When I said, Don't think it has anything to do with Congressional pork, I meant to imply: The pork isn't the issue; it has always been there, throughout the history of NASA, and always will be. What did change were NASA's budget priorities.
Blaming pork is just a way to distract us from the real issues.
As I recall, most Slashdotters supported this policy. Don't think it has anything to do with Congressional pork, which has always been there. It's simply NASA's new priorities:
When Bush announced manned spaceflight to the Moon and Mars, Slashdotters broadly supported it (perhaps someone can find the original post). But of course, there are not unlimited resources, so money must be diverted from something else, namely science.
NASA now has cut all environmental science from its mission (http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/22/science/22nasa. html) -- conveniently for Republican environmental policy -- and made manned spaceflight its top prioirty (http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/02/ 17/1415223).
The mammoth deficit and the Republican's refusal to raise taxes ensure that funds are even more limited. NASA can't have it all, so which do you want? Science, or manned spaceflight?
The first couple weeks were hard -- my back and legs complained the whole time. Now I love it - I'm alert 100% of the time, where before I fought off drowsiness, and my back and legs are stronger. I worry about changing jobs to someplace I can't stand.
My legs are tired at the end of the day, but it's not significant. Also, my feet get a little sore sometimes, but shifting how I stand, or taking off my shoes (when I can get away with that) fixes it.
But I'm not really standing still at my desk; I shift around constantly. When I'm on the phone, I walk around. Not being settled in a chair, there's no real psychological barrier to moving around the office.
I've always had this idea of sitting down and cycling whilst working.
I tried working from a verticle excercise bike for awhile (i.e., the kind that looks more like a standard bicycle). The seat was too uncomfortable, no matter what I did, but your kind of bike would solve that. Also, it was just too hard to concentrate while pedaling. Either my mind or the pedaling would slow to crawl.
Software is a tool; it's only value is in helping you achieve something.
Know what you want to achieve, and then you can evaluate upgrades: Does it help you acheive your business (or personal or whatever) objectives? If so, is it worth the money and time?
Just because the vendor is selling something, it doesn't mean it's worth anything to you.
Re:What ever happened to high res laptop displays?
on
MacBook Pro Reviewed
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· Score: 2, Interesting
You can get the higher res displays. My HP nc8230 has 1920x1200 (WUXGA), and Dell sells some of those screens too. I love it -- especially the sharp ~150 pixels per inch.
I've always been surprised that Apple, with its large graphic design market, never has offered the higher-res notebook screens. It keeps me from buying one. I can't live without the screen real-estate.
I'll admit that perhaps I'm a bit spoiled. I'm not an office worker and I've had some factory jobs in the past, the worst being a plastics plant that was hot, noisy, and the smell of melted and burning plastic gave you headaches all day. All that for $8CDN/hr. Since then I've moved onto better things. I'll also admit to not knowing how much US working conditions vary from Canadian ones, but I suspect that there won't be all that much of a difference.
What I was trying to say that even if a North American job someone's in is a terrible, bottom rung brainless robot labor, at least it sticks to a ~40hr workweek, compensated overtime, safety standards, and basic job-protection laws. These simply don't exist in China. Sure, not ALL employers are exploitative bastards, but I bet the nice guys are a minority.
I think that brings up an interesting point: In a democracy, workers can push for their rights at the ballot box or through unions; in China, they have no power to secure their rights and can be ignored. People complain about unions and labor regulations, but I think they take for granted their accomplishments, which you listed above.
Of course, it may be hard to find criticism of Chinese gov't labor practices on Microsoft's, Google's or Yahoo's Chinese sites.
I understand that there's oppression in China. My point is, buying consumer goods does not necessarily support it.
I haev no idea how much it supports oppression -- I probably should. But who does?
We'd essentially need to know how of each dollar spent gets back to China, ends up in gov't hands, and is used for oppressive purposes. And I'm sure it varies widely depending on what you buy and when you buy it.
I don't think a solution to not knowing is to boycott everything. That would impovrish many innocent people.
In constrast, we do know that Google's, Microsoft's and Yahoo's censorship is directly supporting oppression, and improving nobody's livelihood (ok, maybe their shareholders). I don't mind these companies opening labs in China, hiring people, and making software there -- that's great. But some activities cross the line, for me.
