Having clicked through the Consumerist write-up to the aggrieved customer's blog, it looks like the customer in question is being almost deliberately obtuse and the write-up at Consumerist is misleading.
Whitney is complaining because she doesn't want to pay for an upgraded account to get her emails back (apparently, there's a policy on that: inactive accounts can recover mail lost that way by upgrading to a paid account--not that unusual, IIRC, a half-dozen years back, and undoubtedly a valuable revenue stream for Lycos). Reading between the lines a bit, she's probably made herself a PitA by demanding that the CSRs do something they have no ability to do. (Remember that the key to a business isn't keeping every customer: it's keeping the customers that are making you money. Free email accounts probably aren't making Lycos much money, especially ones that nobody is using.)
Yeah, Lycos looks like a bunch of jerks here. I'm not saying otherwise. But I find myself in disagreement with the Consumerist's claim that they owe her a paid service for nothing just because they're jerks. Sorry about your luck, Whitney: in the future, don't store your email with Lycos.
Actually, many companies do farm out siginficant chunks of necessary function that are outside the realm of their core business. Janitorial staff are very often contracted out to a company that specialises in provididng janitorial staff or services. HR? Accounting? Same deal, though it's not as common. There are, after all, large companies that get by on providing accounting and HR management services. Data processing is also commonly outsourced when considerations allow it (you've surely heard of EDS, right?). The business of cutting paychecks and sending them out gets contracted out all the time.
But, seriously, if you don't need an accounting department (maybe you're a small company, and need an accountant once a week, or a large company, and your in-house accountants can't cut it, or whatever) or an HR department (similar reasons)... or an IT department, even. If your needs in one or more of those areas aren't sufficient to justify having the staff on hand, why bother?
Your 'NeoFascist' and 'Republican' commentary are inaccurate, irrelevant, and intended as ad hominem. At best, it highlights that you really don't know what you're jabbering about.
The PC release, containing Episode Two, Portal, and Team Fortress 2 will be available as Half-Life 2: Orange. Half-Life 2: Black will be the 360/PS3 release, and will contain all of the above plus Episode One and the original campaign.
That's the exact opposite of what the article says. The Black box is a PC-only edition containing Half-Life 2: Episode 2, Portal, and Team Fortress 2. The Orange Box is multiplatform and will contain the aforementioned, and Half-Life 2 and Half-Life 2: Episode 1. This is stated at Game|Life, and at IGN, which Game|Life is sourcing. Thanks for the heads-up, though. I don't read either, so I wouldn't have noted it myself.
Late summer's kinda vague as release dates go, and a ways off for something that was supposed to have shipped last year. I hope the package details are a sign that they're on-target with the stated time frame. I don't want to wait any longer.
Balderdash. The use of the word they to refer to a single, gender neutral person is a modern invention. He has historically been the gender-neutral pronoun, and should have been what you learned in school.
Because Blu-Ray is a critical feature for Linux right now? (And I think you mean $599.)
There are plenty of reasonably quiet miniITX rigs about. I'm sure they're not completely silent, but I'd bet that they're quiet enough. And, in the meantime, they'll be smaller and upgradeable.
Even so, there are pretty major difficulties, even now, with the idea of write once, run anywhere. Although the interface to a library may be standard across multiple platforms, it isn't necessarily the case that the implementation is equally robust, let alone identically so. The observation that it was 'completely possible' neglects any consideration of practicality or commercial viability. I'm not saying that it was too impractical to happen, but you gloss over a lot of details and problems with the observation.
But is it a fun game? More fun, or less fun than the same game without the fancy music? (In any case, the per-unit cost of including a nice soundtrack is probably infinitesimal most of the time.
Seriously, folks. I'm not saying 'ZOMG! ATARI WUZ TEH KOOLIST!' I'm saying that the fancy sound, graphics, and so forth that go with current-gen games have not significantly enhanced most of the games being produced, except for their price tags.
For heaven's sake, I never said they were mutually exclusive. I said that the effort poured into graphics is producing diminishing returns. (Half-Life 1 being an excellent example of why I'm right.)
