You see, in the old days, we had this thing called journalism, where the news was more than just press releases, and often included speculation.
I've never seen a journalist question the premise of his own article. Journalists don't write stories that tell us the Widget X will do Function Y and then end their articles asking if we think that it's possible that X will do Y...
OK, if the story title was a question then what follows would be forgiveable, but the title states something as a fact but then goes on to question that fact. That's just silly.
Please explain in which ways Britain isn't a "full democracy"?
How ironic that such a patently ridiculous statement should come from someone with the username of "Myopic".
Britain is a constitutional monarchy in name only: the monarch's is effectively powerless and his/her constitutional role consists primarily of rubber stamping whatever the democratically elected Parliament has decided upon.
(The benefit of such a system (because it does have one) is that we have a nominal head of state that doesn't change with the wind and who's politically neutral.)
As for a constitution, well, we have effectively do have one, but it's not explicitly defined. Instead we have rights, etc set out by the Human Rights Act and other legislation.
Have you heard of Magna Carta? Where do you think that comes from? Habeas corpus? Where do you think that those concept originated?
Unlike some places I could mention, it's not like the government can detain me indefinitely, do whatever it wants with me, etc... Oh, wait, that could never happen in the US, right?
Not a full democracy? Have a revolution and then we'll talk?. Incredible. You're talking out of your backside, mate. Get an education and then we'll talk.
It seems that the iPhone should be available in the UK in time for Christmas. O2 have refused to confirm or deny these reports, so is it yet another unconfirmed iPhone rumor or is it fact?
Well, how about you RTFA that you yourself linked to, buddy?
1. "Press reports said that O2 is set to sign an exclusive contract shortly and should have the new phones on sale in time for Christmas."
2. "However a spokesman for O2's owner, Spain's Telefonica, said that a deal had not been signed."
Translation: a deal is close, almost on the verge of being done but not yet completed. So, yes, for now, it's an unconfirmed rumour. When all parties have signed on the dotted line, then it will be fact.
Really, how can a story that questions itself make it as a frontpage article?
Hmmm, what's a suitable analogy here to illustrate the difference between something that you might casually sing along to a bit when you hear it on the radio/MTV and something that you'll want to be able to enjoy in context whenever you wish? Let's try this...
Singles are like trailers for a film. Albums are the film. There's more genius in a Martin Scorsese production than the 30 seconds you'll see during an ad break. Similarly, there's more genius to the average artist's music than is contained in the radio-friendly, appeal-to-everybody-possible tracks that the record company people decide to release as singles.
Personally, I'd favour a means of online pricing that encouraged people to listen to albums rather than just buy the odd single. I doubt it would appeal to many (or even be possible now that people are used to the current online pricing models), but $4 for a single track, $8 for the album would be fine with me.
I hate the idea that instead of a proper record collection, and a real appreciation for music and song as artforms, kids will grow up to have nothing but songs that just the catchy-yet-shallow songs that the radio/MTV happened to be blurting out for the decade or two that they spent growing up.
Ah, Britain is wall-to-wall CCTV. Britain is Stasi Germany. No generalisations there at all, are there? Seriously, no offence to you (you seem like a nice guy and I'm sure that they're plenty of things about privacy that we completely agree on) but you don't know what you're talking about.
I hate to call you ignorant, because that seems rude, but the very fact that you think that England and Britain are interchangeable terms says quite enough: perhaps uninformed would be a more polite way of putting it. Same goes for the person I originally replied to: a Lib Dem government to replace New Labour would be a refreshing change but it's about as likely to happen as Ann Coulter converting to Islam.
No doubt, we could be going back and forth for hours debating the contents of our posts and the post that I originally replied to but, please take my word for it, Britain isn't the Orwellian dystopia that the few sensationalist stories that you've read make it out to be.
I totally agree that people should think twice about commentating on things that they know little about. It's why, amongst other things, I watch some US news, read the online editions of the Washington Post, the New York Times and other US newspapers and keep thoroughly abreast of facts that, even though they're happening thousands of miles away, too often have an affect on my life and the lives of those around me.
I can tell you who Mitt Romney is, how he made his money, what he's done in politics, his Olympic role, about him being a "life-long" two-time hunter, etc without having to look it up online. Why? Because I've bothered to find out. Do you think that most Americans can say the same? Quid pro quo, could you tell me who Harriet Harman is and what she's done? Or Hilary Benn? Quick, can you name our Prime Minister?
If this post sounds condescending or patronising then I apologise for that. But most Americans truly don't know what's going on with their own government let alone what's going on with other ones around the world. How else can you explain the fact that most people who voted for Bush in 2004 truly believed that Saddam Hussein was the architect of the September 11th attacks? The most significant event in US history for over 50 years and people don't know who did what? How is that possible?
