I was kind of interested in an absolute dollar figure for your wifes total care, including medico co-payments, insurance rates and out-of-pocket expenses. Percentages are less than useless when neither you nor I know what the other earns or our respective tax threshholds. The injury was a minor fracture in my wrist, and I wass able to deal with the pain as I had only 6 days left on my contract before I flew home. It wasn't pretty, but it worked. Also, there may be some confusion with semantics - where I'm from if you are injured you go to the hospital/GP and THEY will asses what level of care you need. Whats the difference between emergency care, urgent care or other beside price bracket?
(BTW, I'm glad your Missus is on the mend)
This is false. You simply haven't yet received an unfavorable ruling from NICE.
Huh? Almost the entirety of "unfavourable" rulings are because either the drug doesn't work or won't be suitable for that particular patients issues. NICE is generally accepted as being cruel to be kind, true, but at least they try to make decision based on patients needs, not whether or not a pharma company wants to pad it's bottom line with more ineffective drugs.
http://www.hsj.co.uk/legaJ-briefing-nice-rulings/54290.article
She was pulling your leg. About the only issue to deal with when using NHS is a wait. The reason "Wealthy" Canadians pay the money to be treated in the US, as has been said many times in this discussion, is mostly to either a) avoid any waiting times, or b) some people equate cost with quality - so the more expensive option MUST somehow be better.
As though people don't die outside the US. Talk about confirmation bias at work.
Who knows? Maybe in some other country, they would have decided that she wasn't worth saving.
Youre hypocrisy is showing. How much did that care cost? If this argument is going to be fought with one anecote after another, I could tell an almost identical story about my mother here in Australia - however she received top-notch care for 6 years before the cancer was completely removed, all for a total cost of nothing. And that includes her medications and hospital stays. I recently spent a few months working in the US and heard stories like yours - but they were far outweighed by the multitude who receive less-than-ideal care, and pay so much it bankrupts them. I suffered a small injury while working there, and my boss thought it might be prudent to go to the hospital. After being told how much it was going to cost simply for an x-ray and 10 minutes with a doctor I balked and waited a week until I got home. The price the US hospital was going to charge me with my traveller's insurance? $2000. Cost at home? You guessed it. Nada. Explain to me how I would have "got what I paid for" with a system that is padded so drastically to fabricate costs and inflate the cost of healthcare so insurance companies continue making money hand over fist?
I think you are dead right - and in preperation for this I (and a few other security-savvy friends) are trying to build a distributed collection of media - one friend is collating and collecting movies, another software, myself music. I'm already up to about 9TB of music alone, all full albums, id3 tagged, named and all above 256 quality - most of it stuff I would never listen to by choice. This way when the ISP's/corps get all trigger happy at least we have a great basis for a useful sneakernet/darknet.
There you go, I just modded you up. Feel free to... d'oh!
Re:For me, Grafitti is to Art...
on
Reverse Graffiti
·
· Score: 1
Juvenile, heh. You do know it's been around longer than home computing, right? Would you consider the internet to have (or be) it's own subculture? Gamers? Hackers? Anyway, your puerile drivel says a hell of a lot more about you than it does about me. And believe me, I'm having a great life, thanks for your concern!
Re:Plenty of colors for the dirty deed.
on
Reverse Graffiti
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
There's a reasoning behind this practice that those outside the culture don't readily understand. An unspoken rule of bombing is that you do not paint over anyone else's graffiti unless you can do better (or want to start a fight). If a business pays a known, respected, talanted graff artist to paint a masterpiece on a wall, no two-bit tagger is going to spray over it, or they will be ostracised (if not targetted) by the local crews. It's a bit like having a lion piss in your yard to keep the cats away.
Re:For me, Grafitti is to Art...
on
Reverse Graffiti
·
· Score: 1
Redlands, mate. You're out by about 20 mins on the freeway.:P Close though!
