Reason: Exchangable batteries;) No apple product will ever come anywhere close, because they are intentionally cripled.
This is like saying that an apple is inferior to an orange because... it's not an orange.
Personally, I like the iPad design: relatively small and thin, lightweight, and healthy runtime on the _included_ battery. The ThinkPad you mention is precisely none of these things.
I wish folks would stop making false comparisons and embrace the fact that "horses for courses" is a perfectly acceptable mode of decision making when it comes to technology.
I'm having a hard time believing this "Macs aren't built better" statement.
1) 40% of my friends who code (C, HTML, etc.) use Mac laptops. They are all power users, use CLI extensively for coding, and navigate Linux, MacOS, and Windows with ease. They will all also say that they chose Mac strictly for reasons of overall hardware quality, and use MacOS because it just works: very few driver issues, comes out of sleep quite reliably (a big sticking point with Windows), etc. There are times they simply don't want to meddle with their machine.
2) My friend who works for Intel indicated that the build quality of Mac laptops, overall, rivals that of corporate-class offerings--and is frequently cheaper. The Dell Latitude line is both durable (I use one) and pricey.
3) I've yet to see my family or friends get their consumer-grade PCs (Dell Inspiron, etc.) to last much beyond two years. This is frequently due to one of two things: a) Windows has become so bloated that the performance is abysmal. And they don't have the means or ability to resolve this on their own. b) The hardware is falling to pieces. Most of these folks simply buy a new PC: they feel that spending money on a couple of hours of PC tech bench time isn't worth it when they can buy another laptop for $599.
Compare this to family and friends of similar (lacking) tech-savvy and their Macs: the OS does a good job updating itself with few problems, and the hardware holds up quite nicely.
My experience is hardly scientific, but anecdotally, I'm finding that others have similar experiences.
Who makes ExpressCards, anyway? What can you get in them? I remember talk of things like high-end video cards, capture cards, etc. but has any of it materialized/are they any good? And are you going to actually want one in a laptop?
I'm sure there are some perfectly valid niche uses, but I've always felt that PCMCIA and ExpressCard slots were concerning due to the robustness of the connector (number of insertions) and stress on the surrounding components and the card itself because you've got this big lever sticking out...
Re:CmdrTaco drags big brass ones along the ground
on
iPad Review
·
· Score: 1
Right. You're a zero-day adopter, i.e. a fanboy. You are not the mainstream. And the fact that you believe that every zero-day adopter is a fanboy makes you a troll.
The world revolves around neither your tastes or mine.
I wasn't, but yes, running a convenience store is better qualification in my view than being the president of the Harvard Law Review. You're actually running a business, taking serious risks, and dealing with the logistics of running a business. The latter is a student organization with secure funding, established infrastructure, and no significant risk (aside from the possibility that work might detract from your other scholarly activities).
Ironic that you say "convenience store," something that a member of my family happens to run. For one thing "running a business" looks very different at a convenience store vs. a large corporation. Arguably, both can make a profit and be "successful," but very few would consider the mechanics of business experience to be all that similar.
Government is not a business (it's present to serve the public, not make a profit), isn't into taking serious risks (would you like it if we changed the rules daily on your drive to work?), and dealing with business logistics (believe you me, moving cases of beer and maintaining inventory isn't hard--you should see the staff that do it).
Medicare has lower administrative costs than private insurers when you compare percentages. However, Medicare spends an awful lot per each insured. When you compare the amount of money spent per insured person, Medicare doesn't look so great. If you really want to compare, you'd have to break down administrative costs into buckets based on whether the costs scale with the number of insured and then compare those.
Of note: when assessments of per-person costs are performed, it's critical to ensure that similar demographic groups are being comapred.
I'm not completley sure, but I would bet that the majority of people on Medicare or Medicaid fall into two classes: 1) Geriatric 2) Low socioeconomic status/disabled
These two groups are known for having the highest healthcare resource utilization rates amongst many demographics. Compare this to a 25 y/o IT professional that works out and is well-versed in nutrition.
Rules that are are logically inconsistent, randomly applied and so voluminous that changing one thing requires ten committees, 4 years and numerous sacrifices of goats, virgins and cases of Diet Coke.
This is no different than private sector, with their "clinical edits" and other tactics to hope that someone simply doesn't resubmit the claim.