1. I would wager, the use of licensed code probably contributes to better games, overall, than the practice of writing the engine in house. Unless you need that next-generation engine that nobody else can offer, it's probably cheaper to license the engine from somebody else. The dev time saved alone is probably worth the cost, and time not spent developing the engine can be put to better use solving other conundrums. 2. Daikatana died less because of how long it took, and more because, by the time it finally was released, it did nothing that other games hadn't already done better. The problem was not the farcically long development time, but that the development time hadn't produced a good enough game to warrant the time spent, let alone the ludicrous hype. 3. There's almost never enough time. Unless you have a guaranteed seller on your hands (instead of just the latest iteration in the race for totally immersive graphics), you simply can't take as long as you like. Games have competitors, and the audience is fickle beside.
The cost of game development has skyrocketed over the last thirty years. In the last ten years or so (the period during which I have actually been paying attention), I'd say that it's arguable just how much benefit this has produced for the game industry or their customers.
Maybe they should be focusing on making the games fun to play, instead of entertaining to watch?
Yes, by the measures of a great many soft-headed bleeding hearts, I'm sure that I am a cold, heartless bastard. But keep it up. I'm sure that insulting me will earn my sympathy. (I have no such qualms in this exchange because you seem to to demonstrate that I've already earned you ire. Ah, well. I suppose I'll get by.)
As to insurance being a bet, I'll never said it's a bet you can expect to win. Insurance companies are like casinos. They do not play the game because they enjoy losing money. (That goes for all sorts of insurance companies, by the by.) If you'd rather, find out how much your health insurance will cost per month, and set that aside in a savings account or something, instead of buying health insurance. (Do it while you're young, because this is a long-term bet, just like your retirement savings are.) Pay for your health costs from there. Chances are, you will come out ahead over the long haul. Probably won't work for the guy above, though.
The problem is that health insurance is being run as an INSURANCE company.
I really hope you realise how stupid that sounds. I'd also take issue with the rest of your statement. You are right that I could not have built, or afford to build, the roads on which I drive. I'm not really sure how infrastructure is analogous to health insurance, exactly. There aren't market alternatives to, well, roads, after all.
By all means, if you can find an HMO that will provide sufficient health insurance to meet your needs and is a non-profit organisation, go for it. I'm not thrilled about subsidizing other people's health care costs, though, and it's rude and unfair to ask me to do so.
I don't know that I'd call the advice about taking a job with a company that provides health coverage a "parting shot". It was advice, nothing more or less. If the cost of health coverage is so burdensome as things are, either he or his wife should consider finding (or keeping) a job that provides health insurance. Why? Because he's got a kid that has serious health care needs, and (I assume) he and his wife are responsible adults? Never said he should be thrilled about the prospects, just that it was something he should consider. Life gives you choices. If they were choices worth making, then they have meaningful consequences, and those consequences mean that there will be some things which are denied to you, however you choose.
As to employer lockin: so do lots of employer-provided benefits. That's why your employer gives you benefits in the first place. They want you to stick around. If you don't want to be beholden to your employer for health coverage, obtain health insurance of your own, and provide proof of same to your HR rep. They'll give you some money back each pay period. (Won't be much, but i'm not interested in arguing this point too much farther.)
As regards the American ideal: it's certainly there for all those willing and able to work hard enough to get it. Nobody ever said it was owed you, or anyone.
Actually, the guy who was afraid the government would screw up health care is the guy I replied to, and he's pretty much right (asked a Canadian how long it takes to get a doctor's appointment?). Government certainly has its place. Law enforcement and critical infrastructure, national defense, some other things, too. Mostly things that would qualify as market failures if left to the market to provide. The problem is that many of the distortions in the health insurance and health care markets are being caused by state intervention. Further state intervention will not solve them, and funding them with government monies will only bankrupt the government (or haven't you followed the problems facing that big drug entitlement Bush signed?).
Let me offer this by way of clarification: I am not unsympathetic to the guy's needs. I thank God that it's not a situation I find myself in. I am, however, unsympathetic to the demands for my sympathy and my money (though not stated directly, the latte
What you're looking for is called 'charity' not 'government' and certainly not 'business'.
