it's *too late*. MS can't go and patent portions of C# after the fact because the cat's already out of the bag: the USPTO doesn't allow patenting published inventions. And guess what? The C# standard is published.
So, please, show me a patent. Just one. I dare you.
After all, if as you say, he has no place in any serious discussion about climate change, why NOT fire him?
Because he might have valuable insights in his area of expertise? You know... law and economics?
I agree that there could be global warming. However government restrictions on the economy are not the answer. The free market will always have a solution to the problem.
Go look up the term "negative externality". The free market can't solve everything. Christ, even Adam Smith knew that.
I fail to see how this is in any way better than just starting from a progressive tax to begin with.
*shrug* Look, the GST is hardly the first consumption tax to exist. Hell, every province save Alberta has a provincial-level consumption tax (as do many states in the US, by the way), so all of your arguments could just as easily apply to them. Now, I presume consumption taxes are chosen over other types of tax (such as income tax) for a reason... unfortunately, I'm not an expert in macroeconomics and tax law, so I don't have the answers for you.
So, complain all you want. Frankly, I'm not sure why you isolated the GST as an example of the Canadian government not being representative of the people's wishes... you could pick *any* tax and argue the same, because, as I've said already, people are stupid. They bitch about taxes, then bitch that the roads aren't being fixed, or school classroom sizes are too large, or the lines at the emergency room is too long. Luckily, like our neighbours to the south, we have a representative democracy, so these kinds of contradictions don't end up passed into law (well, save for in California, which is evidentally on an irreversible course to insolvency, all thanks to boneheaded laws passed by an ignorant electorate).
First of all, you say the GST is miniscule on an individual level yet provides significant funding. I have no idea what you can possibly mean by this. A miniscule tax, by definition, cannot provide significant funding.
Well that's just silly. If you collect a penny from thirty million people, that's a pretty significant amount of money, no?
The argument that "GST/VAT is deceptively perceived as a small amount relative to the amount of money it actually raises" is to me one of the biggest problems with GST. I dislike policy proposals that exploit public deception.
It has nothing to do with that. The point is that, because the tax is relatively small, it doesn't strongly impact people's lives. The result is a fairly painless tax that can then be used to fund things we *do* use... like our healthcare system. Sounds like a win to me.
Yet the GST is without question strongly regressive.
As is any consumption tax. Which is why certain items, such as basic groceries, are exempt from the GST. This makes the tax less regressive by eliminating it on items that the poor are most likely to spend their money on.
Before I begin, I should point out, once again, that I wasn't comparing the US to Canada. My problem is that the poster listed some sets of values, while asserting that the US met those values... my response was to illustrate that, no, there are many ways in which the US does *not* meet those values, and to claim it does is to, at best, be blinded to the reality.
Now, that said...
Yes, Canadians need to be reminded too. I'm an American living in Canada, and here's some of the problems I see:
* Vastly disproportionate representation in Parliament
* Prorouged Parliament (WTF? and by the way, how is this aspect of being a crown subject a mere formality?)
* Blank media tax
* Almost total ban on handgun ownership and concealed carry.
Well, while I can agree on the first three, the third one is something most Canadians support. You, as an American, may not like it, but that's tough... this is Canada, not the US. :)
Or: whether handgun ownership and concealed carry equate to "freedom" is a matter of opinion (in fact, I think the US is unique in that regard).
Oh really? I've literally never met anyone who supports the GST, so why is it still around?
Uhh... *raises hand*. The tax is miniscule on an individual level but provides significant funding that's used to pay for, among other things, transfer payments to provinces to support healthcare and other facilitates. Frankly, I think the Conservative decision to drop the tax by 2% was a ridiculous public relations ploy, as the change affects virtually no one save the very rich (due to it's small size at an individual level), while putting a decent sized dent in the federal cash flow.
In a broader sense, the reality is that no one you talk to likely supports *any* tax. But that's because people are really fucking stupid. :) For evidence of this fact, see the financial disaster that is direct democracy in California.
I would not go so far as to say that one is any freer than the other -- if anything, they are incomparable.
Yeah, that's almost certainly true. You can pick any number of items (let's take concealed carry and universal healthcare as examples), and then, depending on your political leanings, come to completely different conclusions regarding the relative "freedom" of the country being discussed. As such, it really comes down to determining what things you personally value, and then finding a nation where the values align with your own.
It's not anti-English as much as anti-canadian, we had enough quebec-bashing and disrespect from fellow canadian
Well, as a westerner... I gotta admit, I can't blame you, there's a disgusting amount of anti-fracophone sentiment out here among certain demographics (particularly older people). OTOH, there's been plenty of bigotry on the Quebecois side, as well, and certainly no shortage of anti-anglophone (and, as you say, anti-Canadian) sentiment.