There's no such thing as a perfect society in this world, and every country has its share of ridiculous laws (and fools), but it's not asking much for people to have a clue before making dismissive remarks that are so far off-base that they're patently ridiculous.
You don't "follow British politics closely enough" but you know enough to make a sweeping statement like "The UK is quite quickly becoming the creepiest democratic country in the world"?
Why? Because of a small part of one bill that has yet to even be debated in Parliament yet alone be voted on? Did you even RTFA and notice that before jerking your knee? You live in the US, where indefinite detention without trial is how you do things and yet you're lecturing the rest of the world on democracy?
As for the stupid assertion that this is based not upon "security concerns" but "out of boredom", well, if you RTFA then you would see that this change in the law is proposed on the back of a rather violent murder case where the murderer admitted to being addicted to violent rape websites, etc.
Sounds whimsical to you, does it? Really? If it was someone related to a Virgina Tech campus massacre victim campaigning for gun control would you accuse them of raising the issue "out of boredom"?
Personally, I couldn't be more opposed to this proposed legislation. As others have pointed out, it's an overreaction to a tragic but rare occurance. Emotive laws aren't often good ones - there's a reason why we don't let victims don't get to pick the sentences of those that have done them wrong.
As much as I can sympathise with the victim's family and friends, I find it hard to support their need for some sort of "Jane's Law" as part of their grieving process. Families of drink driving victims don't get alcohol bans being proposed on their behalf and I fail to see how this is any different.
Debate it? Yes. Look at measures that would be practical but not restrictive?. Yes. Legislate against something because of a single, deranged individual? No. Move on, and move on in a different, more positive manner.
But, hey, thanks for writing off our parliamentary democracy just for, you know, actually being prepared to talk about stuff. Instead of just brushing it under the carpet and then getting back to the important stuff like Paris Hilton's jail term and Britney's divorce case.
Are you living in a cave? £1 million is $2 million, not $1.5 million.
It's been several years since the exchange rate was £1 = $1.50. You can thank George W. Bush and the rest of the clowns for allowing the dollar to lose a third of its value on their watch.
It's not just about the software. It's the hardware, too.
I'm sure that most of the archive data created today is stored on something like DVDs but, as recently as the early 1990s, the official long-term storage medium for the UK government was Syquest 44MB removable cartridge hard drives.
I know that I have a working 44MB drive (well, when I last fired it up, which would have been sometime last decade) somewhere in my attic but I doubt that too many of these drives are still in existance.
I only hope that the data that was once stored on thousands of these was successfully transferred to a more readily accessible storage format and that that new format is just as durable - media these days just seems to disintegrate after a few years.
If Medicare isn't a realistic solution for everybody because the price it pays for services are so unrealistic then please explain to me how the Canadian system is so effective (ranked by the World Health Organisation in the top 10 worldwide, whilst the US is only ranked 37th)?
Canada has a state system and the per capita spend on healthcare in Canada is half the US figure (yes, we're comparing apples and apples: all spending, public and private, in both cases), yet Canadians have significantly higher life expectancies, lower infant mortalities, etc.
Oh, by the way, money gets invested into the system in state healthcare, too. My point about profits was that, in most private schemes, some of the money that you're paying out goes to a shareholder. And, of course, there have to be beancounters who deal with that, including some that are employed just to nitpick over the small print to see how they can avoid paying for the treatment that you desperately need.
In a state system there's nobody trying to drive you into bankruptcy (you knew that medical bills were the number one cause of bankruptcies in the US, right?) because you forgot to cross the Ts and dot the Is.
Simple question: If the US model is so great then why does almost every other country in the developed world have a state system and better health overall?
Are you suggesting that having a single payer (the government) is a good way to remove inefficent bureaucracy? The larger the entity the larger and more inefficient the bureaucracy, and there is no larger entity than the US government. Some of your arguments above are quite valid, but this one actually works against you.
In the case of medicine, you're totally wrong. Medicare, the US state system, has admin and other overhead costs that come to 1 percent. In the case of private health insurance that figure is dwarfed: admin and other overheads (including profits, of course) can be as much as 30 percent.
Imagine a $10,000 operation. On Medicare, the cost (to the system that foots the bill) of the admin, etc would come to about $101 ($10,000 x (100/99)). With a private health insurer, that same op would have admin and other costs of as much as $4,285 on top of the original $10,000.
Which seems like a better deal to you? Paying into a big pot and having $10,101 come out of it to pay for an op or paying into a different pot and, assuming that the people looking after the pot say that you can have your op, having $14,285 come out of that pot for the same procedure?
