As someone who finished watching "From the Earth to the Moon" earlier tonight, I can say that I can't wait for humans to return to the moon. We do need a permanent presence on the moon, for many reasons, such as; separation of the human species in case of global tragedy, explore moon's geology (where did that thing come from?), explore theories about colonization, biospheres, and self-sustenance, launch point for future missions to distant worlds (if we could build a manufacturing center on the moon, its 1/6th gravity would be very beneficial to launching new craft), and many, many, many more benefits both seen and unseen.
Returning to the moon is in humanity's best interest, and is clearly the path to the future. Focus on the space program will push development and inventions to help push the edge of what is capable. I see space travel as one of the grand challenges we will face in our lifetime, and it would be a shame to hesitate when we have already taken so many steps toward that goal. As someone who was born prior to the last Apollo mission, I feel it is a crime that we have abandoned the moon for the majority of my lifetime.
Unfortunately, the political winds have not been blowing favorably towards NASA, and it may take another visionary like JFK to take us back to the moon and beyond.
My school tends to cater to working grad students working on their Masters degree, and get their health insurance through their employer. As a full time student, I am in the minority.
Actually I don't listen to talk radio, mostly because radio talk show hosts are there to entertain you and they do so by espousing their view on different subjects, without regard to the facts. In academia, what we learn is based on studies and fact, and exploration of ideas and questions about what we observe. While we may have opinions about why things are as they are, those opinions may drive us to study why we think what we think, and explore other options in coming up with a reasonable conclusion.
There are many factors that are contributing to the increasing cost of health care in the United States, however medicare and medicaid are not reasons why Joe Citizen is paying more for health insurance. As those are government programs, the taxpayer is paying for any fraud. If you are talking about Medicare Part D, and the federal government not being able to directly negotiate drug prices, of course they don't negotiate drug prices, that is the job of the health insurance companies who operate under the Part D rules, they directly negotiate with the drug companies so that they can offer a drug plan that is less expensive than the other Part D plans, so they can attract the seniors, disabled and the poor to their plan! The more they attract, the more clout they have, and the lower the price they can get from the drug companies. Medicare is only reimbursing the health insurance companies depending on how many people have signed up for their plan. For every person they have signed up for their plan, they get a set amount of money from the government. No more or no less than any other health insurance company.
Part D is a good plan that utilizes the skill-set of an established industry, and doesn't mandate government control over the pharmaceutical industry. As a result, government spending for this program has been much less than originally estimated. Because of Part D more senior citizens, disabled, and poor are able to receive prescription drugs for chronic problems. Also, Part D has been able to actually lower the cost of health care for this particular group of people (compare Part D plans to other prescription drug plans).
If we had a coherent national health system, costs would be much more reasonable.
Depends on what you mean by a coherent national health system. Hilary Clinton proposed a coherent national health system in the early '90s but there was too much resistance to the idea. If you mean a nationalized system like Canada or the United Kingdom, the lower cost comes at a loss of growth in development of new procedures and techniques. Consider my earlier example, where if my friend had been in a country with a nationalized health care system, his son would have been born paralyzed, and the government would have had to pay for his care for his entire lifetime. Without investment in new techniques and procedures, he would not have had the opportunity to walk or care for himself. Surely a smaller investment up front is better than a lifetime of costs? However, developing those techniques and procedures can be very expensive, and it is very hard to justify those expenses in a nationalized health care system when the primary focus is on keeping costs low, and utilizing proven techniques and procedures rather than experimental ones.
While every business is in business to make money, most would take the 2% over cost that medicare and medicaid grant over the alternative; patients without the means to pay for their own health care who default on payments, or declare bankruptcy. There are a lot more stakeholders involved in the United States health care than just insurance and pharmaceutical companies.
While a humorous comment, it highlights what makes the American health care system so unique. We are so fiercely independent, that a good majority of Americans don't like having the government telling us what to do, and this includes how we take care of our body and our health. This system allows for many benefits as well as problems. The most visible problem is the ever-increasing cost of health care, and the number of people like yourselves who are falling through the cracks because good health insurance is only available through employers who can command group rates. On the flip side, because the state is not dictating how health care is conducting itself, American health care is a hot-bed of new procedures and techniques that push the limits of health care because people are willing to pay for an unproven technique even if it has even a small chance of success if the alternative is not acceptable. For example, the second son of a friend of mine was diagnose with Spina Bifida and instead of accepting that his child would be born paralyzed, was able to find a surgeon who was willing to perform surgery on the child while he was still in the womb! (notice that of the four hospitals in the world that perform this unique and complicated surgery, all of them are located in the United States)
As a graduate student, I am faced with paying for a cut-rate, we-don't-pay-for-anything-unless-you-get-hit-by-a- bus student plan, or a much more expensive individual plan. There are very few national health care providers, and you would be well suited to search for and find a regional health insurance company. In the mid-west, I have been leaning towards Anthem as my insurance provider, and hope to have a plan from them to help me start off the new year.
Except for one problem - many states are demanding that Diebold add a paper tally to their machines, but are not willing to change the original contract.
For example, lets say you contract with an entity to offer a set number of widgets, and during delivery the entity demands that you provide more than the contract states without renegotiation of the contract. Would you provide it free of charge?
Neither will Diebold. Don't believe the conspiracy theorists. If Maryland and other states want a paper tally, all they have to do is pay for it. (Which is another matter all together as it was the "Help America Vote Act" passed after the 2000 elections that paid for the machines to begin with - now to "fix" them, Maryland and other states have to find funding elsewhere.)
Upon returning to school to get my graduate degree, I had to take some undergrad prerequisites, including one 500+ student class where the teacher recorded her lectures, which were available immediately after class concluded on the university's podcasting site. The site was password protected (university authentication), but I don't know if it was linked up to any kind of scheduling database. You only had to know the section you were taking to download the file, and there were no extra limitations.
This was a happy solution for myself, as I missed a couple of days for being sick - being able to download and listen to the lecture helped immensely. I know others who downloaded the lectures as part of a review process in preparation for examinations.