That said, it's only fair to mention that to try to reduce the claims process to a flowchart would be folly: this would assume that there's one right treatment path for a specific pathology. Human judgement will still need to be involved--and at the very least, CMMS isn't motivated by shareholders to generate profit at the expense of reasonable patient care.
The private sector when working for the government can be every bit as bad if not worse than the government doing it in house.
I'm completely in agreement with you here (*cough* KBR *cough*). However, my point was specifically toward comparing and contrasting the performance of CMMS vs. private insurance (i.e., Blue Cross, United Healthcare, etc.).
We're talking about the US Federal Government here. In particular, the CMMS (Center for Medicare and Medicaid Security). You get all three.
"Ggovernment is bad" sock puppet, we're talking about private-sector insurance here. CMMS has a fraction of the administrative costs of the private sector. I've worked at private insurance companies: the business processes and technology is frequently appalling.
Stop chanting the "privatization is good" mantra--some of those who grew up in the Reagan era (such as myself) and were diehard conservatives (such as myself) understand that sometimes, private industry is NOT the answer.
Good Samaritan laws are meant to protect first responders, but against a good lawyer you can still lose.
Do you have a specific cases where a first responder (be it a formally trained one or otherwise) who acted in a reasonable and prudent manner in keeping with: 1) their medical training or 2) reason/prudence expected of a layperson
was
1) actually sued and 2) judgement subsequently rendered?
In an EMT recertification class I took a while back, we were told that judges had thrown out ALL cases covered as I've described above--and even then, with some latitude for error on the part of the Good Samaritan.
Lacking the ability to speak with precision is the hallmark of a fearmongerer. Go peddle your demagogery elsewhere--and I'm sorry I interrupted your Fox News viewing.
I tire of this sort of statement. One could just as easily retort that Hungarian youth had it easier than paleolithic youth: a house really beats a cave with no door. And geez, you haven't lived life until you have to run after an antelope and kill it with one strike of your fist! Miss, and it's back to food from swidden farming for you!
The crux of the matter is how well we, as a society, provide perspectives to our youth about the nature of happiness. Both ancient thinking (Buddhism, for example) and modern behavioral sciences give a lot of merit to the notion of happiness being a learned trait. How well are we, as individuals, local communities and a nation, teaching our kids about the value of compassion, the purposelessness of materialism, and the importance of sympathy for others?
The last article on aviransplace.com (Windows GodMode features) was copied from CNet. Slashdot could have found a less ad-laden website to send traffic to this time around. Editors: PLEASE stop sending your readers to adfarms. Either that, or clearly tag each article with "ohnoitsaviran" or "ohnoitssonofroland"
savings in energy consumption between 38%-71% compared to prior energy-agnostic solutions This strikes me as hubris (at least a little). While TFA talks about throttling down power usage, we're talking about doing this with multiple components being replicated (CPUs, maybe WiFi receivers, connectivity between phones, etc.).
Even excluding the consideration about whether it was just or not, I have a hard time justifying a year-long prison sentence for this. The punishment seems to outweigh the possible harm caused to Scientology.
A year or so ago, the FBI was asked by CNN if Scientology's claims of bomb threats and terrorist acts by "Anonymous" were credible. The FBI indicated that there was no evidence to this effect.
By the way, the summary for this article is horribly biased: Scientology has had a long history of making unfounded claims of hate crimes and "terrorist attacks." Ostensibly, this is to deflect suspicion from rather credible publicly-investigated claims that they've got quite the sordid history...
Do you also take the same approach when watching a live play? Do you sneak into the theater the first time and only if it's enjoyable enough do you come back and pay to sit through it a second time?
A few things to consider: 1) A substantial number of plays performed now are based off of scripts that are easily obtainable at the bookstore, library, etc. You have an idea of what the content is.
2) The net income from live performance (unless you're some operationally well polished outfit like Les Miserables) are laughable compared to what Vivendi, et al. have been making off of albums. The record companies have been justifying large fines and a need to act--but, IMHO, have yet to demonstrate that material harm has actually been caused as a result of piracy.
The Greatful Dead, for example, has actually encouraged taping at their shows and sharing. They've been financially quite successful.
Are there any long term studies that show what affects there are on humans from repeated, yearly flu vaccinations? Just claiming it is "common sense" --without any data or facts to support your claim-- doesn't make it so.