Given the same amount of money, do you want to guess which pot will be able to treat more patients and save more lives?
Medicare is very efficient. The only people who'll try to tell you otherwise are people with a vested interest (most usually of the folding green, cha-ching kind) in maintaining the status quo.
What a ridiculous statement. My grandparents are all deceased but my all four of my partner's ones are still alive, thanks in no small part to the NHS.
In the last few years one has had a pacemaker fitted, one has had knee surgery and also a heart attack, and a third has had surgery on both knees. All three at least 80 years-old and all three had these operations and treatments in timely manner, all on the NHS at no cost to them at all. All three could not praise the staff that treated them high enough.
To suggest that the old get poor care from the NHS is ridiculous. If that were so then these people wouldn't have received the excellent treatment that has allowed them to carry on not just living, but living full, pain-free lives.
If you can't get additional credit then you can't get yourself further into debt, which means that credit lenders and credit checking agencies can't make more money out of you for the duration of the freeze.
Helping people get more into debt is what these guys do. Why would they be remotely in favour of a measure that (along with helping to reduce the likelyhood of credit-related fraud) would allow you to stop yourself from spending money that you don't have and thus digging yourself further into the hole that they want you to live your life in.
Remember, when these guys say credit they mean debt.
Actually, Clinton's was over sexual harassement. He is/was a serial sexual harasser.
Don't be so absurd. When two adults mutually consent to one giving the other a blowjob then it's not sexual harassment.
It would have been sexual harassment if there was some coercion involved but there wasn't, and to suggest that there was is just ridiculous. Monica Lewinsky was a willing participant, on more than one occasion, and she's said so herself.
But, sure, defend this morally corrupt Bush administration by continually trying to distract the attention away from the issues of the day. I wonder when you'll recognise which President has truly let down his nation.
The iPhone's R&D costs will have been recouped already.
Let's do some simple maths, with the numbers we have already and a few reasonable assumptions.
1. 500,000-700,000 units shipped so far. 2. Sale price of $599 for the 8GB model, assumed component cost price of $220. 3. Sale price of $499 for the 4GB model, assumed component cost price of $200. 4. Assume a ratio of 4:1 in favour of the 4GB unit (I guessed this, and a quick google provided vindication; it turned out to be the ratio that's been widely reported). 5. Assume that 5 percent of the sale price goes to the retailer and that none of that 5 percent makes its way back to Apple. (The actual figure may be zero, but let's assume 5 percent anyway.) 6. Assume that the manufacturing and shipping processes (putting all those components together, boxing them up and getting them to the stores) takes another 15 percent.
Based on those numbers, Apple is making $259.20 on the 8GB models (($599*(1-0.05-0.15))-220)and $199.20 on the 4GB ones (($499*(1-0.05-0.15))-200).
With half a million units shipped, Apple will have made $123.6 million after accounting for the aforementioned costs. With 700,000 units shipped that figure rises to over $173.0 million.
There's no way that Apple's R&D spending on the iPhone came to over $100 million.
And that's before Apple's sold a single accessory, before it's sold a single additional media file or service via iTunes, before you account for all the free press that Apple's got over the last year from the iPhone hype, and, most importantly, the extra boost that that hype has given to the ever-increasing Apple share price.
The Apple share price has more than doubled in the last year, partly because of other things but partly because of the iPhone frenzy. Since the beginning of the year, when the iPhone was unveiled, Apple's market capitalisation has risen by over $30 billion. If only one percent of that rise was due to the iPhone then that alone was $300 million. R&D costs? What R&D costs?
To be honest, I was rather skeptical of Apple's iPhone sales forecasts for the year. I had to temper that skepticism when I saw the sheer numbers that they shipped in the first weekend alone. Granted, (in the US, at least) almost everybody who wanted one right away has one now but I can imagine iPhone sales being steady for the rest of the year (plus getting the usual bumps in the gift-buying seasons) and Apple hitting their targets with ease.
I still doubt that the iPhone will displace the iPod as Apple's main cash cow any time soon but I certainly don't doubt that it's made Apple a huge profit so far and will continue to do so.
Pfff. He's barely trying. In the early nineties, the Detroit Lions had a quarterback called Chuck Long. Now that's doing it right. Oh, and Richard Payne from my school, who had a Saturday job on the pharmacy counter at the local branch of Boots. Every time he was about to finish his break, some wag or another would tannoy "would Dick Payne please come to the pharmacy counter"...
The most frightening thing about the Daily Mail (well, frightening to anybody with a social conscience) is that over half their online readership is from outside the UK. Talk about giving everybody the worst possible guide of everyday British life...
