Folks, if you are still reading Slashdot in 2007, wake up. Most of the intelligent people that I know--self included--have quit wasting their lives in front of that infernal website. It's a waste of your life. They did a study once and found that an asleep person has more brain activity than one reading Slashdot. I quit reading it in 8th grade (last year) and my life has been much better for it.
Heh, I think you meant "formerly obsolete UHF yagi".
Cheers,
-l
LOGO was my first exposure to programming
on
Forty Years of LOGO
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· Score: 1
LOGO was my first exposure to programming when I was in elementary school in the 80s. I really liked it and still think it's a good way to get kids to understand the basics of programming (write and save a program to draw a triangle, a circle, etc.). I do not feel it is suitable for much beyond that.
Of course, the idea that programming should be a part of a basic computer course has gone by the wayside. Today's kids computer classes are all about Microsoft Office and, if you're lucky, Dreamweaver.
Re:What is this crazy tags thing?
on
Ask Rob Malda
·
· Score: 2, Funny
By 'failure', I mean that the tags we see are generally ridiculously useless (like a "science" tag on a story in the Science section) or otherwise simply degenerate ("haha" seems to be the most common tag). It's hard to imagine what purpose the system would serve even if people were honest with it. Further, the idea of tagging comments as a future moderation system now seems completely horrible.
You mean like this very article being tagged "slashdot", possibly the most pointless tag ever?
Heh, sometimes 'ls' just makes your problem worse. Back in '03, I got rooted via OpenSSH (the Debian patch hadn't hit the repositories yet) on my home box. Anytime I executed a common command, it would pause for 20 seconds while attempting to contact the remote controller, though I had it unplugged from the network. I had to overwrite all the utilities simultaneously because executing any one that I missed would reinstall the entire rootkit. Annoying as hell.
I sent the following to the FCC. Thought you might dig it or have ideas how it could fail.
Commissioners:
I have an idea on a middle ground between bundled TV and a la carte TV.
The most obvious problem with pure a la carte is it starves channels
with lower viewership, even if they have very passionate and dedicated
viewers.
My solution is to allow consumers to choose between small content- or
producer-centric bundles. 5-6 channels each. No minimum purchase
necessary -- if you want 1 tiny bundle, that's OK!
For example, I want Cartoon Network and Discovery Science for my family.
At present, I have to sign up for a ridiculously expensive package with
a ton of unwanted bundled channels. Don't even ask how expensive it is
to get Noggin.
I should be able to pick a "Time Warner Family" bundle that includes 5
or 6 Time Warner-produced channels and a "Discovery Rules!" bundle that
includes the Discoveries -- and that's it! 10 channels for, say, $20 -
$30/mo.
That would allow lower performing, but perhaps important content, to
still hang on to higher viewership channels. But, it would also allow
consumers to better manage their cable TV dollars.
World Community Grid does not require Windows, though I admit their website is a little confusing in that regard. If you run debian, "apt-get install boinc-client boinc-manager". Then, set it up with the BOINC instructions on the WCG website.
I'm running it on a dual-opteron amd64 debian box. You don't even have to run it in 32bit mode.
I thought the sixth sense was when you figured out the movie in the first 5 minutes and had to suffer through the rest of it banging your head on the seat in front of you bellowing "It'S OH so fucking OBvious!"
Uhhhh by using the built-in functionality of the Wiimote? That said, yes, it's just a vibration, but that vibration can tell you to stop wasting energy swinging through, etc.
And not just your bittorrent -- everyone else's too since you're still constrained at the CO. I never suggested that the net neutrality version was very realistic for the short or medium term, at least barring legislation declaring a split between DSL and Cable infrastructure and information services. There would have to be federal legislation forcing customer-driven QoS to make it happen and even then, it'd still be crappy until better infrastructure could be slowly built out over 20 years.
However, the machinations and greed involved in this whole story continue to amaze me.
Net Neutrality is mostly dead. With net neutrality going the way of the dodo, cable and dsl TV providers will simply ban other IPTV outlets on their high-speed networks. Other bandwidth hogs like Youtube will have to fork over the cash to get on the high speed network. Cable & DSL will use this cash to beef up their high-speed IPTV connections.
Network neutrality might have allowed you to have competition in the TV market over your Internet connection. Imagine using/buying Time Warner IPTV over your AT&T DSL connection. Obviously, your broadband provider stands to make more money by locking down your TV choice to their TV offering.
It won't be just TV though. It'll be VOIP, video on demand, and more. By offering a wide array of features at top dollar, they can fend off the FCC and FTC and effectively shut down all competition from over the Net.