However, like any class resource, it is up to the student to use or abuse at their will. This same class offered extra credit study sessions, dual lectures (doesn't matter which one you attend as long as you attend one of them), extra credit extra curricular class workshops, a half dozen teachers assistants who were in the degree program (and ran many of these extra credit programs), and many, many other resources to allow the student to better themselves. All options were freely offered, and I don't know of any that were underutilized. There are always going to be students who are not going to push themselves to be the best they can be. It is not up to the professor to push them - all they can do is provide opportunity, and encouragement. To do anything else invites trouble, either personal or professional. With a resource like podcasting, best thing to do is to provide it as a resource, and let the students determine how to best utilize it.
I am returning to graduate school this week, and while I attended summer school, some of my classmates did not. Most of us have had professional experience before returning for a master's degree. One colleague of mine took an internship over the summer, and worked on developing a new internal software package. Previously she had been a project manager at a couple of different companies, and had developed a successful strategy for project management. At her internship, she was a project member, and for the first time got to see things from a different perspective. The project was not well defined, and no specific goals were set until much later in the project causing a lot of people to re-work things they had previously created. As well, the project manager had poor communication skills, and did not communicate the status of the project well with members of the project. As a result, she found herself working 19 hour days, and well over a month late on this project.
As a former project manager, she had the experience, and asked questions about the nature of the project to help flush out details, as well as provide a much more narrow scope for the project. However, because she was the "intern" many of her questions were dismissed, and she was labeled as being "too detailed."
She has committed to staying with the company until the project is completed, even though it may interfere with classes for the next couple of weeks, but she feels it is her duty to see the project come to a conclusion. As such, she has the skills, resources, and know-how to make the project a reality, but it is my suspicion that the employers were afraid to give her too much responsibility in the company or with the project because of her temporary status. As well, it is obvious that the company does not have a good project manager, and the company expects mediocrity because it knows nothing different. Those who desire to excel may find themselves working against the corporate current, and may ultimately be defeated by it. I certainly wouldn't want to work in such an organization.
That whole law is utterly rubbish! The Law;
* dictates child rearing and punishment,
* allows police to disperse groups of any TWO people at will,
* bans immitation weapons,
* allows city councils to label any publicly displayed painting or artwork as "graffiti" and order the land owner to remove it at their cost (even if they weren't the ones to create it),
* if you have 20 or more people on your property, or in your house, police can label it a rave, and incarcerate everyone at said "rave,"
* allows city councils to set a hight limit on plants so as to not block the light onto your neighbor's property, and charge a fee to perform the maintainance if the owner is not willing to cut their plants down to size,
* Strengthens ASBOs which basically criminalizes behavior that is otherwise lawful.
If the United States were to pass such a law, I would call the USA a lost cause, and move to Mexico.
Consider the avian flu (H5N1). The World Health Organization has found evidence that this disease has mutated and is now starting to transmit from human to human, where previously it was only transmitted from bird to human. (link) The chance for a world pandemic has greatly increased with this revelation, yet people and communities who have prepared themselves, and are in good health to begin with will most likely survive the infection, or avoid becoming infected in the first place.
Similarly, it is the computer networks and systems that are focused on security that tend to be the best protected when it comes to zero-day exploits. Good network and system administrators know the general weaknesses of the computers they are responsible for, and work to protect those weaknesses from exposure. Good administrators that have planned well, tend to monitor an attempted attack on their network, while poor administrators tend to find themselves recovering from a successful attack.
From another perspective, the author's ideas have some merit. In biological systems, it is only after one has been infected and their immune system fights off a disease that they are impervious to repeat infections. In this way entire societies build up resistances to deadly diseases. For example, Jared Diamond believes 95% of Native Americans were killed off by diseases carried by European settlers who were largely immune to said diseases. (link)
In a way, as different portions of the computer systems and software are attacked, the flaws that allow for such attacks are, in general, corrected. Problems identified in one attack can be applied to other areas, and as such, can affect system-wide changes toward a better system (think buffer overruns), as well as more security-minded design (think security developments in IE7 and Vista).
I'm not advocating that the world governments should let virus writers and crackers have free reign of the Internet. A balanced response would allow for leniency for those who have no malice in their intentions. Of course, this is difficult to prove, and from personal experience, I have yet to meet a virus writer with purely altruistic intentions. Also there are corporate interests to deal with as well. How embarrassing must it have been for Symantic to have their flagship product meant to help secure a computer be the source of insecurity? While Symantic handled the situation extremely well, many other companies do not have a large security minded staff on hand to deal with security problems. For them it is easier to accuse the attacker than acknowledge a problem they cannot deal with.
This is what the problem entails. Microsoft just stated that fulfilling their contractual obligations is too expensive. We all know this to be bullshit. We all know they have enough resources to fix the problem. Microsoft's issue is that they would not be making enough of a margin on their contracts if they used their resources to fix this problem. If I had a contract for paid incident support for Windows 98, and Microsoft backed out at the last month, I would be calling my attorneys right now.
For most other games, what you are purchasing is a complete story. While many of the games may leave the door open for a continuation of the story for a sequel if the demand for the first title warrants it, the primary story line has a conclusion. In episodic entertainment, this is not true. Both SIN episodes and HL2 Episode One are designed to provide more questions than answers. In SIN episodes, the most recent bad guy may be dead, but the root cause of the problem (Alexis Sinclair) still exists. You have been injected, but with what you do not know - and now, Jessica Cannon has been infected as well. Your primary suspect is dead. The City is under siege. How much longer are you in control of yourself?
Similar plot points exist with Half-Life 2: Episode One. What was contained in the message the Combine sent out? What were in those pods, and how do you defend yourself against a psy-attack? What project is Judith going after, and why is it important enough to involve one of the major characters? And why does the Combine have a recording of that message?
Unlike a monolithic game which includes a complete story line, the developers of episodic content are hoping that your curiosity and your desire to see a conclusion to the questions raised is enough to drive you to purchase more parts to the story. The marketing efforts for the later episodes will be much less, only to inform customers that the new episodes are available, and allow customer curiosity to drive sales.