Really, the amusing reality is that western Canada (particularly Alberta) and Quebec have a great deal in common. Both have people who think their province is the best province in the country, both have people who think the federal government is constantly stepping on their rights, and both have people who think secession is the answer to all their woes. As such, you'd think we'd get along better than we do. :)
It's when you live here many years and still doesnt speak French, in a majority of 80%+ French population (but a minority or 23% in canada) that quite some disrespect dont you agree ? Or you get a superiority complex we like to shit on.
Really, that's the two options? Learn French, or develop a superiority complex? Who's being bigoted now, hmm? :) Maybe some people, like me, are simply embarrassed by their ignorance of the French language (I've taken classes, but my grasp of the language is rudimentary at best), and feel it's just easier to not butcher it. :) Or maybe they've just gotten frustrated with attempting to use French, only to have the locals switch to English without giving you the chance (been there, done that... not that I can blame them).
It's a complex issue. Boiling it down to "speak french or you're an arrogant anglophone" does nothing but promote bigotry on *both* sides.
Because I next week I get to blow up all kinds of shit while pumping Pour Some Sugar on Me out of very large speakers mounted on my roof and hotties dance and people cheer me.
That's fucking freedom right there.
No, that's bread and circuses.
Americans spend a great deal of time talking about freedom, Canadians actually are free.
Well, I'm not sure I would take it that far. As a Canadian, I think we do a pretty good job overall (our record for personal privacy, for example, is quite strong, and I think our system of democracy is more representative of the people's wishes, thanks to the weaker influence of lobbying groups), but things like the Canadian Human Rights Commission, a "court" system completely outside the regular system of jurisprudence, would suggest we still have plenty we could improve on.
Really, my post wasn't to illustrate why the US sucks and <insert country here> is better. Rather, certain Americans (and Canadians, for that matter) sometimes need to be reminded that their nation *isn't* the greatest, most free, most awesome country in the world... that it is flawed, and often *doesn't* live up to its lauded ideals.
As someone who was born, raised, and lives in Alberta... I'd say the same is true of Alberta, minus the Edmonton area. I love my country, but god I hate this province sometimes. The bigotry alone, particularly to easterners and francophones, is truly disgusting (I kid you not, in an issue of the Sun (for the record, I normally don't read that rag), someone wrote in to complain about Harper coming out to Alberta and performing a speech which included french passages... the author of said letter complained that Harper should "speak white" out here *boggle*).
Given a choice, I'd say Vancouver, if you can stomach the cost of living, Edmonton or Saskatoon if you can handle the slower lifestyle (both are very nice cities, but quiet for those who prefer a more metropolitan environment), or the Toronto or Ottawa areas (yes, Manitoba, I skipped you... suck it up, and alas, I haven't yet visited the maritimes). Out east, I personally prefer Ottawa... smaller, very clean, nice proximity to Quebec (just a couple hours to Montreal), Toronto, and the US.
The famous american chess player was notoriously anti-american.
Not to mention notoriously anti-semitic... like, "It's time to start randomly killing Jews" (yes, that really is a quote) anti-semitic. Seriously, the guy was crazy.
#1: We have rights of expression, assembly, thought, speech, and, yes, privacy enshrined in the Constitution.
assembly: Three words for you - Free speech zones
thought: Didn't we just see a story about a man arrested for possessing child porn that didn't actually depict children?
privacy: Well, minus the wiretapping... and the GOP's insane desire to dictate what goes on in people's bedrooms.
Speech I'll give you, though... the US has been pretty strong about protecting speech... to the point that donating money even qualifies as speech, hence why bribary... err, that is, lobbying is legal.
#2: As a culture, we prize freedom the way Israel prizes "never again" or Iran prizes "Islam".
Well, unless you're caught using harmless drugs, or urinating in public, in which case you'll get a disproportionate sentence, and in the latter case, a scarlet letter as a bonus.
And if you want to be free to, say, marry the person you love, well, you're screwed there, too.
Basically you're free to do whatever you want as long as the moral majority has decided it's okay.
#3: America is currently in the beginings of its post-Bush era.
I'd ask the LGBT community how that's going. They might disagree.
Alright alright, yeah, he's better than Bush... but that ain't saying much, and thus far, I'd say the jury's out on just how much better.
#4: you'd be in the same country as /.!
I thought this was a list of reasons to move to the US... :)
#5: From a feudalistic standpoint, you would go from being a subject of a crown to a citizen of a country
*snicker* Please... anyone who's lived in a commonwealth country will tell you that the "subject of a crown" BS is nothing but a formality. You know, kinda like American representative democracy. *duck*! ;)
lewl, and here I corrected myself and still got it wrong... obviously I meant BDSM. :)
However, I have to say I disagree with the assertion that child pornography is a substitute.