Try poking around. You may be able to find a local charity which would be willing/able to give you some financial assistance to defray the cost of health care/health insurance.
The government's already done a fair amount of screwing around with respect to health insurance and health care costs. That's why employer-provided health care isn't taxable, which is why so many employers offer it.
Health insurance != health care, by the by. Anthem, et al, are not in the health *care* business, exactly. They're in health *insurance*, which is basically a bet between you, the insured party, and your insurer that you won't get sick or otherwise incur health care-related costs (usually with a lot of caveats, of course). You pay them a certain amount of money each month that says that you could, very well, get sick. And, if you do, they agree to cover that cost (deductibles, etc, notwithstanding). If government puts a ceiling on how much they're allowed to charge, it basically puts a limit on their ability to profit from the service they provide. No profit == no service. No service means we're *all* screwed. Chances are, they are losing money on the agreement they've made with you. Might be a little, might be a lot. Either way, Anthem's still a business, not a charity. They have an obligation to make money, not to lose it. (Heartless? Yes. Keep in mind, though, that a company employs many people, some of whom may, except for the company-provided health plan, be in precisely the same position. If the company goes under because there are too many customers on whom they are losing money, all those people are out of luck, too.) The loss they take on you has to be made up somewhere, which is probably the type of thing that caused my health insurance (which I was carrying myself) to go up ~10% a year, every year that I carried it.
Seriously: check around for charities. You may be able to get some help that way. If not, you might seriously consider getting a job through a company with a health care plan.
You're wrong about the economic realities of this problem for comparing the US and most of Europe. There are a few very dramatic outliers in Europe, however.
In the meantime, you might consider the proportion of Americans to Europeans in this thread and on Slashdot in general. It's not exclusively American, but I'd wager there are far more Americans than not. It could be, then, that the number of complaining Americans has more to do with the number of Americans than the number of complainers.
I'm only half joking, actually. None of the outlets I have access to are any place that's convenient, and the place is already an awful mess of cables.
Yes, that is exactly what I mean. Unless I mean that it's a petty and trivial thing to get worked up over, and maybe the writer should relax, take a break, and visit the Big Blue Room with the Daystar in it?
I did specify normal as a qualifier, after all. Also, 4-digit uid. I'd like to claim that Slashdotters had a bit more perspective, back in the day. However, I've been here plenty long enough to doubt that.
Slashdot Mirror
Having clicked through the Consumerist write-up to the aggrieved customer's blog, it looks like the customer in question is being almost deliberately obtuse and the write-up at Consumerist is misleading.
Whitney is complaining because she doesn't want to pay for an upgraded account to get her emails back (apparently, there's a policy on that: inactive accounts can recover mail lost that way by upgrading to a paid account--not that unusual, IIRC, a half-dozen years back, and undoubtedly a valuable revenue stream for Lycos). Reading between the lines a bit, she's probably made herself a PitA by demanding that the CSRs do something they have no ability to do. (Remember that the key to a business isn't keeping every customer: it's keeping the customers that are making you money. Free email accounts probably aren't making Lycos much money, especially ones that nobody is using.)
Yeah, Lycos looks like a bunch of jerks here. I'm not saying otherwise. But I find myself in disagreement with the Consumerist's claim that they owe her a paid service for nothing just because they're jerks. Sorry about your luck, Whitney: in the future, don't store your email with Lycos.
Actually, many companies do farm out siginficant chunks of necessary function that are outside the realm of their core business. Janitorial staff are very often contracted out to a company that specialises in provididng janitorial staff or services. HR? Accounting? Same deal, though it's not as common. There are, after all, large companies that get by on providing accounting and HR management services. Data processing is also commonly outsourced when considerations allow it (you've surely heard of EDS, right?). The business of cutting paychecks and sending them out gets contracted out all the time.
... or an IT department, even. If your needs in one or more of those areas aren't sufficient to justify having the staff on hand, why bother?
But, seriously, if you don't need an accounting department (maybe you're a small company, and need an accountant once a week, or a large company, and your in-house accountants can't cut it, or whatever) or an HR department (similar reasons)
Your 'NeoFascist' and 'Republican' commentary are inaccurate, irrelevant, and intended as ad hominem. At best, it highlights that you really don't know what you're jabbering about.