In 2003 I purchased and played Ubisoft's XIII, which ended on a "...to be continued." It is now two and a half years later, and I have no desire whatsoever to see the conclusion. It wasn't always this way, and I had a desire to continue when I had completed the game, but after waiting for so long without any word of continuing the story, my personal curiosity has abated. Similarly, episodic games cannot wait long between releases. At most, I would think that 6 months would be the limit before my interest between episodes would begin to fade. A finely tuned project would have great success at one month release intervals. More frequently, and individuals will still be focused on previous episodes while new content is being released. Less frequently, and there is a risk that players will find a new title to interest them - delaying or foregoing a purchase on the next episode. To really make episodic content work, content creators must lose the "It'll be done when its done" attitude and adopt a strict development schedule. It worked for Gnome, and it is what is needed to ensure the success of episodic games.
I would have to agree with the parent, I've owned a Samsung DLP for over two years, never had to replace the bulb, and my family has been happy with it. With the exception of extreme viewing angles - and you wouldn't want to watch TV from those angles to begin with - the picture quality has been incredible, and we have been very happy with our HDTV.
With that said, I must warn you about burn in, and remind you that it is more of a problem than many would like to tell you. I am sure you already know that as a DLP creates its picture with lights and mirrors, there is no possibility of burn-in. This is important because there are still many broadcasts that do not display HDTV all the time. Network television is atrocious. The show may be in HD, but the commercials are not - and only certain prime-time and sporting events are broadcast in HD. The remaining time, letterbox bars crop the sides to show the programming in its proper format, and over time those side letterbox bars will burn in - from Plasma to LCD, and even the venerable Tube. DLP is the perfect cross-over technology from SD to HD as changing formats will not damage the set. Most of your common programming is not in HD, and HD will not "arrive" until your local and broadcast news shows start broadcasting in HD, and right now it is a political game. I've shown my support for HD with both a DLP and a LCD screen, and I contact my cable carrier to show support for new channels when they arrive, as well as my local television stations when they show local programming in HD. For now, HD is still just a flashy spectacle, but it is not a common technology, and it sure hasn't "arrived" yet.
If straight CS is not something you are interested in, perhaps you should look at Informatics. Informatics is a relatively new field of study applying computer technology to other established fields. For example, bioinformatics applies computer science to biology, studying the genome, and using computer modeling to understand how our bodies work at the molecular and cellular level. Wikipedia has an entry in Informatics that explains the connection better than I could in a simple slashdot post, and links to many of the informatics sub-domains talk about work that is being done in those fields, from Human Computer Interface to Health Informatics, Chemical Informatics to Lab Informatics, the field is opening up fast and students are needed. Being a former CIS major who is going into Health Informatics, I can say that I enjoy the prospect of applying my knowledge of computer information systems to the health care industry to help the doctors, nurses, and clinicians do their jobs better, more efficiently and grant them access to information that would not have been easy to come by in the past.
So far the program does not delve into the depths of detail that are seen in many of the other programs. And while knowledge of bits and bytes might help me do my job better, it is more important that I understand the concepts of what clinicians need, and what technology can provide, so that I may bridge the gap between both fields. Instead of Computer Science where you understand a computer as an entity, Informatics allows you to apply knowledge to various fields in ways that experts in one field or another would not find obvious. Consider Informatics to be the jack-of-all-trades degree that allows you to push information technology beyond the "a computer on the desk" mindset and into the future of computer technology.
Actually the center channel has a specific and unique use. The majority (like 90%) of the dialogue comes from the center channel. This means two things; first your center channel speaker must be the best speaker in your setup so that you can hear the dialogue clearly, and second, this allows you to isolate the dialogue and alter the volume for it separately from the rest of the content.
If you have ever played a surround sound DVD on a stereo setup, you would know what I am talking about almost immediately. The dialogue has been mixed with the other sounds and forced out of two speakers, and the dialogue has to compete with all of the other sounds being generated. This makes for unclear dialogue, or dialogue that changes from being too soft or too loud in comparison with the rest of the movie soundtrack. With a multi-speaker setup, you can increase the output of the center channel for added dialogue clarity without increasing the overall volume of the performance.
For fun, next time you go to an audio-visual store, turn off the center channel and watch everyone wonder in amazement how they can hear all of the sound effects of the movie, but no sound comes out when people move their lips. This is especially fun in places like Best Buy where the "audio experts" only comprehension of audio systems is that they are not paid on commission.
By adding something to this topic so late, I doubt it will see any moderation, and I doubt I will add much new to the conversation, but I will talk about my experiences at my last position:
I worked at a mid-sized company based in the mid-west in a large urban area. The company had about 300 employees worldwide, but only about half at the corporate offices. The IT dept. was small, with a white director, a white system administrator, a black network admin, a black female support manager, a black female help-desk operator, a black computer technician, and myself, a white computer tech. Being mostly minority (is that a valid concept?) I heard grumblings in other departments being one of the few white faces that other employees saw representing my department. I heard people say things like, "Do you know why aspirin works? Because it is white," when complaining about the lack of responsiveness from the IT department before I handled their problem.
After people started losing their jobs because of their racial remarks, I stopped hearing the grumbling, but I am sure the frustration continued, and just because they weren't saying it out loud, didn't mean they weren't thinking it.
It doesn't matter how qualified someone is for the position, or how well they perform their job, race is still a factor people will critizise when someone does not perform as expected. Laws may have erased the racial lines, but until we as a society adapt, those lines will never truly disappear.
I would cite the ability to grow. In a university setting, you can take free classes to expand your knowledge to become more valuable to your future employer. Tired of just having a BS in CS? How about an MS in CS? MBA? Want to get that Director position? CIO? A Masters degree with your experience will make you the perfect candidate for those positions.
If you are serious about finding someone locally who would be able to help mentor, I would try the local university. Depending on what kind of institution is available, you should find at the bare minimum a PHD in computer science who might have some knowledge about the subject who could be a mentor. If your university has a good computer science dept, you might find post graduate students and post doctorate students doing research in this very area with a professor guiding them. Best thing to do would be to talk to the computer science dept. at the local university, and if possible talk to the chair of the dept. explaining what you are trying to do, what kind of time commitments a mentor might have, and how your daughter could get involved. Best case senario, your daughter will be on the fast track to being accepted to a computer science program in the best schools in the world for her college level experience.