Re:For me, Grafitti is to Art...
on
Reverse Graffiti
·
· Score: 4, Interesting
I agree completely. I'm 28 years old, and have been painting since I was 11 in Brisbane, Australia (pretty much my entire life). My memories of my teenage years are mostly of running from the cops, jumping trains and sneaking around with a bag full of cans. As my crew and I have got older, we've noticed that police/government are starting to realise that outdated graffiti control methods are not working to minimise damage done to public property, and the shift by Local Governments is now to provide exactly this type of outlet to it's youth. In fact our crew has paved the way for the local kids in our area by getting together with Local Government and working out solutions that should make both parties happy, ie;
Giving the kids somewhere to put up, thereby lessening the amount of shitty tagging around the area
By providing workshops for the local youth to learn about and become a part of the four elements, (Graffiti, DJ'ing, Breakdancing, MC'ing), which then breeds respect for the culture and an affinity for your local area and crews.
It's been a pretty big success with the locals and the youth, every workshop we run is booked out almost straight away, and with local government helping with financial aid, we can offer these workshops for free.
And who knows, a grafitti artist may even become a productive and creative member of society, instead of a drone who got busted for tagging once too often.
We recently had an auction of artwork painted in the workshops over the last year and raised quite a lot of money, of which half we are using to plan more workshops, and the remainder we donated to a local charity dealing with drug affected teenagers. I think thats a pretty sweet contribution by a bunch of degenerate vandals:) I did like your joke, though. I'm currently employed full time in IT for the government, and it's an odd feeling to leave a managers meeting, go home, throw on your black hoodie and hit the streets for a couple of hours. If only my boss had any idea what I got up to...
P.S. If anyone has any qustions regarding the programs I'm more than happy to provide you with any info you like, just email me at the above or reply here.
Same here. I'm currently working on websites for a few of bands that I am friends with. I get 2 cartons of beer per site for the finished product, and already two of the bands have confirmed to play at a birthday party i'm throwing for my girlfriend in a month. Very nice trade off indeed.
Re:Stock up on untainted books now
on
H2G2 Film Website
·
· Score: 1
You've hit the nail right on the head. I totally agree that these books are beneficial to the younger children, and frankly, my love of books was spawned from reading comics and the like as a little kid, literature that was/is considered low-brow entertainment (you know, the old cowboys/WWII paperback fiction, etc). I would be happy for kids to read the back of cornflake boxes if it inspired them to read more. I just hate the way some adults imply the Harry Potter books are worthy of ranking with the greats, when I see them more on the level of pulp fiction for kids. Pointless and badly written, but that's not what kids look for in a book, I suppose.
Re:Stock up on untainted books now
on
H2G2 Film Website
·
· Score: 1
What, so morons could learn to read? The Harry Potter books are the mostly pointless, infantile plotless pages of garbage I have ever seen bound into some kind of story. These books are aimed at children. It's obvious too, by the way the book reads like a computer game, with no overall story but instead a bunch of small "quests" one after the other, that it was written especially for the ritalin-infused children who couldn't hold their attention on one plotline for longer than 20 pages.
The only adults that read these books should be parents, but only to see the garbage that's printed so they know not to waste money on this drivel for their children. Get them onto some quality literature instead, please! Nothing shits me more than seeing adults reading these books and thinking it's actually quality fiction. Unfortunately, it's usually the same people who listen to the top 40 and think it's all quality music. They are just NOT GOOD BOOKS.
(yes yes, mod me down because I don't agree with you)
No GTA? That's right, because it's an old game. Instead they have True Crimes:Streets of LA (IMHO far better gameplay than GTA3 with more blood, bad language and all the naughty things that make your points moot).
Crikey, I feel really old then, and i'm only 29. My C64 was actually my third or fourth computer. I owned a Spectravideo, a TRS80 and a couple of others before I fell in love with my C64.
Yeah, i've copped that shit plying BF:V and DC online. It is not camping, it's trying to hold a spawn point/flag, ffs. Although, I have noticed how frustrating it can be in both BF:V and BF1942/DC to be down to your last spawn and have the opposing team covering it with snipers, napalm drops and artillery. It's frustrating, and makes some people VERY upset, but the reality is you wouldn't be in that position if you could hold on to your spawn points anyway. If you've been driven back to your final spawn, what do you want the opposition to do, hold off shooting your players till you even it up? Never gonna happen. And you know what? It shouldn't either. That's life, kids.
Yes, apparently they will stilll print okay if your printer resolution is set somewhere between stupid-crazy fresh and too-dope extreme. Only crazy-mad wicked is considered too high for the home printer.
