Yes, and let's hear it for nurses, without whom most hospitals would collapse into chaos.
But I think I was talking about INSURANCE payments, and the billing process, rather than absolute income. If you've ever looked at a typical itemized-for-insurance hospital bill, it's clear it's far more about sucking money while the sucking is good, than it is about patient care or even making normal expenses.
Also, something like 90% of some surgeons' income now goes to pay malpractice insurance. How does this benefit anyone but the insurance companies (and the occasional ambulance-chasing lawyer)??
It never hurts to be the one who owns the surplus supplies of something other people have an increasing need for... yeah, it may not fund the country today, but it might tomorrow, as demand increases and supply dwindles.
Thus it behooves us to be first on the scene as asteroid miners, so we don't wind up as one of those beggar states.:)
We've been broadcasting Rosetta Stones into the aether for a hundred years. I daresay any species with the smarts to cross interstellar distances, and who actually gives a damn about communicating, will already have a fairly good method of making sense from such broadcasts and developing a pidgin for basic communication.
Exploration requires one or more of the following to happen at all:
1) a need to spread one's own culture and/or genes, and/or
2) curiosity or acquisitiveness, both of which are fundamentally forms of aggression (poking into someone else's space, or taking what doesn't belong to you whether from desire or from need)
Any aliens with the gumption to come this far out in bumfuck nullspace are likely to be trouble for us, even if not intentionally so. So it may be fine to be friendly, but we'd best be on our guard as well, *especially* if they =seem= totally benign.
The notion that just because they're "more advanced" they'll automatically be our friends is like assuming that because DHS has better equipment than average folks, it's a friend to personal freedom.
If someone just arrived in the ambulance and is obviously in bad shape, you may not have time to wait for those records or digest their import. But it seems now that making a good educated guess with a high probability of saving a life takes a back seat to being sure of avoiding all possible mistakes.
I wonder if anyone died because of this incident, simply because they didn't get treatment in time.
In other words, getting paid is more important than human lives.
This seems to contradict the mission statement of the hospital industry as it was conceived, but I think is a good indicator of where insurance-driven (which is to say, privately socialized) medicine is headed.
"Unless it's acid-free paper, a book will last maybe fifty years before it starts deteriorating. I have old paperback books I bought when I was young that are nearly unreadable now. Paper is far more nebulous than electronics."
Your old paperbacks are not good examples, as they were =intended= to have short-term durability and be more or less disposable -- similar to today's CDRs. A better comparison from a backup standpoint would be good quality hardbacks.
Here's a 5.25" floppy. It's less than 15 years old. I'd warrant not 1% of the people reading this post have the equipment required to read this once-common format -- assuming, of course, that the data on the disk is still readable, which is highly doubtful.
Conversely, I have here a book published in 1848. It's still perfectly readable to anyone with eyes, no other equipment required.
The problem really is how often one must upgrade the storage media, and how durable it is in the face of failure. Books can burn, but meanwhile they can be copied by anyone with pen and ink. Digital media requires matching hardware just to read it, another set of hardware to print it out, and rigidly regular backups to newer media forms as old ones age out and ultimately become unavailable.
You're both right. We're failing to save the truly important stuff in a more-durable format, AND we're clogging the same system with trivial shit (of interest to archeologists, but worthless otherwise).
I had the same thought -- maybe they just swung their heads down periodically (grazing posture) and that acted as a blood pump. Maybe they had valve structures in the big arteries that prevented blood from flowing back down their necks. Who knows? But holding a neck that heavy out straight in front requires an awful lot of ass end to balance the weight, *plus* extremely strong shoulder structure.
As to modern critters -- Giraffes are as big as some of the midrange dinos, and don't seem to have a huge problem with blood pressure, yet their heads are held aloft...
I know someone who made a good living in the late 1980s by exporting used king-cab dually pickups to wealthy Japanese, who would pay 2-3 times the going price just to own one. Having a big truck sitting in your driveway was a status symbol. Never mind that these bigger pickups weren't even legal to drive (nor would they fit on the roads) in some of the areas where the buyers lived -- they bought 'em anyway.
At least Americans who buy Hummers actually drive the damn things, rather than using them solely as part of the local dick-measuring contest, as was the case with wealthy Japanese buying oversized pickup trucks.
Rather, the Chinese don't protest because protest is unsafe. Here's an example:
When my sister was in China about a year ago, she asked her guide about Tiananmen. Her guide replied:
"One day there were 50,000 people. The next day there were 50,000 bicycles."