Most people are not logical. As an example, math is logical, and the majority of people suck at math. But I digress...
I believe what you are missing is politics. The director of the elections comission wanted to show to his superiors that he is doing something useful and tangible. Was the director/members aware of the state law? I am sure they were. Do they have the power to force vendors to open their code? Not really. All they can do is tell the vendors, "We're not going to certify you until we can review your code."
My guess is that they were put under pressure to get some sort of electronic voting system in place for the 2006 elections, and instead of doing what would be right for the people (follow the law, protect the voters, etc), they did what would be better for someone else's political career ("See what wonderful things we are doing with state money?" and "No more antiquated voting methods for our citizens!").
First, I don't believe the original poster did much research before posting this Ask Slashdot article. For example, Griffin makes an FM tuner for the iPod.
However, it must be said that of all the choices so far, iTunes allows the consumer to do the most with the music they purchased, and has been rewarded by consumers for their actions - to the tune of controlling 85% of the market in portable digital players and online music.
Because of this dominance in the market place, more and more people are realizing that to get a piece of this market, they are going to have to go through Apple. This is why you are seeing the ROKR, iPod branded speakers (complete with iPod docks), and iPod docks being built into new automobiles. How many manufacturers are providing great accessories for other mp3 players, including recharging stations and integration with other established products? It is clear to anyone who has been following this market that the future is iPod, iTunes, and Apple.
Oh, and as for that Macintosh you want to buy next year? You will be happy to know that you will be able to play your WMV files on it.
I think you are right, their name is still associated with the product, and if the product is tarnished, so is their name and reputation. I suspect that there might have been engineering reasons for the low # of songs on this product, and a need to keep power consumption down. Now that the nano has been released, I suspect that we will be seeing a combination of both the nano and a phone to create a more fully fledged music phone. The concept is a great one, and the possibilities can only expand from here. I see the ROKR as a timid first step into this arena.
As for nay-sayers, Apple opened the door to this new market. It is going to be damned hard to close it again. Especially considering that other companies are considering their musical phones with music distribution over their phone networks. This market has only just begun, and we will see a lot of growth over the next few years. I believe Job's mentality is to open and explore new markets, not to rally his wagons around an already esablished market.
Isn't this precisely what Apple is doing with iPod + iTunes?
I guess you forgot about the HP branded iPod. Truth of the matter is, anyone can build an iPod and offer music encoded with Apple's DRM, as long as they play by Apple's rules. Unfortunately most companies find Apple's design specs too restrictive, and lisencing too expensive. But they make great equipment that is highly desirable, and offer an end-to-end solution with the iTunes store, iTunes, and the iPod. If you want part of their 75% market share, you are going to have to play by their rules, which means small margins, and high royalties.
If I may speculate about what might have been...if Winamp had focused on selling songs, and got Rio to make mp3 players that linked up to their software, we would be living in a totally different world right now.
I think HighOrbit hit the nail on the head. From the impression I got reading this, it sounded like a couple of Customer Support guys who between phone calls maybe wrote a web page (or something similar) to help them track customers, orders, returns, etc. for their own usage. Manager sees it, asks them about it, they talk it up, and give informal demo, manager runs to his superiors, and talks it up as something his dept. is coming up with to make customer support better. His superiors (director or VP) tell him that sounds good, and they want to see it implemented corporate-wide (nationally) for all customer support centers.
Now, Manager has put himself in a difficult position. He doesn't know the capabilities of the system (it might work fine for a couple of guys who are just shaing information between each other, but would not work well for dozens of call centers all over the country). He doesn't know what it would take to bring the system up to his expectations - and most likely couldn't even verbalize his expectations if he wanted to. So, he defaults back to manager basics - puts a deadline on it, and sets the project up as pass/fail, which would reflect upon his subordinates more than himself.
In this situation, what the Customer Support guys need to do is copyright the project. This is definately outside of their scope of responsibility as Customer Support representatives, and while they may have worked on it during company time, so far, they have not been compensated for the work. Once they can demonstrate legal ownership of the project**, they can work up the chain of command. Talk to their manager, and schedule a meeting with their manager and his superior to reiterate the project - so that the director/vp gets the information from the horses mouth. Demonstrate willingness during that meeting to refocus efforts to completing this project for use company-wide (with assistance from their IT dept[chances are, the program is most likely hosted on one of their computers either as a webserver/db or fat client program]). Propose a reasonable deadline with mile-markers, and goals along the way - along with a proposal for supporting the software once it has gone into production.
Communication is key, and resonable demands can provide for a good outcome. Let your desires be known, and demonstrate a willingness to compensate, and work to come to a good conclusion. If they do it right, they may get a pay raise, or a new position out of this adventure.
**This is done for the employees security. The company could try to claim ownership of the program, but if they tried to steal the program as it is now, they would piss off the only developers of the software, and with it being incomplete, the company would most likely toss the program than try to fix it/make it work. This gives the developers a bargaining chip when it comes to negotiations. Don't hold it over your boss and your boss's boss head. Just make sure that if all negotiations fail, and they are not reasonable in their requests (I would consider maintaining current pay rate unreasonable for the extra work) that you have an alternative - quit work there, finish the project, and sell to other companies in your industry, or who operate Customer Service departments.
I became a fan of Free Software Magazine the first time I saw it advertised. I immediately subscribed, and am grateful for every issue that has been released. Yes, there are some other very important magazines out there, ACM comes to mind, but if you want to support a grass-roots magazine dedicated to free software, and what developers like you and I can accomplish, this project definitely deserves your attention and support.