They will have their fiefdoms and we will have our illusion of choice between two providers (Cable or DSL) with two stacks of largely identical services, paid for by you, me, and Google.
I find that hard to believe. Who likes to go to the doctor to get shots, blood drown, and a finger shoved up their arse? I don't know anyone that perverse. If these people are so common, how come we don't hear about them going to the doctor 50 times per year now? I mean, what's stopping them? A $10 copay?
You'll have a hard time convincing me of that without a citation. The whole health care system is structured around disease management, not disease prevention. Why do you think that is? Why don't they pay me to get a physical if it helps their bottom line so much?
They don't pay you because you're already asking them to take on your own financial risk. It doesn't shower them with money for you to go to the doctor. A pay-out is a pay-out. Notwithstanding, basic care is far cheaper than a hospital visit. Insurance wants to allow sufficient preventive care to reduce the number of emergency room visits (which reduces their costs because the hospital is a zillion times more expensive) while not going overboard and paying for too many unnecessary tests and whatnot (c.f., copays).
Why is the damn emergency room so damn expensive, driving up my damn rates? It is illegal to deny emergency treatment to patients simply because they cannot afford treatment. Translation: The uninsured are the source of these hidden costs. http://gov.ca.gov/index.php?/fact-sheet/5937/ Even the damn Mises Institute, a bunch of anti-government religious zealots, agrees with this assessment (though they disagree with the solution -- duh).
Think about how much money the US government would have to borrow in order to pay for such a program. When the government borrows money, that crowds out other borrowing. Say "hello" to high interest rates and high loan rejection rates.
Nah, you'd just pay the same premiums to the government instead of the insurance company. It's a wash except more people will be covered and, as inefficiencies are reduced, costs will go down.
I'll let you have the last word in this thread. Cheers and nice discussion.
-l
Most communicable diseases that cause more damage than the common cold we have vaccines for now.
Vaccines largely paid for by insurance companies...
Also is preventative care cheaper than emergency care? Is preventative care for all those millions of people less costly than emergency care for the thousands who actually get sick? I doubt it. If it were true, how come insurance companies don't give out free preventative care to their members? I pay copays and deductibles for my routine preventative care. If preventative care for the masses was cheaper than care for the few who actually get sick, my insurance company would be paying ME to get preventative care. That's just Business 101 here.
It can't be "free" because you run into the tragedy of the commons that way. You have to pay your copay to ensure you don't abuse your cheap preventative care (Even in Canada, you typically pay a copay unless you're too poor to afford it.). There's a balance at work. It's the same reason insurance only pays for 1 or 2 physicals a year. That level of preventative care is certainly cheaper than paying for emergency care for all of those individuals who developed advanced symptoms and went to the hospital. Actuaries will tell you this. There's also the part about diminishing returns -- how many physicals/yr do you really, really need? The beancounters have determined one or two a year.
On the other hand, risk factors such as smoking are entirely within a person's control. Smokers should share risk with other smokers and pay the increased premium that goes along with their unhealthy lifestyle. This is the same as it works with auto insurance. Unsafe drivers who go around getting tickets and at-fault collisions all the time get pooled with other reckless drivers and pay high premiums for their choice to drive like maniacs.
Don't forget test pilots, Native Americans who smoke peyote, women who want to bear children, rugby and amateur football players, cyclists on Loop 360 (Austin joke), people who commute more than 20 miles to work, Slashdot account owners,... where does it end?
I think this is why the Americans with Disabilities Act outlaws discrimination based on "health status" (TBD what that really means after all these newfangled health insurance schemes go to court). It's just too easy to pick on people for everything.
I do think that having a positive reward system (gym discounts, etc.) is probably both legal and ethical. I think doing it the other way around goes down a slippery slope. I'm worried they're going down that slippery slope no matter what unless we go with government insurance, conception to cremation.
Well, let me know when you think of one.
I thought of another one. Bankruptcies. Half of all bankruptcies are caused by medical bills. The rate of bankruptcy affects our access to credit.
As someone who is healthy and makes healthy choices, why should I be placed in the same risk pool with a sedentary smoker who eats Doritos and McDonalds all day long?
I think the reason they do it that way is because as the size of the pool shrinks (healthier and healthier people), the pool is exposed to more and more risk (think accidents, unforeseen health issues, no genetic history (adopted), younger and younger members of the pool, etc.). Having more people in the pool mitigates that risk because even people with unhealthy lifestyles aren't going to be sick all the time.
There is a business case for excluding people with preexisting conditions: It's a known cost and if it's legal to exclude it, you should (as an evil insurance company).