In Australia, a movie ticket is AUD$10-13, and the smallest box of popcorn is AUD$5.90 (USD$4.40).
I'm in Australia too, and it works out far cheaper for me to buy the movie outright on DVD and get some takeaway dinner than it does to take my girlfriend to the movies and split a large popcorn with her. That's pretty bad. The only movies i've gone to the cinema to see in the last few years have been indy films that will most likely never see DVD release over here, and the Lord of The Rings Trilogy. I don't think i'll go to the cinema at all any more, and you know what? a lot of my friends are in the same boat. It's too cost prohibitive, and there is almost no value for money.
Slashdot Mirror
I was kind of interested in an absolute dollar figure for your wifes total care, including medico co-payments, insurance rates and out-of-pocket expenses. Percentages are less than useless when neither you nor I know what the other earns or our respective tax threshholds. The injury was a minor fracture in my wrist, and I wass able to deal with the pain as I had only 6 days left on my contract before I flew home. It wasn't pretty, but it worked. Also, there may be some confusion with semantics - where I'm from if you are injured you go to the hospital/GP and THEY will asses what level of care you need. Whats the difference between emergency care, urgent care or other beside price bracket? (BTW, I'm glad your Missus is on the mend)
This is false. You simply haven't yet received an unfavorable ruling from NICE.
Huh? Almost the entirety of "unfavourable" rulings are because either the drug doesn't work or won't be suitable for that particular patients issues. NICE is generally accepted as being cruel to be kind, true, but at least they try to make decision based on patients needs, not whether or not a pharma company wants to pad it's bottom line with more ineffective drugs. http://www.hsj.co.uk/legaJ-briefing-nice-rulings/54290.article
She was pulling your leg. About the only issue to deal with when using NHS is a wait. The reason "Wealthy" Canadians pay the money to be treated in the US, as has been said many times in this discussion, is mostly to either a) avoid any waiting times, or b) some people equate cost with quality - so the more expensive option MUST somehow be better.
As though people don't die outside the US. Talk about confirmation bias at work.
Who knows? Maybe in some other country, they would have decided that she wasn't worth saving.
Youre hypocrisy is showing. How much did that care cost? If this argument is going to be fought with one anecote after another, I could tell an almost identical story about my mother here in Australia - however she received top-notch care for 6 years before the cancer was completely removed, all for a total cost of nothing. And that includes her medications and hospital stays. I recently spent a few months working in the US and heard stories like yours - but they were far outweighed by the multitude who receive less-than-ideal care, and pay so much it bankrupts them. I suffered a small injury while working there, and my boss thought it might be prudent to go to the hospital. After being told how much it was going to cost simply for an x-ray and 10 minutes with a doctor I balked and waited a week until I got home. The price the US hospital was going to charge me with my traveller's insurance? $2000. Cost at home? You guessed it. Nada. Explain to me how I would have "got what I paid for" with a system that is padded so drastically to fabricate costs and inflate the cost of healthcare so insurance companies continue making money hand over fist?
I think you are dead right - and in preperation for this I (and a few other security-savvy friends) are trying to build a distributed collection of media - one friend is collating and collecting movies, another software, myself music. I'm already up to about 9TB of music alone, all full albums, id3 tagged, named and all above 256 quality - most of it stuff I would never listen to by choice. This way when the ISP's/corps get all trigger happy at least we have a great basis for a useful sneakernet/darknet.
They sure do, and they get chocolate covered biscuits to eat as they are doing so... Spoilt bastards.
There you go, I just modded you up. Feel free to... d'oh!
Juvenile, heh. You do know it's been around longer than home computing, right? Would you consider the internet to have (or be) it's own subculture? Gamers? Hackers? Anyway, your puerile drivel says a hell of a lot more about you than it does about me. And believe me, I'm having a great life, thanks for your concern!
There's a reasoning behind this practice that those outside the culture don't readily understand. An unspoken rule of bombing is that you do not paint over anyone else's graffiti unless you can do better (or want to start a fight). If a business pays a known, respected, talanted graff artist to paint a masterpiece on a wall, no two-bit tagger is going to spray over it, or they will be ostracised (if not targetted) by the local crews. It's a bit like having a lion piss in your yard to keep the cats away.