I'm gonna make 2 guesses... one is, you're white and number two is, you're american. and you have the balls to call anyone else narrow-minded. can you say "asshole"?
If my signature wasn't a big enough clue then a quick view at my last dozen or so posts would have told you for sure that you're completely wrong. Thanks for playing, though.
Fair enough, there is this cheap razor/expensive razor blades strategy in use by most (if not all) inkjet printer manufacturers but you know it's a serious licence to print money when, by volume, that ink costs you more than an equivalent amount of vintage champagne does.
The sad fact is that the average consumer has no idea that with an inkjet that they'll spend far, far more on consumables than they did on the printer itself. And when they walk into the average PC superstore to buy a printer, no salesperson is going to rush to tell them because the margin that the store will make on the dozens of cartridges that that buyer will come back for (not to mention the other purchases s/he will make on those repeat trips back to the store) will far outstrip the amount of money made on a one-off colour laser printer sale and maybe one or two toner refills in its lifetime.
I agree that it's not illegal (although putting chips in the cartridges and then using the DCMA to prevent third-party refills from competing fairly is, at best, a rather shady way of doing business) but I disagree that the whole nature of cheap inkjet printers and overpriced ink is common knowledge. If it were, inkjet sales would have dwindled and colour laser sales would have outstripped them over the last couple of years.
That's a valid criticism, as long as you're comparing the US medical system to just that of Cuba.
Now compare the US model to that of its western, developed world counterparts. All of a sudden, the US model doesn't look so great, does it?
The US medical system is flawed. Yes, you have access to some of the greatest medical care in the world, but that is true if and only if you're able to pay for it. If you're not covered and you can't afford it then you might as well not exist.
Approximately 41-44 million Americans have no health coverage. That's about 15 percent of the population. Approximately 18,000 Americans die every year because they couldn't afford simple screening and preventive care for chronic diseases. Note, that's not because they couldn't afford an expensive treatment, it's because they didn't know that they had a serious illness until it was too late to do something about it.
To put that in context, six times as many Americans die every year that need not have died because of this one reason alone than died as a result of the attacks of September 11th, 2001. (Where's the "War on Illness"?) And that's the thousands more that wouldn't die if they had access to basic medicine and treatments that people in, say, Canada and Europe would take for granted.
Health insurance in the US isn't about providing patients with the best possible care. Instead, like all businesses it's about providing the maximum possible profit to shareholders, as required by law. As much as 30 percent of US private health insurance premiums is eaten up by overheads and profits. Medicare, the state solution, has overheads that amount to just one percent, and no shareholders to take a pound of flesh.
If the private sector solution is so efficient then why does it suck so much money out of the system?
15.4 percent of the US GDP is spent on healthcare. Healthcare expenses is the number one reason for personal bankrupcy in the US. Compared to their counterparts, Americans pay through the teeth for healthcare, yet the US is ranked only 37th (based on general health of the population, access, patient satisfaction and how the care's paid for) by the World Health Organisation.
By comparison, Canada spends less than 10 percent of it's GDP on healthcare, yet is ranked in the top ten. In actual terms, Canadians spend half as much per capita as Americans do (Canada's GDP/capita is a lot lower than it's southern neighbour's) yet get better overall care. Life expectancy in Canada is three years greater, both for men and for women, there are fewer infant mortalities, etc.
Don't get me wrong, there are things to be admired about the US. But, generally, healthcare provision is not one of them and neither is it likely to be for a very long time unless someone is brave enough to do something about it.
Yes, the US system might be better than Cuba's but, to be honest, that's of little consolation to the millions of Americans who literally can't afford to be sick.
It never ceases to amazes me that people as narrow-minded as you exist.
That bird that "merely views [the Galapagos Islands] as a place to land, eat,shit and fuck" is part of the natural ecosystem of this islands.
In its small way, it's a vital part of the food chain and the environment of that area, yet your personal right to a pleasure cruise is more important than the survival of the local ecological community?
I'm sorry, but you have an inflated sense of your own worth, or a lack of appreciation of the order of things, or both. How would you like it if I destroyed your home and your way of life for personal pleasure? Would that be OK with you? After all, that's no different to what you're proposing, right?
The eradication of a species just for the convenience of fishermen, or the destruction of a unique and irreplaceable wildlife habitat for the convenience of tourists are selfish and short-sighted acts. But I suppose that those are moral and ethical arguments that are wasted on you.
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So politely pointing out why I feel confident that someone doesn't have a grasp on what he's talking about and why that's a bad thing makes me an ass?
How wonderful.
You see, in the old days, we had this thing called journalism, where the news was more than just press releases, and often included speculation.
I've never seen a journalist question the premise of his own article. Journalists don't write stories that tell us the Widget X will do Function Y and then end their articles asking if we think that it's possible that X will do Y...