*waits patiently for Tony Mobily, editor in chief of FSM, to extend his subscription for his evangelical work*
Slashdot Mirror
As someone who finished watching "From the Earth to the Moon" earlier tonight, I can say that I can't wait for humans to return to the moon. We do need a permanent presence on the moon, for many reasons, such as; separation of the human species in case of global tragedy, explore moon's geology (where did that thing come from?), explore theories about colonization, biospheres, and self-sustenance, launch point for future missions to distant worlds (if we could build a manufacturing center on the moon, its 1/6th gravity would be very beneficial to launching new craft), and many, many, many more benefits both seen and unseen.
Returning to the moon is in humanity's best interest, and is clearly the path to the future. Focus on the space program will push development and inventions to help push the edge of what is capable. I see space travel as one of the grand challenges we will face in our lifetime, and it would be a shame to hesitate when we have already taken so many steps toward that goal. As someone who was born prior to the last Apollo mission, I feel it is a crime that we have abandoned the moon for the majority of my lifetime.
Unfortunately, the political winds have not been blowing favorably towards NASA, and it may take another visionary like JFK to take us back to the moon and beyond.
My school tends to cater to working grad students working on their Masters degree, and get their health insurance through their employer. As a full time student, I am in the minority.
Actually I don't listen to talk radio, mostly because radio talk show hosts are there to entertain you and they do so by espousing their view on different subjects, without regard to the facts. In academia, what we learn is based on studies and fact, and exploration of ideas and questions about what we observe. While we may have opinions about why things are as they are, those opinions may drive us to study why we think what we think, and explore other options in coming up with a reasonable conclusion.
There are many factors that are contributing to the increasing cost of health care in the United States, however medicare and medicaid are not reasons why Joe Citizen is paying more for health insurance. As those are government programs, the taxpayer is paying for any fraud. If you are talking about Medicare Part D, and the federal government not being able to directly negotiate drug prices, of course they don't negotiate drug prices, that is the job of the health insurance companies who operate under the Part D rules, they directly negotiate with the drug companies so that they can offer a drug plan that is less expensive than the other Part D plans, so they can attract the seniors, disabled and the poor to their plan! The more they attract, the more clout they have, and the lower the price they can get from the drug companies. Medicare is only reimbursing the health insurance companies depending on how many people have signed up for their plan. For every person they have signed up for their plan, they get a set amount of money from the government. No more or no less than any other health insurance company.
Part D is a good plan that utilizes the skill-set of an established industry, and doesn't mandate government control over the pharmaceutical industry. As a result, government spending for this program has been much less than originally estimated. Because of Part D more senior citizens, disabled, and poor are able to receive prescription drugs for chronic problems. Also, Part D has been able to actually lower the cost of health care for this particular group of people (compare Part D plans to other prescription drug plans).
If we had a coherent national health system, costs would be much more reasonable.Depends on what you mean by a coherent national health system. Hilary Clinton proposed a coherent national health system in the early '90s but there was too much resistance to the idea. If you mean a nationalized system like Canada or the United Kingdom, the lower cost comes at a loss of growth in development of new procedures and techniques. Consider my earlier example, where if my friend had been in a country with a nationalized health care system, his son would have been born paralyzed, and the government would have had to pay for his care for his entire lifetime. Without investment in new techniques and procedures, he would not have had the opportunity to walk or care for himself. Surely a smaller investment up front is better than a lifetime of costs? However, developing those techniques and procedures can be very expensive, and it is very hard to justify those expenses in a nationalized health care system when the primary focus is on keeping costs low, and utilizing proven techniques and procedures rather than experimental ones.
While every business is in business to make money, most would take the 2% over cost that medicare and medicaid grant over the alternative; patients without the means to pay for their own health care who default on payments, or declare bankruptcy. There are a lot more stakeholders involved in the United States health care than just insurance and pharmaceutical companies.
While a humorous comment, it highlights what makes the American health care system so unique. We are so fiercely independent, that a good majority of Americans don't like having the government telling us what to do, and this includes how we take care of our body and our health. This system allows for many benefits as well as problems. The most visible problem is the ever-increasing cost of health care, and the number of people like yourselves who are falling through the cracks because good health insurance is only available through employers who can command group rates. On the flip side, because the state is not dictating how health care is conducting itself, American health care is a hot-bed of new procedures and techniques that push the limits of health care because people are willing to pay for an unproven technique even if it has even a small chance of success if the alternative is not acceptable. For example, the second son of a friend of mine was diagnose with Spina Bifida and instead of accepting that his child would be born paralyzed, was able to find a surgeon who was willing to perform surgery on the child while he was still in the womb! (notice that of the four hospitals in the world that perform this unique and complicated surgery, all of them are located in the United States)
As a graduate student, I am faced with paying for a cut-rate, we-don't-pay-for-anything-unless-you-get-hit-by-a- bus student plan, or a much more expensive individual plan. There are very few national health care providers, and you would be well suited to search for and find a regional health insurance company. In the mid-west, I have been leaning towards Anthem as my insurance provider, and hope to have a plan from them to help me start off the new year.
Except for one problem - many states are demanding that Diebold add a paper tally to their machines, but are not willing to change the original contract.
For example, lets say you contract with an entity to offer a set number of widgets, and during delivery the entity demands that you provide more than the contract states without renegotiation of the contract. Would you provide it free of charge?
Neither will Diebold. Don't believe the conspiracy theorists. If Maryland and other states want a paper tally, all they have to do is pay for it. (Which is another matter all together as it was the "Help America Vote Act" passed after the 2000 elections that paid for the machines to begin with - now to "fix" them, Maryland and other states have to find funding elsewhere.)
Upon returning to school to get my graduate degree, I had to take some undergrad prerequisites, including one 500+ student class where the teacher recorded her lectures, which were available immediately after class concluded on the university's podcasting site. The site was password protected (university authentication), but I don't know if it was linked up to any kind of scheduling database. You only had to know the section you were taking to download the file, and there were no extra limitations.
This was a happy solution for myself, as I missed a couple of days for being sick - being able to download and listen to the lecture helped immensely. I know others who downloaded the lectures as part of a review process in preparation for examinations.