Even the shittiest, dirtiest, lowest paying factory shit job in the US doesn't come close to the ridiculous working hours, ugly conditions, and the pittance that passes for a wage in some Chinese shithole factory.
I'm not saying such jobs don't exist there. Things like that happen in the U.S., too, but I don't think we should loosely paint all Chinese consumer goods manufacturers as having these problems.
Which in particular do? What % of these jobs are sub-standard.
It's also tough to set a standard -- maybe they don't have to meet the same standards as U.S. labor, though I hestiate to even say that since it is used to rationalize reprehensible working conditions.
To these politicians, democracy naturally means no censorship, and things such as freedom of the press. It will probably come as a great surprise to them when many of these democracies they helped promote elect very theocratic controlling governments that do things such as censor and control the press.
A very important distinction: Western tradition supports not just democracy but constitutional democracy, where minority rights are protected and gov't power is limited. Democracy without the constitutional limits is just mob rule. Someone said, 'Democracy must be more than two wolves and a sheep voting on what's for dinner'.
Here's an in-depth, very thoughtful article about the difference between the two.
don't corporations have an obligation to obey the law in countries they operate in?
No, sometimes ethics is more important: Let's say a government demanded Google to turn over information on a political dissident, in order to torture and kill them. Should Google turn over the info? Would you?
As a Jew, I would like to be able to read Mein Kampf because I need to understand what hatred looks like before it comes knocking on my door. If I were in Germany or France it would be illegal, and Google would hide that information from me.
Why is nobody complaining about how Google is giving in to censors? Because the ability to do business in France hinges on obeying the laws of the country, which means that Google wouldn't be allowed in France at all if Google did block things that were illegal there.
These arguments are just rhetoric: We can call two things "censorship", therefore they are equal and so are all things related to them.
Everyone sees they are not even remotely equal. You may want to explore the differences, or point out that western democracies are not entirely free of censorship, but you can't confuse the two situations.
What's the difference between Google and Microsoft censorship in China and the sweatshops established by almost every major industrial company in the U.S.? It's okay to force starving children to work for 13 cents an hour, but taking down some democratic journalist's blog in China is not?
What the fuck? Can we start with the worst that US companies are doing first, please?
I'm not sure how this justifies Google's/Microsoft's/Yahoo's conduct.
it really seems like no one understands that China is a soveriegn country that has its own laws and rules. They may not completely mesh with those of the western world, but it's not our job to decide if they're right. They have the absolute right to demand that search engines alter their results in order to do business in the country.
What right does the Chinese gov't have? Who gave it to them? They are essentially thugs with guns, imposing their will on the Chinese people.
We have no right? We have no responsibility for our fellow humans? Should we have ignored the situations in the USSR, Nazi germany, South Africa, Rwanda, Serbia, and many other places and just left millions people to be oppressed, suffer and die?
The US thinking that we have the right to tell other countries what to do led to the Iraq war, and the Vietnam war, and the Korean war before that.
I agree that there should be limits, and unfortunately there is no perfectly legitimate international power to decide when and how to intervene (the UN Security Council may be the closest) but that is not a reason to do nothing.
BTW, the Korean war was fought under UN auspices, though mostly by US and S Korean troops. I don't think the South Koreans wish they had been left to their fate, to live like their relatives in the North.
I'll agree there's hypocricy in Congress, though I'm not sure MFN status is necessarily wrong, but hypocricy by one party does not justify anyone else's behavior. Otherwise, we could justify anything...
I'm amazed at the volume of posts here, defending the Chinese Communists, its oppression of its people, and the companies that support them.
How easily these posters toss aside other people's civil rights. As Martin Luther King wrote, serving jail time to protect the rights of Americans reading this,
... I must confess that over the last few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in the stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen's Council-er or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate who... prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says "I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I can't agree with your methods of direct action;" who paternalistically feels he can set the timetable for another man's freedom; who lives by the myth of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait until a "more convenient season." Shallow understanding from people of goodwill is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.