Lastly, it's in their best interest to have the healthy, young folks in the pool. Insurance companies get more money from them in their prime which they will leverage in their investments to pay for their care when they're old and sick all the time.
As far as brute fairness, you benefit by making sure all the unhealthy people don't spread diseases around and by helping them get preventative care which is a zillion times cheaper than emergency care (remember: we all pay for emergency care for the uninsured through taxation). I'm sure there are more indirect benefits but I can't think of any right now.
I know it doesn't seem fair to pay for Michael Moore's gut. I don't mind, though, if I got a discount for being relatively healthy, I'd appreciate that.
Slashdot Mirror
And here I was thinking that Linux is a tank (full text).
Original link to Neal Stephenson's website which no longer has the full text inline.
-l
Folks, if you are still reading Slashdot in 2007, wake up. Most of the intelligent people that I know--self included--have quit wasting their lives in front of that infernal website. It's a waste of your life. They did a study once and found that an asleep person has more brain activity than one reading Slashdot. I quit reading it in 8th grade (last year) and my life has been much better for it.
Get off my lawn,
-l
Heh, I think you meant "formerly obsolete UHF yagi".
Cheers,
-l
LOGO was my first exposure to programming when I was in elementary school in the 80s. I really liked it and still think it's a good way to get kids to understand the basics of programming (write and save a program to draw a triangle, a circle, etc.). I do not feel it is suitable for much beyond that.
Of course, the idea that programming should be a part of a basic computer course has gone by the wayside. Today's kids computer classes are all about Microsoft Office and, if you're lucky, Dreamweaver.
Bah.
-l
I just bought a Precalculus book. I read through the whole thing and did the odd number exercises. I took my time and really absorbed the material.
YMMV,
-l
I was going to say "If you don't like the Idle section, just uncheck it in your preferences" but there appears to be no such option.
Sounds like an "opportunity for improvement",
-l
Oh that's awesome. Thanks for brightening my day.
-l
You mean like this very article being tagged "slashdot", possibly the most pointless tag ever?
-l
Heh, sometimes 'ls' just makes your problem worse. Back in '03, I got rooted via OpenSSH (the Debian patch hadn't hit the repositories yet) on my home box. Anytime I executed a common command, it would pause for 20 seconds while attempting to contact the remote controller, though I had it unplugged from the network. I had to overwrite all the utilities simultaneously because executing any one that I missed would reinstall the entire rootkit. Annoying as hell.
-l
I sent the following to the FCC. Thought you might dig it or have ideas how it could fail.
Cheers,
-l
World Community Grid does not require Windows, though I admit their website is a little confusing in that regard. If you run debian, "apt-get install boinc-client boinc-manager". Then, set it up with the BOINC instructions on the WCG website.
I'm running it on a dual-opteron amd64 debian box. You don't even have to run it in 32bit mode.
Cheers,
-l
I thought the sixth sense was when you figured out the movie in the first 5 minutes and had to suffer through the rest of it banging your head on the seat in front of you bellowing "It'S OH so fucking OBvious!"
Maybe that's just me,
-l
Save the world?
I'm on Team Slashdot, FTW,
-l
Of course, lightsabers stop when they contact each other...
-l
> How do you get force feedback on those things?
Uhhhh by using the built-in functionality of the Wiimote? That said, yes, it's just a vibration, but that vibration can tell you to stop wasting energy swinging through, etc.
-l
And not just your bittorrent -- everyone else's too since you're still constrained at the CO. I never suggested that the net neutrality version was very realistic for the short or medium term, at least barring legislation declaring a split between DSL and Cable infrastructure and information services. There would have to be federal legislation forcing customer-driven QoS to make it happen and even then, it'd still be crappy until better infrastructure could be slowly built out over 20 years.
However, the machinations and greed involved in this whole story continue to amaze me.
$0.02USD,
-l
Net Neutrality is mostly dead. With net neutrality going the way of the dodo, cable and dsl TV providers will simply ban other IPTV outlets on their high-speed networks. Other bandwidth hogs like Youtube will have to fork over the cash to get on the high speed network. Cable & DSL will use this cash to beef up their high-speed IPTV connections.
Network neutrality might have allowed you to have competition in the TV market over your Internet connection. Imagine using/buying Time Warner IPTV over your AT&T DSL connection. Obviously, your broadband provider stands to make more money by locking down your TV choice to their TV offering.
It won't be just TV though. It'll be VOIP, video on demand, and more. By offering a wide array of features at top dollar, they can fend off the FCC and FTC and effectively shut down all competition from over the Net.
They will have their fiefdoms and we will have our illusion of choice between two providers (Cable or DSL) with two stacks of largely identical services, paid for by you, me, and Google.