OK, if the story title was a question then what follows would be forgiveable, but the title states something as a fact but then goes on to question that fact. That's just silly.
Please explain in which ways Britain isn't a "full democracy"?
How ironic that such a patently ridiculous statement should come from someone with the username of "Myopic".
Britain is a constitutional monarchy in name only: the monarch's is effectively powerless and his/her constitutional role consists primarily of rubber stamping whatever the democratically elected Parliament has decided upon.
(The benefit of such a system (because it does have one) is that we have a nominal head of state that doesn't change with the wind and who's politically neutral.)
As for a constitution, well, we have effectively do have one, but it's not explicitly defined. Instead we have rights, etc set out by the Human Rights Act and other legislation.
Have you heard of Magna Carta? Where do you think that comes from? Habeas corpus? Where do you think that those concept originated?
Unlike some places I could mention, it's not like the government can detain me indefinitely, do whatever it wants with me, etc... Oh, wait, that could never happen in the US, right?
Not a full democracy? Have a revolution and then we'll talk?. Incredible. You're talking out of your backside, mate. Get an education and then we'll talk.
Only on Slashdot is a post that clearly apologises for any perceived rudeness towards anybody that it may offend labelled a troll...
From the summary:
It seems that the iPhone should be available in the UK in time for Christmas. O2 have refused to confirm or deny these reports, so is it yet another unconfirmed iPhone rumor or is it fact?
Well, how about you RTFA that you yourself linked to, buddy?
1. "Press reports said that O2 is set to sign an exclusive contract shortly and should have the new phones on sale in time for Christmas."
2. "However a spokesman for O2's owner, Spain's Telefonica, said that a deal had not been signed."
Translation: a deal is close, almost on the verge of being done but not yet completed. So, yes, for now, it's an unconfirmed rumour. When all parties have signed on the dotted line, then it will be fact.
Really, how can a story that questions itself make it as a frontpage article?
When do you find time for lacrosse?
Hmmm, what's a suitable analogy here to illustrate the difference between something that you might casually sing along to a bit when you hear it on the radio/MTV and something that you'll want to be able to enjoy in context whenever you wish? Let's try this...
Singles are like trailers for a film. Albums are the film. There's more genius in a Martin Scorsese production than the 30 seconds you'll see during an ad break. Similarly, there's more genius to the average artist's music than is contained in the radio-friendly, appeal-to-everybody-possible tracks that the record company people decide to release as singles.
Personally, I'd favour a means of online pricing that encouraged people to listen to albums rather than just buy the odd single. I doubt it would appeal to many (or even be possible now that people are used to the current online pricing models), but $4 for a single track, $8 for the album would be fine with me.
I hate the idea that instead of a proper record collection, and a real appreciation for music and song as artforms, kids will grow up to have nothing but songs that just the catchy-yet-shallow songs that the radio/MTV happened to be blurting out for the decade or two that they spent growing up.
Ah, Britain is wall-to-wall CCTV. Britain is Stasi Germany. No generalisations there at all, are there? Seriously, no offence to you (you seem like a nice guy and I'm sure that they're plenty of things about privacy that we completely agree on) but you don't know what you're talking about.
I hate to call you ignorant, because that seems rude, but the very fact that you think that England and Britain are interchangeable terms says quite enough: perhaps uninformed would be a more polite way of putting it. Same goes for the person I originally replied to: a Lib Dem government to replace New Labour would be a refreshing change but it's about as likely to happen as Ann Coulter converting to Islam.
No doubt, we could be going back and forth for hours debating the contents of our posts and the post that I originally replied to but, please take my word for it, Britain isn't the Orwellian dystopia that the few sensationalist stories that you've read make it out to be.
I totally agree that people should think twice about commentating on things that they know little about. It's why, amongst other things, I watch some US news, read the online editions of the Washington Post, the New York Times and other US newspapers and keep thoroughly abreast of facts that, even though they're happening thousands of miles away, too often have an affect on my life and the lives of those around me.
I can tell you who Mitt Romney is, how he made his money, what he's done in politics, his Olympic role, about him being a "life-long" two-time hunter, etc without having to look it up online. Why? Because I've bothered to find out. Do you think that most Americans can say the same? Quid pro quo, could you tell me who Harriet Harman is and what she's done? Or Hilary Benn? Quick, can you name our Prime Minister?
If this post sounds condescending or patronising then I apologise for that. But most Americans truly don't know what's going on with their own government let alone what's going on with other ones around the world. How else can you explain the fact that most people who voted for Bush in 2004 truly believed that Saddam Hussein was the architect of the September 11th attacks? The most significant event in US history for over 50 years and people don't know who did what? How is that possible?