However, like any class resource, it is up to the student to use or abuse at their will. This same class offered extra credit study sessions, dual lectures (doesn't matter which one you attend as long as you attend one of them), extra credit extra curricular class workshops, a half dozen teachers assistants who were in the degree program (and ran many of these extra credit programs), and many, many other resources to allow the student to better themselves. All options were freely offered, and I don't know of any that were underutilized. There are always going to be students who are not going to push themselves to be the best they can be. It is not up to the professor to push them - all they can do is provide opportunity, and encouragement. To do anything else invites trouble, either personal or professional. With a resource like podcasting, best thing to do is to provide it as a resource, and let the students determine how to best utilize it.
I am returning to graduate school this week, and while I attended summer school, some of my classmates did not. Most of us have had professional experience before returning for a master's degree. One colleague of mine took an internship over the summer, and worked on developing a new internal software package. Previously she had been a project manager at a couple of different companies, and had developed a successful strategy for project management. At her internship, she was a project member, and for the first time got to see things from a different perspective. The project was not well defined, and no specific goals were set until much later in the project causing a lot of people to re-work things they had previously created. As well, the project manager had poor communication skills, and did not communicate the status of the project well with members of the project. As a result, she found herself working 19 hour days, and well over a month late on this project.
As a former project manager, she had the experience, and asked questions about the nature of the project to help flush out details, as well as provide a much more narrow scope for the project. However, because she was the "intern" many of her questions were dismissed, and she was labeled as being "too detailed."
She has committed to staying with the company until the project is completed, even though it may interfere with classes for the next couple of weeks, but she feels it is her duty to see the project come to a conclusion. As such, she has the skills, resources, and know-how to make the project a reality, but it is my suspicion that the employers were afraid to give her too much responsibility in the company or with the project because of her temporary status. As well, it is obvious that the company does not have a good project manager, and the company expects mediocrity because it knows nothing different. Those who desire to excel may find themselves working against the corporate current, and may ultimately be defeated by it. I certainly wouldn't want to work in such an organization.
That whole law is utterly rubbish! The Law;
* dictates child rearing and punishment,
* allows police to disperse groups of any TWO people at will,
* bans immitation weapons,
* allows city councils to label any publicly displayed painting or artwork as "graffiti" and order the land owner to remove it at their cost (even if they weren't the ones to create it),
* if you have 20 or more people on your property, or in your house, police can label it a rave, and incarcerate everyone at said "rave,"
* allows city councils to set a hight limit on plants so as to not block the light onto your neighbor's property, and charge a fee to perform the maintainance if the owner is not willing to cut their plants down to size,
* Strengthens ASBOs which basically criminalizes behavior that is otherwise lawful.
If the United States were to pass such a law, I would call the USA a lost cause, and move to Mexico.
Consider the avian flu (H5N1). The World Health Organization has found evidence that this disease has mutated and is now starting to transmit from human to human, where previously it was only transmitted from bird to human. (link) The chance for a world pandemic has greatly increased with this revelation, yet people and communities who have prepared themselves, and are in good health to begin with will most likely survive the infection, or avoid becoming infected in the first place.
Similarly, it is the computer networks and systems that are focused on security that tend to be the best protected when it comes to zero-day exploits. Good network and system administrators know the general weaknesses of the computers they are responsible for, and work to protect those weaknesses from exposure. Good administrators that have planned well, tend to monitor an attempted attack on their network, while poor administrators tend to find themselves recovering from a successful attack.
From another perspective, the author's ideas have some merit. In biological systems, it is only after one has been infected and their immune system fights off a disease that they are impervious to repeat infections. In this way entire societies build up resistances to deadly diseases. For example, Jared Diamond believes 95% of Native Americans were killed off by diseases carried by European settlers who were largely immune to said diseases. (link)
In a way, as different portions of the computer systems and software are attacked, the flaws that allow for such attacks are, in general, corrected. Problems identified in one attack can be applied to other areas, and as such, can affect system-wide changes toward a better system (think buffer overruns), as well as more security-minded design (think security developments in IE7 and Vista).
I'm not advocating that the world governments should let virus writers and crackers have free reign of the Internet. A balanced response would allow for leniency for those who have no malice in their intentions. Of course, this is difficult to prove, and from personal experience, I have yet to meet a virus writer with purely altruistic intentions. Also there are corporate interests to deal with as well. How embarrassing must it have been for Symantic to have their flagship product meant to help secure a computer be the source of insecurity? While Symantic handled the situation extremely well, many other companies do not have a large security minded staff on hand to deal with security problems. For them it is easier to accuse the attacker than acknowledge a problem they cannot deal with.
This is what the problem entails. Microsoft just stated that fulfilling their contractual obligations is too expensive. We all know this to be bullshit. We all know they have enough resources to fix the problem. Microsoft's issue is that they would not be making enough of a margin on their contracts if they used their resources to fix this problem. If I had a contract for paid incident support for Windows 98, and Microsoft backed out at the last month, I would be calling my attorneys right now.
For most other games, what you are purchasing is a complete story. While many of the games may leave the door open for a continuation of the story for a sequel if the demand for the first title warrants it, the primary story line has a conclusion. In episodic entertainment, this is not true. Both SIN episodes and HL2 Episode One are designed to provide more questions than answers. In SIN episodes, the most recent bad guy may be dead, but the root cause of the problem (Alexis Sinclair) still exists. You have been injected, but with what you do not know - and now, Jessica Cannon has been infected as well. Your primary suspect is dead. The City is under siege. How much longer are you in control of yourself?
Similar plot points exist with Half-Life 2: Episode One. What was contained in the message the Combine sent out? What were in those pods, and how do you defend yourself against a psy-attack? What project is Judith going after, and why is it important enough to involve one of the major characters? And why does the Combine have a recording of that message?
Unlike a monolithic game which includes a complete story line, the developers of episodic content are hoping that your curiosity and your desire to see a conclusion to the questions raised is enough to drive you to purchase more parts to the story. The marketing efforts for the later episodes will be much less, only to inform customers that the new episodes are available, and allow customer curiosity to drive sales.