$0.02USD,
-l
Wikipedia talks about copays. It says copays are to prevent an economic problem known as a "moral hazard". Feel free to read more about it. I am, but don't feel like c/p'ing the Web for you.
They don't pay you because you're already asking them to take on your own financial risk. It doesn't shower them with money for you to go to the doctor. A pay-out is a pay-out. Notwithstanding, basic care is far cheaper than a hospital visit. Insurance wants to allow sufficient preventive care to reduce the number of emergency room visits (which reduces their costs because the hospital is a zillion times more expensive) while not going overboard and paying for too many unnecessary tests and whatnot (c.f., copays).
Why is the damn emergency room so damn expensive, driving up my damn rates? It is illegal to deny emergency treatment to patients simply because they cannot afford treatment. Translation: The uninsured are the source of these hidden costs. http://gov.ca.gov/index.php?/fact-sheet/5937/ Even the damn Mises Institute, a bunch of anti-government religious zealots, agrees with this assessment (though they disagree with the solution -- duh).
Nah, you'd just pay the same premiums to the government instead of the insurance company. It's a wash except more people will be covered and, as inefficiencies are reduced, costs will go down.
I'll let you have the last word in this thread. Cheers and nice discussion.
-l
Yeah... there's a reason why my wife, a vegetarian, hates hanging out with vegans.
-l
Vaccines largely paid for by insurance companies...
It can't be "free" because you run into the tragedy of the commons that way. You have to pay your copay to ensure you don't abuse your cheap preventative care (Even in Canada, you typically pay a copay unless you're too poor to afford it.). There's a balance at work. It's the same reason insurance only pays for 1 or 2 physicals a year. That level of preventative care is certainly cheaper than paying for emergency care for all of those individuals who developed advanced symptoms and went to the hospital. Actuaries will tell you this. There's also the part about diminishing returns -- how many physicals/yr do you really, really need? The beancounters have determined one or two a year.
Don't forget test pilots, Native Americans who smoke peyote, women who want to bear children, rugby and amateur football players, cyclists on Loop 360 (Austin joke), people who commute more than 20 miles to work, Slashdot account owners, ... where does it end?
I think this is why the Americans with Disabilities Act outlaws discrimination based on "health status" (TBD what that really means after all these newfangled health insurance schemes go to court). It's just too easy to pick on people for everything.
I do think that having a positive reward system (gym discounts, etc.) is probably both legal and ethical. I think doing it the other way around goes down a slippery slope. I'm worried they're going down that slippery slope no matter what unless we go with government insurance, conception to cremation.
I thought of another one. Bankruptcies. Half of all bankruptcies are caused by medical bills. The rate of bankruptcy affects our access to credit.
Cheers,
-l
Ditto on the genetic cholesterol problem. I don't know why so many vegetarians/vegans assume it's meat-eating that's the sole cause.
I'd wager two pints of cage free Egg Beaters there's some dumb PETA memo about it.
-l
P.s., I just learned yesterday that Egg Beaters are cholesterol free. I can't tell you how happy that makes me.
I think the reason they do it that way is because as the size of the pool shrinks (healthier and healthier people), the pool is exposed to more and more risk (think accidents, unforeseen health issues, no genetic history (adopted), younger and younger members of the pool, etc.). Having more people in the pool mitigates that risk because even people with unhealthy lifestyles aren't going to be sick all the time.
There is a business case for excluding people with preexisting conditions: It's a known cost and if it's legal to exclude it, you should (as an evil insurance company).
Lastly, it's in their best interest to have the healthy, young folks in the pool. Insurance companies get more money from them in their prime which they will leverage in their investments to pay for their care when they're old and sick all the time.
As far as brute fairness, you benefit by making sure all the unhealthy people don't spread diseases around and by helping them get preventative care which is a zillion times cheaper than emergency care (remember: we all pay for emergency care for the uninsured through taxation). I'm sure there are more indirect benefits but I can't think of any right now.
I know it doesn't seem fair to pay for Michael Moore's gut. I don't mind, though, if I got a discount for being relatively healthy, I'd appreciate that.
-l
And "far apart", insofar as the dark energy component of the Hubble constant is concerned, may not be all that far apart after all. This paper, "Local dark energy: HST evidence from the expansion flow around Cen A/M83 galaxy group" (pdf), is particularly exciting with regard to antigravity effects in/near the Local Group and Cen A/M83.
I am not an astronomer -- yet,
-l
Not to mention the hospitals.
-l
Heh, I think in New York City, the POLICE ticket you for that!
-l