This relativism, that the Chinese Communists' "system" is an equally valid alternative to ours, is nonsense that's been repeated for decades to justify the oppression of others. Jefferson wrote, All men are created equal; he didn't specify Americans. Democracy is not the American system, it's only letting the people decide the system instead of leaving it to thugs with guns. Instead of Westerners arguing that it's valid on their 'free as in speech' Internet forum, why not let the people of China decide whether to keep it? Too bad they can't even read about the debate, much less meaningfully participate, much less do anything about it.
Saying that censoring commercial 'speech' (e.g. DMCA issues) in the U.S. justifies censoring political speech in China is false and painfully cynical. First, I don't remember Slashdotters supporting DMCA censorship. Second, does one wrong justify the other? And finally, I don't beleive posters don't see the difference between commercial and political speech -- Just think how cyncial this argument has become: This large community religiously supports 'free as in speech' software and freedom for programmers, but not actual free speech and self-determination, about real political issues, for real live human beings?
Finally, regarding the companies involved, with their power comes responsibility that goes beyond making money. An obvious example, companies can't make products and disregard consumer safety. Nobody supports large oil companies propping up dictators who blackmail them with market access, nor the companies that aided Saddam Hussein, Hitler, Pinochet, the Soviets, or the rest of them. If the privacy or civil rights of Slashdotters were on the line, I'm sure this would be easier to see -- in fact, Slashdotters daily assert those rights and argue forcefully for them.
Yes, it puts an unfair burden on those companies, which must sacrifice more than others, but those companies benefit (like I do) from the sacrifices that came before them, which provide their rights, security, and prosperity. What about the companies that lost money on wars? What about the millions who died, mostly aged 18-25, over 200 years?
There is no excuse for supporting the oppression of the Chinese people. I hope they become free some day, and remember who supported them and who made a few bucks.
Yahoo and MS countered by pointing out that event censored network access 'enabled far wider access to independent sources of information for hundreds of millions of individuals in China and elsewhere' than not entering China."
What nonsense, and I'm surprised nobody calls them on it:
People in China could access these things with or without Yahoo and MS (and Google). People in China could even develop their own search engines, blogs, and indexes -- in fact, some already have, believe it or not.
The only question is, whose portal they will use? Yahoo, MS and Google will lose marketshare if they don't jump in now, but the Chinese people won't lose access to the Web.
How cynical of these companies, and how gullible Slashdotters are, to repeat this blatently false argument.
That's what I read Slashdot for -- posts like yours. Thanks. I would only add a few observations:
However, these unnecessary tests, prescriptions and procedures themselves are the source of much morbidity and yes, mortality.
I never thought of it that way, but it's analogous to what someone doing IT system design learns (or should know): Every change or additional component adds complexity, potential errors, and operating costs, so KISS (keep it simple stupid) or, design systems that are 'as simple as possible, and no simpler'.
it is not enough to simply say, medical errors cause 195,000 deaths per year - who else to blame but the lazy doctors and nurses?... Believe me, doctors are as frustrated by the errors as the public.... Hospital administrations are often unwilling to be a pioneer in making systemic changes (such as a centralized medical information system) because doing so puts them at potentially GREATER risk for lawsuits
I think more evidence that it's a systemic problem is that, well, it happens throughout the system. It can't be coincidence that so many people and organizations around the country behave similarly; there must be some common cause.
But I would add that any well-established institution, from the military to our K-12 education system to the legal industry to the medical industry, is naturally, internally highly resistant to change. From an IT perspective, radical change in the medical industry (or any other) is like replacing a 100 year old legacy system with hundreds of millions of users: There are so many specs, components, cruft, politics, vested and entrenched interests, apathy to change, and sheer complexity that it's a desparate step. The current system consists of those things that successfully resisted earlier changes.
I used to oppose nationalized health care, but a few things changed my mind: First, it might have the force to accomplish the needed systemic change. Second, other countries' nationalized health care provides equal or better serivce than our system. And finally, I'm starting to think that providing health care based on ability to pay is no more acceptable than providing police and fire protection based on ability to pay.
Thanks again; I will take a look at the book you suggested. Have a great weekend!
The critics may decry this move, but would China be better off with no Google at all in your opinion?