In 2003 I purchased and played Ubisoft's XIII, which ended on a "...to be continued." It is now two and a half years later, and I have no desire whatsoever to see the conclusion. It wasn't always this way, and I had a desire to continue when I had completed the game, but after waiting for so long without any word of continuing the story, my personal curiosity has abated. Similarly, episodic games cannot wait long between releases. At most, I would think that 6 months would be the limit before my interest between episodes would begin to fade. A finely tuned project would have great success at one month release intervals. More frequently, and individuals will still be focused on previous episodes while new content is being released. Less frequently, and there is a risk that players will find a new title to interest them - delaying or foregoing a purchase on the next episode. To really make episodic content work, content creators must lose the "It'll be done when its done" attitude and adopt a strict development schedule. It worked for Gnome, and it is what is needed to ensure the success of episodic games.
I would have to agree with the parent, I've owned a Samsung DLP for over two years, never had to replace the bulb, and my family has been happy with it. With the exception of extreme viewing angles - and you wouldn't want to watch TV from those angles to begin with - the picture quality has been incredible, and we have been very happy with our HDTV.
With that said, I must warn you about burn in, and remind you that it is more of a problem than many would like to tell you. I am sure you already know that as a DLP creates its picture with lights and mirrors, there is no possibility of burn-in. This is important because there are still many broadcasts that do not display HDTV all the time. Network television is atrocious. The show may be in HD, but the commercials are not - and only certain prime-time and sporting events are broadcast in HD. The remaining time, letterbox bars crop the sides to show the programming in its proper format, and over time those side letterbox bars will burn in - from Plasma to LCD, and even the venerable Tube. DLP is the perfect cross-over technology from SD to HD as changing formats will not damage the set. Most of your common programming is not in HD, and HD will not "arrive" until your local and broadcast news shows start broadcasting in HD, and right now it is a political game. I've shown my support for HD with both a DLP and a LCD screen, and I contact my cable carrier to show support for new channels when they arrive, as well as my local television stations when they show local programming in HD. For now, HD is still just a flashy spectacle, but it is not a common technology, and it sure hasn't "arrived" yet.
If straight CS is not something you are interested in, perhaps you should look at Informatics. Informatics is a relatively new field of study applying computer technology to other established fields. For example, bioinformatics applies computer science to biology, studying the genome, and using computer modeling to understand how our bodies work at the molecular and cellular level. Wikipedia has an entry in Informatics that explains the connection better than I could in a simple slashdot post, and links to many of the informatics sub-domains talk about work that is being done in those fields, from Human Computer Interface to Health Informatics, Chemical Informatics to Lab Informatics, the field is opening up fast and students are needed. Being a former CIS major who is going into Health Informatics, I can say that I enjoy the prospect of applying my knowledge of computer information systems to the health care industry to help the doctors, nurses, and clinicians do their jobs better, more efficiently and grant them access to information that would not have been easy to come by in the past.
So far the program does not delve into the depths of detail that are seen in many of the other programs. And while knowledge of bits and bytes might help me do my job better, it is more important that I understand the concepts of what clinicians need, and what technology can provide, so that I may bridge the gap between both fields. Instead of Computer Science where you understand a computer as an entity, Informatics allows you to apply knowledge to various fields in ways that experts in one field or another would not find obvious. Consider Informatics to be the jack-of-all-trades degree that allows you to push information technology beyond the "a computer on the desk" mindset and into the future of computer technology.
Actually the center channel has a specific and unique use. The majority (like 90%) of the dialogue comes from the center channel. This means two things; first your center channel speaker must be the best speaker in your setup so that you can hear the dialogue clearly, and second, this allows you to isolate the dialogue and alter the volume for it separately from the rest of the content.
If you have ever played a surround sound DVD on a stereo setup, you would know what I am talking about almost immediately. The dialogue has been mixed with the other sounds and forced out of two speakers, and the dialogue has to compete with all of the other sounds being generated. This makes for unclear dialogue, or dialogue that changes from being too soft or too loud in comparison with the rest of the movie soundtrack. With a multi-speaker setup, you can increase the output of the center channel for added dialogue clarity without increasing the overall volume of the performance.
For fun, next time you go to an audio-visual store, turn off the center channel and watch everyone wonder in amazement how they can hear all of the sound effects of the movie, but no sound comes out when people move their lips. This is especially fun in places like Best Buy where the "audio experts" only comprehension of audio systems is that they are not paid on commission.
By adding something to this topic so late, I doubt it will see any moderation, and I doubt I will add much new to the conversation, but I will talk about my experiences at my last position:
I worked at a mid-sized company based in the mid-west in a large urban area. The company had about 300 employees worldwide, but only about half at the corporate offices. The IT dept. was small, with a white director, a white system administrator, a black network admin, a black female support manager, a black female help-desk operator, a black computer technician, and myself, a white computer tech. Being mostly minority (is that a valid concept?) I heard grumblings in other departments being one of the few white faces that other employees saw representing my department. I heard people say things like, "Do you know why aspirin works? Because it is white," when complaining about the lack of responsiveness from the IT department before I handled their problem.
After people started losing their jobs because of their racial remarks, I stopped hearing the grumbling, but I am sure the frustration continued, and just because they weren't saying it out loud, didn't mean they weren't thinking it.
It doesn't matter how qualified someone is for the position, or how well they perform their job, race is still a factor people will critizise when someone does not perform as expected. Laws may have erased the racial lines, but until we as a society adapt, those lines will never truly disappear.
I would cite the ability to grow. In a university setting, you can take free classes to expand your knowledge to become more valuable to your future employer. Tired of just having a BS in CS? How about an MS in CS? MBA? Want to get that Director position? CIO? A Masters degree with your experience will make you the perfect candidate for those positions.
If you are serious about finding someone locally who would be able to help mentor, I would try the local university. Depending on what kind of institution is available, you should find at the bare minimum a PHD in computer science who might have some knowledge about the subject who could be a mentor. If your university has a good computer science dept, you might find post graduate students and post doctorate students doing research in this very area with a professor guiding them. Best thing to do would be to talk to the computer science dept. at the local university, and if possible talk to the chair of the dept. explaining what you are trying to do, what kind of time commitments a mentor might have, and how your daughter could get involved. Best case senario, your daughter will be on the fast track to being accepted to a computer science program in the best schools in the world for her college level experience.