The meaning was clear: 50,000 dead people (or however many, but that's the number the Chinese guide used) left behind 50,000 bicycles. BUT -- no one will say outright that anyone was KILLED, let alone by the gov't.
Interesting, thanks -- I'll give it a read later (just got in the door and am worn out).
Don't know of any way to send private messages here, but you can go to my homepage and use an email link there.
City-data.com forums have private messages, I'm Reziac there too. I hang out in the Montana forums a lot. Check out the thread about "Why are some people so mad?" Also check out the "Montana to secede" thread in the "Politics and other controversies" segment.
That may be... but if we're the only nation that has it in surplus, then WE are in a position to dictate the market, to our own benefit -- and it's about time we started looking after ourselves, because no one else is going to do it.
Dumping it all at once for a one-shot profit would be stupid. Nope, you dole it out at a competitive price, and fund the country for years to come. No need to go all Walmart about it.
My sister's work has offices in China. It's become clear to them (and the Chinese will tell you this to your face, if you ask) that China's REAL motivation with all this new "capitalism" is in sucking all the wealth out of the West.
Which goes right along with what you said. (Interesting post, BTW.)
Which doesn't seem to have stopped the U.S. from making loans to countries that historically have been in default more often than not. (Sometimes I think in pursuit of being seen as the benevolent worldfather, we've become just plain stupid.)
And maybe we'd be better off if we weren't spending 2 out of every 3 future dollars on interest to service our debts. Learning to live within our means, the hard way if need be, might ultimately be a Good Thing.
IF we were to default on that debt -- what country would be stupid enough to buy it from China?? Other countries have even less ability to coerce us into paying.
[I do think we are fast approaching a point where we'll either have to default and nationalize, or become a vassal state.]
Slashdot Mirror
Yes, and let's hear it for nurses, without whom most hospitals would collapse into chaos.
But I think I was talking about INSURANCE payments, and the billing process, rather than absolute income. If you've ever looked at a typical itemized-for-insurance hospital bill, it's clear it's far more about sucking money while the sucking is good, than it is about patient care or even making normal expenses.
Also, something like 90% of some surgeons' income now goes to pay malpractice insurance. How does this benefit anyone but the insurance companies (and the occasional ambulance-chasing lawyer)??
It never hurts to be the one who owns the surplus supplies of something other people have an increasing need for... yeah, it may not fund the country today, but it might tomorrow, as demand increases and supply dwindles.
Thus it behooves us to be first on the scene as asteroid miners, so we don't wind up as one of those beggar states. :)
[eyeing sig]
"No population -- no popular unrest!!"
-- Groachi saying
We've been broadcasting Rosetta Stones into the aether for a hundred years. I daresay any species with the smarts to cross interstellar distances, and who actually gives a damn about communicating, will already have a fairly good method of making sense from such broadcasts and developing a pidgin for basic communication.
Exploration requires one or more of the following to happen at all:
1) a need to spread one's own culture and/or genes, and/or
2) curiosity or acquisitiveness, both of which are fundamentally forms of aggression (poking into someone else's space, or taking what doesn't belong to you whether from desire or from need)
Any aliens with the gumption to come this far out in bumfuck nullspace are likely to be trouble for us, even if not intentionally so. So it may be fine to be friendly, but we'd best be on our guard as well, *especially* if they =seem= totally benign.
The notion that just because they're "more advanced" they'll automatically be our friends is like assuming that because DHS has better equipment than average folks, it's a friend to personal freedom.
If someone just arrived in the ambulance and is obviously in bad shape, you may not have time to wait for those records or digest their import. But it seems now that making a good educated guess with a high probability of saving a life takes a back seat to being sure of avoiding all possible mistakes.
I wonder if anyone died because of this incident, simply because they didn't get treatment in time.
In other words, getting paid is more important than human lives.
This seems to contradict the mission statement of the hospital industry as it was conceived, but I think is a good indicator of where insurance-driven (which is to say, privately socialized) medicine is headed.
"Unless it's acid-free paper, a book will last maybe fifty years before it starts deteriorating. I have old paperback books I bought when I was young that are nearly unreadable now. Paper is far more nebulous than electronics."
Your old paperbacks are not good examples, as they were =intended= to have short-term durability and be more or less disposable -- similar to today's CDRs. A better comparison from a backup standpoint would be good quality hardbacks.
Here's a 5.25" floppy. It's less than 15 years old. I'd warrant not 1% of the people reading this post have the equipment required to read this once-common format -- assuming, of course, that the data on the disk is still readable, which is highly doubtful.