Google is not the only search engine in the world. People in China could even create their own (and they have). The only questions is, who gets the market share.
I keep seeing the argument that Google is helping the Chinese people by giving them access to any information at all, even if it is censored.
This argument is nonsense: Google is not the only source for search engines in the world. If Google doesn't serve the Chinese market, someone else will. Even if Google, Yahoo, Altavista, Microsoft, and everyone else refuses to serve the Chinese market, believe it or not, but people in China could create a search engine. Or ipeople n some other country less hesitant about the unsavory aspects of the Chinese communists could do it.
Google's problem is that if they don't get into the market now, someone else will build the name recognition and get the market share of being their first (or early). It is, I suspect, purely an economic issue for Google.
What's the difference between companies like Yahoo, Cisco, Google and Microsoft which help the Chinese Communists oppress people, and the oil companies, industrial giants, and weapons manufacturers that have supported tyrants in exhange for access to their markets?
How many innocent people are in jail, or worse, because of their help? How much more free would the Chinese people be, and how much weaker would the Communist grip on power be, if it wasn't for the assistance of these tech companies? "Don't be evil"? -- How impressive and bold that they support free software, but not freedom (as in speech) for human beings.
It's easy for me to say; I don't have to take the risk. These companies certainly have a difficult dilemma and have other responsibilities to shareholders and employees. In their position, everyone wants to say, 'I just want to keep my head down and mind my own business'. Taking sides is a risky, costly, sometimes wasted (if Cisco doesn't provide firewalls, someone else will) and often unappreciated sacrifice.
But I think that with their power comes responsibility, and their freedom is due to the sacrifices of those who came before them. I would think Jerry Yang (Yahoo founder, born in Taiwan) and Sergey Brin (Google founder, born under Communist rule in the then USSR) would be especially sensitive to this issue.
[Yes, I copied and pasted that from an earlier post of mine.]
With all due respect to the parent poster, who only said this in passing and does not deserve to be cast in the role of representing the entire American medical industry, I can't let this pass...
The legal world has the medical world frozen in fear of the next litigation.
Boy am I sick of hearing this canard. Here's an easy way of preventing lawsuits: Don't screw up. That's what I have to do in my profession. Blaming the law for holding you accountable is common, but really makes no sense.
You can't spend time in a hospital and miss the disorganization, negligence and sheer ineptitude. In my family, nobody gets hospitalized without a bodyguard to make sure that they get the right medicine, at the right time, that the right hand knows not to do X because the left hand just performed procedure Y, and that the weakened patient isn't overwhelmed by lazy doctors and nurses who care mostly about dispatching their case efficiently.
Everyone I know has the same experience -- Yet the medical community, very aware of the level of errors, acts suprised when they are held responsible!
But enough anecdotal evidence:
This JAMA study found over 27,000 errors due to hospital (not other medical care) negligence in one year, in New York state alone.
This Institute of Medicine study found 44,000 to 98,000 deaths per year due to hospital errors alone. That makes it the 8th leading cause of death, ahead of car accidents, AIDS, and breast cancer.
The more comprehensive HealthGrades study puts the number of deaths due to hospital error at 195,000. And the study's authors think that underestimates it. (Also reported here.)
Just try a few Google searches and you'll easily find more information, like this study.
That's right, doctors' errors are at least the eighth leading cause of death in this country. And the problem is the lawyers?
The response of the medical industry is to continue their practices, blame lawyers, and lobby congress for protection from accountability. I remember when the IOM study came out, it was proposed that hospitals be legally required to report these errors -- think about that: There is no reporting mechanism for, and no regulation of, hospital errors!. The American Medical Assoc. (the doctors' lobby) resisted, saying the potential penalties would discourage doctors from complying. By that reasoning, I shouldn't have to report running that guy over the other day -- I might be held responsible!
It can be done better:
When anesthesiologists were facing high error rates and corresponding malpractice costs, they took a different approach: They systematically studied the problem and tried to reduce errors. As a result, deaths due to anesthesia dropped from 1 in 5,000 to 1 in 200,000-300,000. And insurance premiums dropped 37%. You can read about it here or pay for the full story here.