Redlands, mate. You're out by about 20 mins on the freeway. :P Close though!
Giving the kids somewhere to put up, thereby lessening the amount of shitty tagging around the area
By providing workshops for the local youth to learn about and become a part of the four elements, (Graffiti, DJ'ing, Breakdancing, MC'ing), which then breeds respect for the culture and an affinity for your local area and crews.
It's been a pretty big success with the locals and the youth, every workshop we run is booked out almost straight away, and with local government helping with financial aid, we can offer these workshops for free.
And who knows, a grafitti artist may even become a productive and creative member of society, instead of a drone who got busted for tagging once too often.
We recently had an auction of artwork painted in the workshops over the last year and raised quite a lot of money, of which half we are using to plan more workshops, and the remainder we donated to a local charity dealing with drug affected teenagers. I think thats a pretty sweet contribution by a bunch of degenerate vandals :) I did like your joke, though. I'm currently employed full time in IT for the government, and it's an odd feeling to leave a managers meeting, go home, throw on your black hoodie and hit the streets for a couple of hours. If only my boss had any idea what I got up to...
P.S. If anyone has any qustions regarding the programs I'm more than happy to provide you with any info you like, just email me at the above or reply here.
"Bah, you only winged him, now he's a unitarian." -Rod Flanders
Same here. I'm currently working on websites for a few of bands that I am friends with. I get 2 cartons of beer per site for the finished product, and already two of the bands have confirmed to play at a birthday party i'm throwing for my girlfriend in a month. Very nice trade off indeed.
Episode 3: The Search for Curly's Gold
You've hit the nail right on the head. I totally agree that these books are beneficial to the younger children, and frankly, my love of books was spawned from reading comics and the like as a little kid, literature that was/is considered low-brow entertainment (you know, the old cowboys/WWII paperback fiction, etc). I would be happy for kids to read the back of cornflake boxes if it inspired them to read more. I just hate the way some adults imply the Harry Potter books are worthy of ranking with the greats, when I see them more on the level of pulp fiction for kids. Pointless and badly written, but that's not what kids look for in a book, I suppose.
The only adults that read these books should be parents, but only to see the garbage that's printed so they know not to waste money on this drivel for their children. Get them onto some quality literature instead, please! Nothing shits me more than seeing adults reading these books and thinking it's actually quality fiction. Unfortunately, it's usually the same people who listen to the top 40 and think it's all quality music. They are just NOT GOOD BOOKS.
(yes yes, mod me down because I don't agree with you)
I think you're confusing kauf with kopf. :D
No GTA? That's right, because it's an old game. Instead they have True Crimes:Streets of LA (IMHO far better gameplay than GTA3 with more blood, bad language and all the naughty things that make your points moot).
You know what? I think you just need to get more organazized.
I dunno, but you can certainly search in Klingon.
Crikey, I feel really old then, and i'm only 29. My C64 was actually my third or fourth computer. I owned a Spectravideo, a TRS80 and a couple of others before I fell in love with my C64.
Yeah, i've copped that shit plying BF:V and DC online. It is not camping, it's trying to hold a spawn point/flag, ffs. Although, I have noticed how frustrating it can be in both BF:V and BF1942/DC to be down to your last spawn and have the opposing team covering it with snipers, napalm drops and artillery. It's frustrating, and makes some people VERY upset, but the reality is you wouldn't be in that position if you could hold on to your spawn points anyway. If you've been driven back to your final spawn, what do you want the opposition to do, hold off shooting your players till you even it up? Never gonna happen. And you know what? It shouldn't either. That's life, kids.
That's the most romantic thing i've EVER heard.
;o)
I'm in Australia too, and it works out far cheaper for me to buy the movie outright on DVD and get some takeaway dinner than it does to take my girlfriend to the movies and split a large popcorn with her. That's pretty bad. The only movies i've gone to the cinema to see in the last few years have been indy films that will most likely never see DVD release over here, and the Lord of The Rings Trilogy. I don't think i'll go to the cinema at all any more, and you know what? a lot of my friends are in the same boat. It's too cost prohibitive, and there is almost no value for money.