There's no such thing as a perfect society in this world, and every country has its share of ridiculous laws (and fools), but it's not asking much for people to have a clue before making dismissive remarks that are so far off-base that they're patently ridiculous.
You don't "follow British politics closely enough" but you know enough to make a sweeping statement like "The UK is quite quickly becoming the creepiest democratic country in the world"?
Why? Because of a small part of one bill that has yet to even be debated in Parliament yet alone be voted on? Did you even RTFA and notice that before jerking your knee? You live in the US, where indefinite detention without trial is how you do things and yet you're lecturing the rest of the world on democracy?
As for the stupid assertion that this is based not upon "security concerns" but "out of boredom", well, if you RTFA then you would see that this change in the law is proposed on the back of a rather violent murder case where the murderer admitted to being addicted to violent rape websites, etc.
Sounds whimsical to you, does it? Really? If it was someone related to a Virgina Tech campus massacre victim campaigning for gun control would you accuse them of raising the issue "out of boredom"?
Personally, I couldn't be more opposed to this proposed legislation. As others have pointed out, it's an overreaction to a tragic but rare occurance. Emotive laws aren't often good ones - there's a reason why we don't let victims don't get to pick the sentences of those that have done them wrong.
As much as I can sympathise with the victim's family and friends, I find it hard to support their need for some sort of "Jane's Law" as part of their grieving process. Families of drink driving victims don't get alcohol bans being proposed on their behalf and I fail to see how this is any different.
Debate it? Yes. Look at measures that would be practical but not restrictive?. Yes. Legislate against something because of a single, deranged individual? No. Move on, and move on in a different, more positive manner.
But, hey, thanks for writing off our parliamentary democracy just for, you know, actually being prepared to talk about stuff. Instead of just brushing it under the carpet and then getting back to the important stuff like Paris Hilton's jail term and Britney's divorce case.
Are you living in a cave? £1 million is $2 million, not $1.5 million.
It's been several years since the exchange rate was £1 = $1.50. You can thank George W. Bush and the rest of the clowns for allowing the dollar to lose a third of its value on their watch.
It's not just about the software. It's the hardware, too.
I'm sure that most of the archive data created today is stored on something like DVDs but, as recently as the early 1990s, the official long-term storage medium for the UK government was Syquest 44MB removable cartridge hard drives.
I know that I have a working 44MB drive (well, when I last fired it up, which would have been sometime last decade) somewhere in my attic but I doubt that too many of these drives are still in existance.
I only hope that the data that was once stored on thousands of these was successfully transferred to a more readily accessible storage format and that that new format is just as durable - media these days just seems to disintegrate after a few years.
If Medicare isn't a realistic solution for everybody because the price it pays for services are so unrealistic then please explain to me how the Canadian system is so effective (ranked by the World Health Organisation in the top 10 worldwide, whilst the US is only ranked 37th)?
Canada has a state system and the per capita spend on healthcare in Canada is half the US figure (yes, we're comparing apples and apples: all spending, public and private, in both cases), yet Canadians have significantly higher life expectancies, lower infant mortalities, etc.
Oh, by the way, money gets invested into the system in state healthcare, too. My point about profits was that, in most private schemes, some of the money that you're paying out goes to a shareholder. And, of course, there have to be beancounters who deal with that, including some that are employed just to nitpick over the small print to see how they can avoid paying for the treatment that you desperately need.
In a state system there's nobody trying to drive you into bankruptcy (you knew that medical bills were the number one cause of bankruptcies in the US, right?) because you forgot to cross the Ts and dot the Is.
Simple question: If the US model is so great then why does almost every other country in the developed world have a state system and better health overall?
Are you suggesting that having a single payer (the government) is a good way to remove inefficent bureaucracy? The larger the entity the larger and more inefficient the bureaucracy, and there is no larger entity than the US government. Some of your arguments above are quite valid, but this one actually works against you.
In the case of medicine, you're totally wrong. Medicare, the US state system, has admin and other overhead costs that come to 1 percent. In the case of private health insurance that figure is dwarfed: admin and other overheads (including profits, of course) can be as much as 30 percent.
Imagine a $10,000 operation. On Medicare, the cost (to the system that foots the bill) of the admin, etc would come to about $101 ($10,000 x (100/99)). With a private health insurer, that same op would have admin and other costs of as much as $4,285 on top of the original $10,000.
Which seems like a better deal to you? Paying into a big pot and having $10,101 come out of it to pay for an op or paying into a different pot and, assuming that the people looking after the pot say that you can have your op, having $14,285 come out of that pot for the same procedure?