As someone who has also worked in the back of an ambulance, I feel the need to state some opinions:
First off, to your point of "prove it", I'd argue for the common sense side: as healthcare professionals, we have to make judgements about things that aren't exactly proven in a black-and-white manner. For example, do you perform BLS (CPR, AED, FBAO) on patients EXACTLY as your AHA (or equivalent) Healthcare Professional class says it should be done? And, if you didn't, how much sleep do you lose at night by not _exactly_ doing it?
This is not an epidemic or pandemic.
How well versed are you in the areas of epidemiology and public health? I don't know you and I'm not saying you're wrong, but as someone who's worked with these folks, these aren't trivial things to discuss.
but you don't have the right to request that I be forced to inject something into my body that I am uncomfortable with.
You're also not forced to be an EMT. If this already isn't a national standard, I suspect your state may be similar to mine (Oregon) in that things like Hepatitis B vaccinations are REQUIRED prior to being certified. You may not be comfortable with the immunization, but there's more to public health than your comfort.
Also, when it comes to mercury (from thimerosal) in vaccines, I recall that it's slightly less than what you'd get from eating a tuna fish sandwich. Just putting that out there.
N.B. Oregon marketed the first commercially-produced AED in the world. Go Oregon!
I realize you may have been staying this to make a point, but "no one" is a bit of an exaggeration.
That said, it's pretty telling when things like pot are way down on the list of what causes impaired driving. Of course, the top five includes things like lack of sleep, prescription drugs and (shocker) alcohol.
I don't even recall pot making it into the top 10.
I had the pleasure of taking Human Anatomy and Physiology a few years ago. The professor was superb, but our school didn't have the resources to afford a cadaver lab.
Pictures and plastic models are OK, but there are times when being able to visualize something like this would greatly help the learning experience.
Slashdot Mirror
Reason: Exchangable batteries ;) No apple product will ever come anywhere close, because they are intentionally cripled.
This is like saying that an apple is inferior to an orange because... it's not an orange.
Personally, I like the iPad design: relatively small and thin, lightweight, and healthy runtime on the _included_ battery. The ThinkPad you mention is precisely none of these things.
I wish folks would stop making false comparisons and embrace the fact that "horses for courses" is a perfectly acceptable mode of decision making when it comes to technology.
I'm having a hard time believing this "Macs aren't built better" statement.
1) 40% of my friends who code (C, HTML, etc.) use Mac laptops. They are all power users, use CLI extensively for coding, and navigate Linux, MacOS, and Windows with ease. They will all also say that they chose Mac strictly for reasons of overall hardware quality, and use MacOS because it just works: very few driver issues, comes out of sleep quite reliably (a big sticking point with Windows), etc. There are times they simply don't want to meddle with their machine.
2) My friend who works for Intel indicated that the build quality of Mac laptops, overall, rivals that of corporate-class offerings--and is frequently cheaper. The Dell Latitude line is both durable (I use one) and pricey.
3) I've yet to see my family or friends get their consumer-grade PCs (Dell Inspiron, etc.) to last much beyond two years. This is frequently due to one of two things:
a) Windows has become so bloated that the performance is abysmal. And they don't have the means or ability to resolve this on their own.
b) The hardware is falling to pieces.
Most of these folks simply buy a new PC: they feel that spending money on a couple of hours of PC tech bench time isn't worth it when they can buy another laptop for $599.
Compare this to family and friends of similar (lacking) tech-savvy and their Macs: the OS does a good job updating itself with few problems, and the hardware holds up quite nicely.
My experience is hardly scientific, but anecdotally, I'm finding that others have similar experiences.
Who makes ExpressCards, anyway? What can you get in them? I remember talk of things like high-end video cards, capture cards, etc. but has any of it materialized/are they any good? And are you going to actually want one in a laptop?
I'm sure there are some perfectly valid niche uses, but I've always felt that PCMCIA and ExpressCard slots were concerning due to the robustness of the connector (number of insertions) and stress on the surrounding components and the card itself because you've got this big lever sticking out...
Right. You're a zero-day adopter, i.e. a fanboy. You are not the mainstream.
And the fact that you believe that every zero-day adopter is a fanboy makes you a troll.
The world revolves around neither your tastes or mine.
Sup /b/?
"Many people"? Where is the evidence for this?