Well... tough. I'd like to disagree with gravity (who wouldn't want to fly?), but the facts make that a little difficult. Same goes with this. If the studies have shown a decrease in actual child abuse due to the viewing of child pornography by pedophiles, then who are you to disagree?
Communities that practice this behavior legitimize it, if nothing else.
Oh, I know! For example, thanks to the "acceptance" of hard core pornography, everyone around here loves to participate in BDMS and three-ways.
So what *are* your reasons for filming (pre-)teens and storing them on your personal computer? :)
Has she considered writingt books with 10 chapters instead?
I see you missed the point. It has nothing to do with the length of the book, but rather the progress to completion. It goes like this: I've completed 75% of a project. I look at it and think, yeah, 75% done! Problem is, that remaining 25% is probably polish, commenting, documentation... really, the least interesting bits. Meanwhile, I've already gotten a heck of a lot completed, and so I already feel like I've accomplished something... trying to convince myself to now push through to the finish line is *hard*.
Nevertheless, OTP itself *is* foolproof. Key exchange is a whole other ball of wax.
Please spare me the conspiration theories. A sizeable chunk of the medical industry is composed of small companies whose main selling point is precisely efficiency and subsequent cost savings.
Besides which, if you want conspiracy theories, it makes a *lot* more sense for these companies to switch to EMR to save cash, and then simply not pass on the savings to the customers, thus jacking their profits.
The other simple fact is that Jobs did what he could, within the existing rules, to keep on living. Where is the ethical dilemma there?
So ethics are defined by the established rules? Huh... so, I guess the perfectly legal behaviours that led up to the banking collapse were completely ethical?
Lots of people die here because they can't get a transplant, lacking both money and insurance.
Right. And that is the heart of the moral dilemma. Why should one's income determine whether or not one lives or dies? That's the key. Just because the existing system works that way, doesn't make it right.
Heck, I take advantage of my insurance on a regular basis, and so I'm lots better off than somebody with lower pay and no insurance. Is this a moral failing on my part?
Right. And I'm saying there's an ethical issue with that. Who says healthcare should be provided only to those over a sufficient income threshold? Is healthcare a human rights issue? If so, why should income factor in to accessibility?
If you're going to criticize Jobs for what he did, criticize me for taking advantage of ready access to medical professionals and limits as to how much I have to pay for medications I need. We're doing exactly the same thing, but he has more money and greater needs.
And I'm not criticizing Jobs. I'm criticizing a system that makes what he did possible in the first place. Similarly, I don't criticize you for gaining preferential access to the system. But I think there's an ethical issue with the fact that you *can* gain preferential access to the system based purely on your income or the people you know.
So, is what Jobs did "wrong" in the sense that it broke the rules of the system? No. But the fact that he was able to buy preferential access to the system *is* an ethical issue.
Next time, read the sentence before the (a) and (b) and you might end up sounding like less of an idiot. Maybe.
ROFL... no... probably not. *sigh*
(b) everyone else uses it for all science and egineering.
You've *gotta* be joking. Show me a chemistry lab that measures out compounds in ounces, and I'll eat my hat. Hell, the entire reason that metric/imperial FUBAR happened a while back is specifically because NASA still works in Imperial, while the ESA works in metric. Hell, even your average European car is built in metric.
Honestly, what kind of crack are you on??
Find a carpenter who is good at this to see what I mean.
That's called practice. If carpenters worked strictly in metric, my bet is they'd be pretty good at quick maths in their head using metric, instead.
Same with volume and weight; if you do a lot of cooking and modifying quantities in recipes you can get good at those conversions.
Oh, I know. I love the fact that I have to memorize that a teaspoon is 1/3rd a tablespoon, that a tablespoon is 1/4 of a cup, and so on and so on.
Yeah, thanks but no thanks. I'll take metric any day.
Why did 'they' use that gauge?
Yeah, I know you didn't write that story, but...
What is that, an ironic "they"? Some mythical "they"? FFS people, quotes are not supposed to be used for emphasis! Seriously, stop it, it's annoying! :)
BTW, for an hilarious take on this, go watch Frisky Dingo. And welcome to your "Doom"!
As someone who has worked with a hospital transplant team, Steve Jobs did absolutely nothing wrong. There is nothing that stops people from doing something similar to what Jobs did
Uhh, just FYI: that doesn't make it right.
The simple fact is there *is* an ethical dilemma here. What Jobs did is a blatant example of how money directly determines one's access to the US healthcare system. If you don't see the ethical issues with that, you're blind.
My home, for instance, burns about one CFL every six months.
You're doing something wrong. I have CFLs that I installed in my house *four years ago* that are still working just fine. At minimum, you should get your electrical checked. And don't buy shitty bulbs.
Unfortunately, many doctors will refuse to perform a vasectomy if the couple doesn't already have kids. Doubly so if it's a younger couple.