And most of the industrialized world countries manage to deliver better care for far less. According to a study reported here, Americans spend $5,267 per capita on health care every year, almost two and half times the industrialized world's median of $2,193;... Americans have fewer doctors per capita than most Western countries. We go to the doctor less than people in other Western countries. We get admitted to the hospital less frequently than people in other Western countries. We are less
Slashdot Mirror
When I said, Don't think it has anything to do with Congressional pork, I meant to imply: The pork isn't the issue; it has always been there, throughout the history of NASA, and always will be. What did change were NASA's budget priorities.
Blaming pork is just a way to distract us from the real issues.
As I recall, most Slashdotters supported this policy. Don't think it has anything to do with Congressional pork, which has always been there. It's simply NASA's new priorities:
. html) -- conveniently for Republican environmental policy -- and made manned spaceflight its top prioirty (http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/02/ 17/1415223).
When Bush announced manned spaceflight to the Moon and Mars, Slashdotters broadly supported it (perhaps someone can find the original post). But of course, there are not unlimited resources, so money must be diverted from something else, namely science.
NASA now has cut all environmental science from its mission (http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/22/science/22nasa
The mammoth deficit and the Republican's refusal to raise taxes ensure that funds are even more limited. NASA can't have it all, so which do you want? Science, or manned spaceflight?
The first couple weeks were hard -- my back and legs complained the whole time. Now I love it - I'm alert 100% of the time, where before I fought off drowsiness, and my back and legs are stronger. I worry about changing jobs to someplace I can't stand.
My legs are tired at the end of the day, but it's not significant. Also, my feet get a little sore sometimes, but shifting how I stand, or taking off my shoes (when I can get away with that) fixes it.
But I'm not really standing still at my desk; I shift around constantly. When I'm on the phone, I walk around. Not being settled in a chair, there's no real psychological barrier to moving around the office.
I've always had this idea of sitting down and cycling whilst working.
I tried working from a verticle excercise bike for awhile (i.e., the kind that looks more like a standard bicycle). The seat was too uncomfortable, no matter what I did, but your kind of bike would solve that. Also, it was just too hard to concentrate while pedaling. Either my mind or the pedaling would slow to crawl.
Software is a tool; it's only value is in helping you achieve something.
Know what you want to achieve, and then you can evaluate upgrades: Does it help you acheive your business (or personal or whatever) objectives? If so, is it worth the money and time?
Just because the vendor is selling something, it doesn't mean it's worth anything to you.
You can get the higher res displays. My HP nc8230 has 1920x1200 (WUXGA), and Dell sells some of those screens too. I love it -- especially the sharp ~150 pixels per inch.
I've always been surprised that Apple, with its large graphic design market, never has offered the higher-res notebook screens. It keeps me from buying one. I can't live without the screen real-estate.
It's going to run Vista
I'll admit that perhaps I'm a bit spoiled. I'm not an office worker and I've had some factory jobs in the past, the worst being a plastics plant that was hot, noisy, and the smell of melted and burning plastic gave you headaches all day. All that for $8CDN/hr. Since then I've moved onto better things. I'll also admit to not knowing how much US working conditions vary from Canadian ones, but I suspect that there won't be all that much of a difference.
What I was trying to say that even if a North American job someone's in is a terrible, bottom rung brainless robot labor, at least it sticks to a ~40hr workweek, compensated overtime, safety standards, and basic job-protection laws. These simply don't exist in China. Sure, not ALL employers are exploitative bastards, but I bet the nice guys are a minority.
I think that brings up an interesting point: In a democracy, workers can push for their rights at the ballot box or through unions; in China, they have no power to secure their rights and can be ignored. People complain about unions and labor regulations, but I think they take for granted their accomplishments, which you listed above.
Of course, it may be hard to find criticism of Chinese gov't labor practices on Microsoft's, Google's or Yahoo's Chinese sites.
I understand that there's oppression in China. My point is, buying consumer goods does not necessarily support it.
I haev no idea how much it supports oppression -- I probably should. But who does?
We'd essentially need to know how of each dollar spent gets back to China, ends up in gov't hands, and is used for oppressive purposes. And I'm sure it varies widely depending on what you buy and when you buy it.