Given the same amount of money, do you want to guess which pot will be able to treat more patients and save more lives?
Medicare is very efficient. The only people who'll try to tell you otherwise are people with a vested interest (most usually of the folding green, cha-ching kind) in maintaining the status quo.
It seems to me that this would have made a good "Ask Slashdot" article.
All it would have taken was editing a word or two of the submitted story to make the implicit question more direct and, voila, there's the article...
What a ridiculous statement. My grandparents are all deceased but my all four of my partner's ones are still alive, thanks in no small part to the NHS.
In the last few years one has had a pacemaker fitted, one has had knee surgery and also a heart attack, and a third has had surgery on both knees. All three at least 80 years-old and all three had these operations and treatments in timely manner, all on the NHS at no cost to them at all. All three could not praise the staff that treated them high enough.
To suggest that the old get poor care from the NHS is ridiculous. If that were so then these people wouldn't have received the excellent treatment that has allowed them to carry on not just living, but living full, pain-free lives.
If you can't get additional credit then you can't get yourself further into debt, which means that credit lenders and credit checking agencies can't make more money out of you for the duration of the freeze.
Helping people get more into debt is what these guys do. Why would they be remotely in favour of a measure that (along with helping to reduce the likelyhood of credit-related fraud) would allow you to stop yourself from spending money that you don't have and thus digging yourself further into the hole that they want you to live your life in.
Remember, when these guys say credit they mean debt.
Actually, Clinton's was over sexual harassement. He is/was a serial sexual harasser.
Don't be so absurd. When two adults mutually consent to one giving the other a blowjob then it's not sexual harassment.
It would have been sexual harassment if there was some coercion involved but there wasn't, and to suggest that there was is just ridiculous. Monica Lewinsky was a willing participant, on more than one occasion, and she's said so herself.
But, sure, defend this morally corrupt Bush administration by continually trying to distract the attention away from the issues of the day. I wonder when you'll recognise which President has truly let down his nation.
The iPhone's R&D costs will have been recouped already.
Let's do some simple maths, with the numbers we have already and a few reasonable assumptions.
1. 500,000-700,000 units shipped so far.
2. Sale price of $599 for the 8GB model, assumed component cost price of $220.
3. Sale price of $499 for the 4GB model, assumed component cost price of $200.
4. Assume a ratio of 4:1 in favour of the 4GB unit (I guessed this, and a quick google provided vindication; it turned out to be the ratio that's been widely reported).
5. Assume that 5 percent of the sale price goes to the retailer and that none of that 5 percent makes its way back to Apple. (The actual figure may be zero, but let's assume 5 percent anyway.)
6. Assume that the manufacturing and shipping processes (putting all those components together, boxing them up and getting them to the stores) takes another 15 percent.
Based on those numbers, Apple is making $259.20 on the 8GB models (($599*(1-0.05-0.15))-220)and $199.20 on the 4GB ones (($499*(1-0.05-0.15))-200).
With half a million units shipped, Apple will have made $123.6 million after accounting for the aforementioned costs. With 700,000 units shipped that figure rises to over $173.0 million.
There's no way that Apple's R&D spending on the iPhone came to over $100 million.
And that's before Apple's sold a single accessory, before it's sold a single additional media file or service via iTunes, before you account for all the free press that Apple's got over the last year from the iPhone hype, and, most importantly, the extra boost that that hype has given to the ever-increasing Apple share price.
The Apple share price has more than doubled in the last year, partly because of other things but partly because of the iPhone frenzy. Since the beginning of the year, when the iPhone was unveiled, Apple's market capitalisation has risen by over $30 billion. If only one percent of that rise was due to the iPhone then that alone was $300 million. R&D costs? What R&D costs?
To be honest, I was rather skeptical of Apple's iPhone sales forecasts for the year. I had to temper that skepticism when I saw the sheer numbers that they shipped in the first weekend alone. Granted, (in the US, at least) almost everybody who wanted one right away has one now but I can imagine iPhone sales being steady for the rest of the year (plus getting the usual bumps in the gift-buying seasons) and Apple hitting their targets with ease.
I still doubt that the iPhone will displace the iPod as Apple's main cash cow any time soon but I certainly don't doubt that it's made Apple a huge profit so far and will continue to do so.
Pfff. He's barely trying. In the early nineties, the Detroit Lions had a quarterback called Chuck Long. Now that's doing it right. Oh, and Richard Payne from my school, who had a Saturday job on the pharmacy counter at the local branch of Boots. Every time he was about to finish his break, some wag or another would tannoy "would Dick Payne please come to the pharmacy counter"...