Conversely, I have here a book published in 1848. It's still perfectly readable to anyone with eyes, no other equipment required.
The problem really is how often one must upgrade the storage media, and how durable it is in the face of failure. Books can burn, but meanwhile they can be copied by anyone with pen and ink. Digital media requires matching hardware just to read it, another set of hardware to print it out, and rigidly regular backups to newer media forms as old ones age out and ultimately become unavailable.
You're both right. We're failing to save the truly important stuff in a more-durable format, AND we're clogging the same system with trivial shit (of interest to archeologists, but worthless otherwise).
The Cold War ended largely because Reagan maneuvered the USSR into economic collapse. Bridges, built or blown up, had nothing to do with that.
Now we're "building bridges" to China, and they're taking our economy to the cleaners.
[tightening my tinfoil hat]
Or they generate failures to demonstrate the need for tighter security measures on the citizenry...
Or go out into the California desert and mine your own. No one will notice.
If I can shoot back, I'm a lot tougher to coerce.
I conclude that gov'ts disarm their citizens to make it easier for ANYone to terrorize them.
We've been "building bridges" ever since WW2. It doesn't appear to have done any great good.
Sarchasm[tm] aside, the reason they weren't legal in part of Japan is because the roads there were too narrow to accomodate dually trucks.
I had the same thought -- maybe they just swung their heads down periodically (grazing posture) and that acted as a blood pump. Maybe they had valve structures in the big arteries that prevented blood from flowing back down their necks. Who knows? But holding a neck that heavy out straight in front requires an awful lot of ass end to balance the weight, *plus* extremely strong shoulder structure.
As to modern critters -- Giraffes are as big as some of the midrange dinos, and don't seem to have a huge problem with blood pressure, yet their heads are held aloft...
I know someone who made a good living in the late 1980s by exporting used king-cab dually pickups to wealthy Japanese, who would pay 2-3 times the going price just to own one. Having a big truck sitting in your driveway was a status symbol. Never mind that these bigger pickups weren't even legal to drive (nor would they fit on the roads) in some of the areas where the buyers lived -- they bought 'em anyway.
At least Americans who buy Hummers actually drive the damn things, rather than using them solely as part of the local dick-measuring contest, as was the case with wealthy Japanese buying oversized pickup trucks.
Government-approved protests -- real liberty, eh? :(
"Democracy imposed from without is the severest form of tyranny."
-- Lloyd Biggle Jr.
Rather, the Chinese don't protest because protest is unsafe. Here's an example:
When my sister was in China about a year ago, she asked her guide about Tiananmen. Her guide replied:
"One day there were 50,000 people. The next day there were 50,000 bicycles."
The meaning was clear: 50,000 dead people (or however many, but that's the number the Chinese guide used) left behind 50,000 bicycles. BUT -- no one will say outright that anyone was KILLED, let alone by the gov't.
Interesting, thanks -- I'll give it a read later (just got in the door and am worn out).
Don't know of any way to send private messages here, but you can go to my homepage and use an email link there.
City-data.com forums have private messages, I'm Reziac there too. I hang out in the Montana forums a lot. Check out the thread about "Why are some people so mad?" Also check out the "Montana to secede" thread in the "Politics and other controversies" segment.
Um... guess have 'em here.. http://www.city-data.com/forum/montana/268463-montana-secede-new-post.html and http://www.city-data.com/forum/montana/44408-why-some-people-so-mad-new-post.html
That may be... but if we're the only nation that has it in surplus, then WE are in a position to dictate the market, to our own benefit -- and it's about time we started looking after ourselves, because no one else is going to do it.
Dumping it all at once for a one-shot profit would be stupid. Nope, you dole it out at a competitive price, and fund the country for years to come. No need to go all Walmart about it.
My sister's work has offices in China. It's become clear to them (and the Chinese will tell you this to your face, if you ask) that China's REAL motivation with all this new "capitalism" is in sucking all the wealth out of the West.
Which goes right along with what you said. (Interesting post, BTW.)
Which doesn't seem to have stopped the U.S. from making loans to countries that historically have been in default more often than not. (Sometimes I think in pursuit of being seen as the benevolent worldfather, we've become just plain stupid.)
And maybe we'd be better off if we weren't spending 2 out of every 3 future dollars on interest to service our debts. Learning to live within our means, the hard way if need be, might ultimately be a Good Thing.
IF we were to default on that debt -- what country would be stupid enough to buy it from China?? Other countries have even less ability to coerce us into paying.
[I do think we are fast approaching a point where we'll either have to default and nationalize, or become a vassal state.]