I don't think a solution to not knowing is to boycott everything. That would impovrish many innocent people.
In constrast, we do know that Google's, Microsoft's and Yahoo's censorship is directly supporting oppression, and improving nobody's livelihood (ok, maybe their shareholders). I don't mind these companies opening labs in China, hiring people, and making software there -- that's great. But some activities cross the line, for me.
Even the shittiest, dirtiest, lowest paying factory shit job in the US doesn't come close to the ridiculous working hours, ugly conditions, and the pittance that passes for a wage in some Chinese shithole factory.
I'm not saying such jobs don't exist there. Things like that happen in the U.S., too, but I don't think we should loosely paint all Chinese consumer goods manufacturers as having these problems.
Which in particular do? What % of these jobs are sub-standard.
It's also tough to set a standard -- maybe they don't have to meet the same standards as U.S. labor, though I hestiate to even say that since it is used to rationalize reprehensible working conditions.
To these politicians, democracy naturally means no censorship, and things such as freedom of the press. It will probably come as a great surprise to them when many of these democracies they helped promote elect very theocratic controlling governments that do things such as censor and control the press.
A very important distinction: Western tradition supports not just democracy but constitutional democracy, where minority rights are protected and gov't power is limited. Democracy without the constitutional limits is just mob rule. Someone said, 'Democracy must be more than two wolves and a sheep voting on what's for dinner'.
Here's an in-depth, very thoughtful article about the difference between the two.
don't corporations have an obligation to obey the law in countries they operate in?
No, sometimes ethics is more important: Let's say a government demanded Google to turn over information on a political dissident, in order to torture and kill them. Should Google turn over the info? Would you?
As a Jew, I would like to be able to read Mein Kampf because I need to understand what hatred looks like before it comes knocking on my door. If I were in Germany or France it would be illegal, and Google would hide that information from me.
Why is nobody complaining about how Google is giving in to censors? Because the ability to do business in France hinges on obeying the laws of the country, which means that Google wouldn't be allowed in France at all if Google did block things that were illegal there.
These arguments are just rhetoric: We can call two things "censorship", therefore they are equal and so are all things related to them.
Everyone sees they are not even remotely equal. You may want to explore the differences, or point out that western democracies are not entirely free of censorship, but you can't confuse the two situations.
What's the difference between Google and Microsoft censorship in China and the sweatshops established by almost every major industrial company in the U.S.? It's okay to force starving children to work for 13 cents an hour, but taking down some democratic journalist's blog in China is not?
What the fuck? Can we start with the worst that US companies are doing first, please?
I'm not sure how this justifies Google's/Microsoft's/Yahoo's conduct.
But why should Google be singled out while 90% of my consumer goods come from China?
Why not? Because someone else is doing it? Is that a good reason.
What's wrong with consumer goods that come from China? I don't see how that necessarily imprisons, oppresses or hurts anyone.
it really seems like no one understands that China is a soveriegn country that has its own laws and rules. They may not completely mesh with those of the western world, but it's not our job to decide if they're right. They have the absolute right to demand that search engines alter their results in order to do business in the country.
What right does the Chinese gov't have? Who gave it to them? They are essentially thugs with guns, imposing their will on the Chinese people.
We have no right? We have no responsibility for our fellow humans? Should we have ignored the situations in the USSR, Nazi germany, South Africa, Rwanda, Serbia, and many other places and just left millions people to be oppressed, suffer and die?
The US thinking that we have the right to tell other countries what to do led to the Iraq war, and the Vietnam war, and the Korean war before that.
I agree that there should be limits, and unfortunately there is no perfectly legitimate international power to decide when and how to intervene (the UN Security Council may be the closest) but that is not a reason to do nothing.
BTW, the Korean war was fought under UN auspices, though mostly by US and S Korean troops. I don't think the South Koreans wish they had been left to their fate, to live like their relatives in the North.
I'll agree there's hypocricy in Congress, though I'm not sure MFN status is necessarily wrong, but hypocricy by one party does not justify anyone else's behavior. Otherwise, we could justify anything ...