Also, the link you provided is owned by an organization that provides "biblically-based" financial planning services.
http://www.daveramsey.com/company/about-dave/
I wasn't, but yes, running a convenience store is better qualification in my view than being the president of the Harvard Law Review. You're actually running a business, taking serious risks, and dealing with the logistics of running a business. The latter is a student organization with secure funding, established infrastructure, and no significant risk (aside from the possibility that work might detract from your other scholarly activities).
Ironic that you say "convenience store," something that a member of my family happens to run. For one thing "running a business" looks very different at a convenience store vs. a large corporation. Arguably, both can make a profit and be "successful," but very few would consider the mechanics of business experience to be all that similar.
Government is not a business (it's present to serve the public, not make a profit), isn't into taking serious risks (would you like it if we changed the rules daily on your drive to work?), and dealing with business logistics (believe you me, moving cases of beer and maintaining inventory isn't hard--you should see the staff that do it).
Medicare has lower administrative costs than private insurers when you compare percentages.
However, Medicare spends an awful lot per each insured. When you compare the amount of money spent per insured person,
Medicare doesn't look so great. If you really want to compare, you'd have to break down administrative costs into
buckets based on whether the costs scale with the number of insured and then compare those.
Of note: when assessments of per-person costs are performed, it's critical to ensure that similar demographic groups are being comapred.
I'm not completley sure, but I would bet that the majority of people on Medicare or Medicaid fall into two classes:
1) Geriatric
2) Low socioeconomic status/disabled
These two groups are known for having the highest healthcare resource utilization rates amongst many demographics. Compare this to a 25 y/o IT professional that works out and is well-versed in nutrition.
Then again, maybe a bad comparison :-)
Rules that are are logically inconsistent, randomly applied and so voluminous that changing one thing requires ten committees, 4 years and numerous sacrifices of goats, virgins and cases of Diet Coke.
This is no different than private sector, with their "clinical edits" and other tactics to hope that someone simply doesn't resubmit the claim.
That said, it's only fair to mention that to try to reduce the claims process to a flowchart would be folly: this would assume that there's one right treatment path for a specific pathology. Human judgement will still need to be involved--and at the very least, CMMS isn't motivated by shareholders to generate profit at the expense of reasonable patient care.
The private sector when working for the government can be every bit as bad if not worse than the government doing it in house.
I'm completely in agreement with you here (*cough* KBR *cough*). However, my point was specifically toward comparing and contrasting the performance of CMMS vs. private insurance (i.e., Blue Cross, United Healthcare, etc.).
We're talking about the US Federal Government here. In particular, the CMMS (Center for Medicare and Medicaid Security). You get all three.
"Ggovernment is bad" sock puppet, we're talking about private-sector insurance here. CMMS has a fraction of the administrative costs of the private sector. I've worked at private insurance companies: the business processes and technology is frequently appalling.
Stop chanting the "privatization is good" mantra--some of those who grew up in the Reagan era (such as myself) and were diehard conservatives (such as myself) understand that sometimes, private industry is NOT the answer.
What you don't realize is that the proper place for a corporation that won't serve its customer is the dustbin of history.
^^^THIS
Good Samaritan laws are meant to protect first responders, but against a good lawyer you can still lose.
Do you have a specific cases where a first responder (be it a formally trained one or otherwise) who acted in a reasonable and prudent manner in keeping with:
1) their medical training or
2) reason/prudence expected of a layperson
was
1) actually sued and
2) judgement subsequently rendered?
In an EMT recertification class I took a while back, we were told that judges had thrown out ALL cases covered as I've described above--and even then, with some latitude for error on the part of the Good Samaritan.
Lacking the ability to speak with precision is the hallmark of a fearmongerer. Go peddle your demagogery elsewhere--and I'm sorry I interrupted your Fox News viewing.
Right. Unions are killing companies like Toyota, Honda, Subaru, Mercedes-Benz, BMW, Hyundai, and Ford.
Polarized, black & white thinking is rarely profitable.
American youth today have it very easy.
I tire of this sort of statement. One could just as easily retort that Hungarian youth had it easier than paleolithic youth: a house really beats a cave with no door. And geez, you haven't lived life until you have to run after an antelope and kill it with one strike of your fist! Miss, and it's back to food from swidden farming for you!