The most frightening thing about the Daily Mail (well, frightening to anybody with a social conscience) is that over half their online readership is from outside the UK. Talk about giving everybody the worst possible guide of everyday British life...
That or Michael Moore documentary.
I think you mean a duckumentary...
(I thank you, I thank you. Don't forget to tip your waitresses, etc.)
I'm gonna make 2 guesses... one is, you're white and number two is, you're american. and you have the balls to call anyone else narrow-minded. can you say "asshole"?
If my signature wasn't a big enough clue then a quick view at my last dozen or so posts would have told you for sure that you're completely wrong. Thanks for playing, though.
Fair enough, there is this cheap razor/expensive razor blades strategy in use by most (if not all) inkjet printer manufacturers but you know it's a serious licence to print money when, by volume, that ink costs you more than an equivalent amount of vintage champagne does.
The sad fact is that the average consumer has no idea that with an inkjet that they'll spend far, far more on consumables than they did on the printer itself. And when they walk into the average PC superstore to buy a printer, no salesperson is going to rush to tell them because the margin that the store will make on the dozens of cartridges that that buyer will come back for (not to mention the other purchases s/he will make on those repeat trips back to the store) will far outstrip the amount of money made on a one-off colour laser printer sale and maybe one or two toner refills in its lifetime.
I agree that it's not illegal (although putting chips in the cartridges and then using the DCMA to prevent third-party refills from competing fairly is, at best, a rather shady way of doing business) but I disagree that the whole nature of cheap inkjet printers and overpriced ink is common knowledge. If it were, inkjet sales would have dwindled and colour laser sales would have outstripped them over the last couple of years.
The truth isn't quite out there yet.
That's a valid criticism, as long as you're comparing the US medical system to just that of Cuba.
Now compare the US model to that of its western, developed world counterparts. All of a sudden, the US model doesn't look so great, does it?
The US medical system is flawed. Yes, you have access to some of the greatest medical care in the world, but that is true if and only if you're able to pay for it. If you're not covered and you can't afford it then you might as well not exist.
Approximately 41-44 million Americans have no health coverage. That's about 15 percent of the population. Approximately 18,000 Americans die every year because they couldn't afford simple screening and preventive care for chronic diseases. Note, that's not because they couldn't afford an expensive treatment, it's because they didn't know that they had a serious illness until it was too late to do something about it.
To put that in context, six times as many Americans die every year that need not have died because of this one reason alone than died as a result of the attacks of September 11th, 2001. (Where's the "War on Illness"?) And that's the thousands more that wouldn't die if they had access to basic medicine and treatments that people in, say, Canada and Europe would take for granted.
Health insurance in the US isn't about providing patients with the best possible care. Instead, like all businesses it's about providing the maximum possible profit to shareholders, as required by law. As much as 30 percent of US private health insurance premiums is eaten up by overheads and profits. Medicare, the state solution, has overheads that amount to just one percent, and no shareholders to take a pound of flesh.
If the private sector solution is so efficient then why does it suck so much money out of the system?
15.4 percent of the US GDP is spent on healthcare. Healthcare expenses is the number one reason for personal bankrupcy in the US. Compared to their counterparts, Americans pay through the teeth for healthcare, yet the US is ranked only 37th (based on general health of the population, access, patient satisfaction and how the care's paid for) by the World Health Organisation.
By comparison, Canada spends less than 10 percent of it's GDP on healthcare, yet is ranked in the top ten. In actual terms, Canadians spend half as much per capita as Americans do (Canada's GDP/capita is a lot lower than it's southern neighbour's) yet get better overall care. Life expectancy in Canada is three years greater, both for men and for women, there are fewer infant mortalities, etc.
Don't get me wrong, there are things to be admired about the US. But, generally, healthcare provision is not one of them and neither is it likely to be for a very long time unless someone is brave enough to do something about it.
Yes, the US system might be better than Cuba's but, to be honest, that's of little consolation to the millions of Americans who literally can't afford to be sick.
It never ceases to amazes me that people as narrow-minded as you exist.
That bird that "merely views [the Galapagos Islands] as a place to land, eat,shit and fuck" is part of the natural ecosystem of this islands.
In its small way, it's a vital part of the food chain and the environment of that area, yet your personal right to a pleasure cruise is more important than the survival of the local ecological community?
I'm sorry, but you have an inflated sense of your own worth, or a lack of appreciation of the order of things, or both. How would you like it if I destroyed your home and your way of life for personal pleasure? Would that be OK with you? After all, that's no different to what you're proposing, right?
The eradication of a species just for the convenience of fishermen, or the destruction of a unique and irreplaceable wildlife habitat for the convenience of tourists are selfish and short-sighted acts. But I suppose that those are moral and ethical arguments that are wasted on you.