How easily these posters toss aside other people's civil rights. As Martin Luther King wrote, serving jail time to protect the rights of Americans reading this,
This relativism, that the Chinese Communists' "system" is an equally valid alternative to ours, is nonsense that's been repeated for decades to justify the oppression of others. Jefferson wrote, All men are created equal; he didn't specify Americans. Democracy is not the American system, it's only letting the people decide the system instead of leaving it to thugs with guns. Instead of Westerners arguing that it's valid on their 'free as in speech' Internet forum, why not let the people of China decide whether to keep it? Too bad they can't even read about the debate, much less meaningfully participate, much less do anything about it.
Saying that censoring commercial 'speech' (e.g. DMCA issues) in the U.S. justifies censoring political speech in China is false and painfully cynical. First, I don't remember Slashdotters supporting DMCA censorship. Second, does one wrong justify the other? And finally, I don't beleive posters don't see the difference between commercial and political speech -- Just think how cyncial this argument has become: This large community religiously supports 'free as in speech' software and freedom for programmers, but not actual free speech and self-determination, about real political issues, for real live human beings?
Finally, regarding the companies involved, with their power comes responsibility that goes beyond making money. An obvious example, companies can't make products and disregard consumer safety. Nobody supports large oil companies propping up dictators who blackmail them with market access, nor the companies that aided Saddam Hussein, Hitler, Pinochet, the Soviets, or the rest of them. If the privacy or civil rights of Slashdotters were on the line, I'm sure this would be easier to see -- in fact, Slashdotters daily assert those rights and argue forcefully for them.
Yes, it puts an unfair burden on those companies, which must sacrifice more than others, but those companies benefit (like I do) from the sacrifices that came before them, which provide their rights, security, and prosperity. What about the companies that lost money on wars? What about the millions who died, mostly aged 18-25, over 200 years?
There is no excuse for supporting the oppression of the Chinese people. I hope they become free some day, and remember who supported them and who made a few bucks.
Yahoo and MS countered by pointing out that event censored network access 'enabled far wider access to independent sources of information for hundreds of millions of individuals in China and elsewhere' than not entering China."
What nonsense, and I'm surprised nobody calls them on it:
People in China could access these things with or without Yahoo and MS (and Google). People in China could even develop their own search engines, blogs, and indexes -- in fact, some already have, believe it or not.
The only question is, whose portal they will use? Yahoo, MS and Google will lose marketshare if they don't jump in now, but the Chinese people won't lose access to the Web.
How cynical of these companies, and how gullible Slashdotters are, to repeat this blatently false argument.
Reading my original post, I see it was a bit of a rant. Thanks for responding in a more cool-headed, practical fashion.
That's what I read Slashdot for -- posts like yours. Thanks. I would only add a few observations:
... Believe me, doctors are as frustrated by the errors as the public. ... Hospital administrations are often unwilling to be a pioneer in making systemic changes (such as a centralized medical information system) because doing so puts them at potentially GREATER risk for lawsuits
However, these unnecessary tests, prescriptions and procedures themselves are the source of much morbidity and yes, mortality.
I never thought of it that way, but it's analogous to what someone doing IT system design learns (or should know): Every change or additional component adds complexity, potential errors, and operating costs, so KISS (keep it simple stupid) or, design systems that are 'as simple as possible, and no simpler'.
it is not enough to simply say, medical errors cause 195,000 deaths per year - who else to blame but the lazy doctors and nurses?
I think more evidence that it's a systemic problem is that, well, it happens throughout the system. It can't be coincidence that so many people and organizations around the country behave similarly; there must be some common cause.
But I would add that any well-established institution, from the military to our K-12 education system to the legal industry to the medical industry, is naturally, internally highly resistant to change. From an IT perspective, radical change in the medical industry (or any other) is like replacing a 100 year old legacy system with hundreds of millions of users: There are so many specs, components, cruft, politics, vested and entrenched interests, apathy to change, and sheer complexity that it's a desparate step. The current system consists of those things that successfully resisted earlier changes.
I used to oppose nationalized health care, but a few things changed my mind: First, it might have the force to accomplish the needed systemic change. Second, other countries' nationalized health care provides equal or better serivce than our system. And finally, I'm starting to think that providing health care based on ability to pay is no more acceptable than providing police and fire protection based on ability to pay.