The crux of the matter is how well we, as a society, provide perspectives to our youth about the nature of happiness. Both ancient thinking (Buddhism, for example) and modern behavioral sciences give a lot of merit to the notion of happiness being a learned trait. How well are we, as individuals, local communities and a nation, teaching our kids about the value of compassion, the purposelessness of materialism, and the importance of sympathy for others?
The last article on aviransplace.com (Windows GodMode features) was copied from CNet. Slashdot could have found a less ad-laden website to send traffic to this time around.
Editors: PLEASE stop sending your readers to adfarms. Either that, or clearly tag each article with "ohnoitsaviran" or "ohnoitssonofroland"
Absolutely - and boy, do I miss Think Secret!
Interesting article, but most of it was "duh, ya think?"
savings in energy consumption between 38%-71% compared to prior energy-agnostic solutions
This strikes me as hubris (at least a little). While TFA talks about throttling down power usage, we're talking about doing this with multiple components being replicated (CPUs, maybe WiFi receivers, connectivity between phones, etc.).
Even excluding the consideration about whether it was just or not, I have a hard time justifying a year-long prison sentence for this. The punishment seems to outweigh the possible harm caused to Scientology.
A year or so ago, the FBI was asked by CNN if Scientology's claims of bomb threats and terrorist acts by "Anonymous" were credible. The FBI indicated that there was no evidence to this effect.
By the way, the summary for this article is horribly biased: Scientology has had a long history of making unfounded claims of hate crimes and "terrorist attacks." Ostensibly, this is to deflect suspicion from rather credible publicly-investigated claims that they've got quite the sordid history...
http://helpexposescientology.com/
Apparently, the robots.txt file is a tool of the New World Order.
Do you also take the same approach when watching a live play? Do you sneak into the theater the first time and only if it's enjoyable enough do you come back and pay to sit through it a second time?
A few things to consider:
1) A substantial number of plays performed now are based off of scripts that are easily obtainable at the bookstore, library, etc. You have an idea of what the content is.
2) The net income from live performance (unless you're some operationally well polished outfit like Les Miserables) are laughable compared to what Vivendi, et al. have been making off of albums. The record companies have been justifying large fines and a need to act--but, IMHO, have yet to demonstrate that material harm has actually been caused as a result of piracy.
The Greatful Dead, for example, has actually encouraged taping at their shows and sharing. They've been financially quite successful.
Are there any long term studies that show what affects there are on humans from repeated, yearly flu vaccinations? Just claiming it is "common sense" --without any data or facts to support your claim-- doesn't make it so.
As someone who has also worked in the back of an ambulance, I feel the need to state some opinions:
First off, to your point of "prove it", I'd argue for the common sense side: as healthcare professionals, we have to make judgements about things that aren't exactly proven in a black-and-white manner. For example, do you perform BLS (CPR, AED, FBAO) on patients EXACTLY as your AHA (or equivalent) Healthcare Professional class says it should be done? And, if you didn't, how much sleep do you lose at night by not _exactly_ doing it?
This is not an epidemic or pandemic.
How well versed are you in the areas of epidemiology and public health? I don't know you and I'm not saying you're wrong, but as someone who's worked with these folks, these aren't trivial things to discuss.
but you don't have the right to request that I be forced to inject something into my body that I am uncomfortable with.
You're also not forced to be an EMT. If this already isn't a national standard, I suspect your state may be similar to mine (Oregon) in that things like Hepatitis B vaccinations are REQUIRED prior to being certified. You may not be comfortable with the immunization, but there's more to public health than your comfort.
Also, when it comes to mercury (from thimerosal) in vaccines, I recall that it's slightly less than what you'd get from eating a tuna fish sandwich. Just putting that out there.
N.B. Oregon marketed the first commercially-produced AED in the world. Go Oregon!
I realize you may have been staying this to make a point, but "no one" is a bit of an exaggeration.
That said, it's pretty telling when things like pot are way down on the list of what causes impaired driving. Of course, the top five includes things like lack of sleep, prescription drugs and (shocker) alcohol.
I don't even recall pot making it into the top 10.
I had the pleasure of taking Human Anatomy and Physiology a few years ago. The professor was superb, but our school didn't have the resources to afford a cadaver lab.
Pictures and plastic models are OK, but there are times when being able to visualize something like this would greatly help the learning experience.