Most people are not logical. As an example, math is logical, and the majority of people suck at math. But I digress...
I believe what you are missing is politics. The director of the elections comission wanted to show to his superiors that he is doing something useful and tangible. Was the director/members aware of the state law? I am sure they were. Do they have the power to force vendors to open their code? Not really. All they can do is tell the vendors, "We're not going to certify you until we can review your code."
My guess is that they were put under pressure to get some sort of electronic voting system in place for the 2006 elections, and instead of doing what would be right for the people (follow the law, protect the voters, etc), they did what would be better for someone else's political career ("See what wonderful things we are doing with state money?" and "No more antiquated voting methods for our citizens!").
I'm glad the EFF called them to task on this one.
First, I don't believe the original poster did much research before posting this Ask Slashdot article. For example, Griffin makes an FM tuner for the iPod.
However, it must be said that of all the choices so far, iTunes allows the consumer to do the most with the music they purchased, and has been rewarded by consumers for their actions - to the tune of controlling 85% of the market in portable digital players and online music.
Because of this dominance in the market place, more and more people are realizing that to get a piece of this market, they are going to have to go through Apple. This is why you are seeing the ROKR, iPod branded speakers (complete with iPod docks), and iPod docks being built into new automobiles. How many manufacturers are providing great accessories for other mp3 players, including recharging stations and integration with other established products? It is clear to anyone who has been following this market that the future is iPod, iTunes, and Apple.
Oh, and as for that Macintosh you want to buy next year? You will be happy to know that you will be able to play your WMV files on it.
I think you are right, their name is still associated with the product, and if the product is tarnished, so is their name and reputation. I suspect that there might have been engineering reasons for the low # of songs on this product, and a need to keep power consumption down. Now that the nano has been released, I suspect that we will be seeing a combination of both the nano and a phone to create a more fully fledged music phone. The concept is a great one, and the possibilities can only expand from here. I see the ROKR as a timid first step into this arena.
As for nay-sayers, Apple opened the door to this new market. It is going to be damned hard to close it again. Especially considering that other companies are considering their musical phones with music distribution over their phone networks. This market has only just begun, and we will see a lot of growth over the next few years. I believe Job's mentality is to open and explore new markets, not to rally his wagons around an already esablished market.
Isn't this precisely what Apple is doing with iPod + iTunes?
I guess you forgot about the HP branded iPod. Truth of the matter is, anyone can build an iPod and offer music encoded with Apple's DRM, as long as they play by Apple's rules. Unfortunately most companies find Apple's design specs too restrictive, and lisencing too expensive. But they make great equipment that is highly desirable, and offer an end-to-end solution with the iTunes store, iTunes, and the iPod. If you want part of their 75% market share, you are going to have to play by their rules, which means small margins, and high royalties.
If I may speculate about what might have been...if Winamp had focused on selling songs, and got Rio to make mp3 players that linked up to their software, we would be living in a totally different world right now.
I think HighOrbit hit the nail on the head. From the impression I got reading this, it sounded like a couple of Customer Support guys who between phone calls maybe wrote a web page (or something similar) to help them track customers, orders, returns, etc. for their own usage. Manager sees it, asks them about it, they talk it up, and give informal demo, manager runs to his superiors, and talks it up as something his dept. is coming up with to make customer support better. His superiors (director or VP) tell him that sounds good, and they want to see it implemented corporate-wide (nationally) for all customer support centers.
Now, Manager has put himself in a difficult position. He doesn't know the capabilities of the system (it might work fine for a couple of guys who are just shaing information between each other, but would not work well for dozens of call centers all over the country). He doesn't know what it would take to bring the system up to his expectations - and most likely couldn't even verbalize his expectations if he wanted to. So, he defaults back to manager basics - puts a deadline on it, and sets the project up as pass/fail, which would reflect upon his subordinates more than himself.
In this situation, what the Customer Support guys need to do is copyright the project. This is definately outside of their scope of responsibility as Customer Support representatives, and while they may have worked on it during company time, so far, they have not been compensated for the work. Once they can demonstrate legal ownership of the project**, they can work up the chain of command. Talk to their manager, and schedule a meeting with their manager and his superior to reiterate the project - so that the director/vp gets the information from the horses mouth. Demonstrate willingness during that meeting to refocus efforts to completing this project for use company-wide (with assistance from their IT dept[chances are, the program is most likely hosted on one of their computers either as a webserver/db or fat client program]). Propose a reasonable deadline with mile-markers, and goals along the way - along with a proposal for supporting the software once it has gone into production.
Communication is key, and resonable demands can provide for a good outcome. Let your desires be known, and demonstrate a willingness to compensate, and work to come to a good conclusion. If they do it right, they may get a pay raise, or a new position out of this adventure.
**This is done for the employees security. The company could try to claim ownership of the program, but if they tried to steal the program as it is now, they would piss off the only developers of the software, and with it being incomplete, the company would most likely toss the program than try to fix it/make it work. This gives the developers a bargaining chip when it comes to negotiations. Don't hold it over your boss and your boss's boss head. Just make sure that if all negotiations fail, and they are not reasonable in their requests (I would consider maintaining current pay rate unreasonable for the extra work) that you have an alternative - quit work there, finish the project, and sell to other companies in your industry, or who operate Customer Service departments.
I became a fan of Free Software Magazine the first time I saw it advertised. I immediately subscribed, and am grateful for every issue that has been released. Yes, there are some other very important magazines out there, ACM comes to mind, but if you want to support a grass-roots magazine dedicated to free software, and what developers like you and I can accomplish, this project definitely deserves your attention and support.
*waits patiently for Tony Mobily, editor in chief of FSM, to extend his subscription for his evangelical work*
This would be much easier to sort out if it happened two centuries ago.
Sir! I call you a thief and a liar! You have besmirched my honor! I challenge you to a duel! Shall we make it pistols at 10 paces?