Thanks again; I will take a look at the book you suggested. Have a great weekend!
The critics may decry this move, but would China be better off with no Google at all in your opinion?
Google is not the only search engine in the world. People in China could even create their own (and they have). The only questions is, who gets the market share.
I keep seeing the argument that Google is helping the Chinese people by giving them access to any information at all, even if it is censored.
This argument is nonsense: Google is not the only source for search engines in the world. If Google doesn't serve the Chinese market, someone else will. Even if Google, Yahoo, Altavista, Microsoft, and everyone else refuses to serve the Chinese market, believe it or not, but people in China could create a search engine. Or ipeople n some other country less hesitant about the unsavory aspects of the Chinese communists could do it.
Google's problem is that if they don't get into the market now, someone else will build the name recognition and get the market share of being their first (or early). It is, I suspect, purely an economic issue for Google.
What's the difference between companies like Yahoo, Cisco, Google and Microsoft which help the Chinese Communists oppress people, and the oil companies, industrial giants, and weapons manufacturers that have supported tyrants in exhange for access to their markets?
How many innocent people are in jail, or worse, because of their help? How much more free would the Chinese people be, and how much weaker would the Communist grip on power be, if it wasn't for the assistance of these tech companies? "Don't be evil"? -- How impressive and bold that they support free software, but not freedom (as in speech) for human beings.
It's easy for me to say; I don't have to take the risk. These companies certainly have a difficult dilemma and have other responsibilities to shareholders and employees. In their position, everyone wants to say, 'I just want to keep my head down and mind my own business'. Taking sides is a risky, costly, sometimes wasted (if Cisco doesn't provide firewalls, someone else will) and often unappreciated sacrifice.
But I think that with their power comes responsibility, and their freedom is due to the sacrifices of those who came before them. I would think Jerry Yang (Yahoo founder, born in Taiwan) and Sergey Brin (Google founder, born under Communist rule in the then USSR) would be especially sensitive to this issue.
[Yes, I copied and pasted that from an earlier post of mine.]
The legal world has the medical world frozen in fear of the next litigation.
Boy am I sick of hearing this canard. Here's an easy way of preventing lawsuits: Don't screw up. That's what I have to do in my profession. Blaming the law for holding you accountable is common, but really makes no sense.
You can't spend time in a hospital and miss the disorganization, negligence and sheer ineptitude. In my family, nobody gets hospitalized without a bodyguard to make sure that they get the right medicine, at the right time, that the right hand knows not to do X because the left hand just performed procedure Y, and that the weakened patient isn't overwhelmed by lazy doctors and nurses who care mostly about dispatching their case efficiently.
Everyone I know has the same experience -- Yet the medical community, very aware of the level of errors, acts suprised when they are held responsible!
But enough anecdotal evidence:
That's right, doctors' errors are at least the eighth leading cause of death in this country. And the problem is the lawyers?
... Americans have fewer doctors per capita than most Western countries. We go to the doctor less than people in other Western countries. We get admitted to the hospital less frequently than people in other Western countries. We are less
The response of the medical industry is to continue their practices, blame lawyers, and lobby congress for protection from accountability. I remember when the IOM study came out, it was proposed that hospitals be legally required to report these errors -- think about that: There is no reporting mechanism for, and no regulation of, hospital errors!. The American Medical Assoc. (the doctors' lobby) resisted, saying the potential penalties would discourage doctors from complying. By that reasoning, I shouldn't have to report running that guy over the other day -- I might be held responsible!
It can be done better:
When anesthesiologists were facing high error rates and corresponding malpractice costs, they took a different approach: They systematically studied the problem and tried to reduce errors. As a result, deaths due to anesthesia dropped from 1 in 5,000 to 1 in 200,000-300,000. And insurance premiums dropped 37%. You can read about it here or pay for the full story here.
And most of the industrialized world countries manage to deliver better care for far less. According to a study reported here, Americans spend $5,267 per capita on health care every year, almost two and half times the industrialized world's median of $2,193;
OK by me, as long as the owners don't whine.
I'm not sure your ideal, which I share, is really normal behavior in our culture.