Not to mention being repeatedly owned by a half-dozen Korean kids.
Late summer's kinda vague as release dates go, and a ways off for something that was supposed to have shipped last year. I hope the package details are a sign that they're on-target with the stated time frame. I don't want to wait any longer.
Balderdash. The use of the word they to refer to a single, gender neutral person is a modern invention. He has historically been the gender-neutral pronoun, and should have been what you learned in school.
The local mechanic is being outsourced?
You know of people who regularly send their cars overseas for maintenance?
Because Blu-Ray is a critical feature for Linux right now? (And I think you mean $599.)
There are plenty of reasonably quiet miniITX rigs about. I'm sure they're not completely silent, but I'd bet that they're quiet enough. And, in the meantime, they'll be smaller and upgradeable.
if only I couldn't buy an actual computer for less than it would cost to buy a PS3.
Probably they would have included binaries.
Even so, there are pretty major difficulties, even now, with the idea of write once, run anywhere. Although the interface to a library may be standard across multiple platforms, it isn't necessarily the case that the implementation is equally robust, let alone identically so. The observation that it was 'completely possible' neglects any consideration of practicality or commercial viability. I'm not saying that it was too impractical to happen, but you gloss over a lot of details and problems with the observation.
I think you severely overestimate computing power in the 80s and 90s. I last compiled XFree86 around 2000. Took a bit over a day.
I really wouldn't have wanted to wait that long to install Office or DevStudio.
Dear Kid Zero,
You suck. Also, you smell funny.
Have a Merry Christmas, you ridiculous philistine!
Really, why?
But is it a fun game? More fun, or less fun than the same game without the fancy music? (In any case, the per-unit cost of including a nice soundtrack is probably infinitesimal most of the time.
Seriously, folks. I'm not saying 'ZOMG! ATARI WUZ TEH KOOLIST!' I'm saying that the fancy sound, graphics, and so forth that go with current-gen games have not significantly enhanced most of the games being produced, except for their price tags.
For heaven's sake, I never said they were mutually exclusive. I said that the effort poured into graphics is producing diminishing returns. (Half-Life 1 being an excellent example of why I'm right.)
1. I would wager, the use of licensed code probably contributes to better games, overall, than the practice of writing the engine in house. Unless you need that next-generation engine that nobody else can offer, it's probably cheaper to license the engine from somebody else. The dev time saved alone is probably worth the cost, and time not spent developing the engine can be put to better use solving other conundrums.
2. Daikatana died less because of how long it took, and more because, by the time it finally was released, it did nothing that other games hadn't already done better. The problem was not the farcically long development time, but that the development time hadn't produced a good enough game to warrant the time spent, let alone the ludicrous hype.
3. There's almost never enough time. Unless you have a guaranteed seller on your hands (instead of just the latest iteration in the race for totally immersive graphics), you simply can't take as long as you like. Games have competitors, and the audience is fickle beside.
The cost of game development has skyrocketed over the last thirty years. In the last ten years or so (the period during which I have actually been paying attention), I'd say that it's arguable just how much benefit this has produced for the game industry or their customers.
Maybe they should be focusing on making the games fun to play, instead of entertaining to watch?
As to insurance being a bet, I'll never said it's a bet you can expect to win. Insurance companies are like casinos. They do not play the game because they enjoy losing money. (That goes for all sorts of insurance companies, by the by.) If you'd rather, find out how much your health insurance will cost per month, and set that aside in a savings account or something, instead of buying health insurance. (Do it while you're young, because this is a long-term bet, just like your retirement savings are.) Pay for your health costs from there. Chances are, you will come out ahead over the long haul. Probably won't work for the guy above, though.
I really hope you realise how stupid that sounds. I'd also take issue with the rest of your statement. You are right that I could not have built, or afford to build, the roads on which I drive. I'm not really sure how infrastructure is analogous to health insurance, exactly. There aren't market alternatives to, well, roads, after all.
By all means, if you can find an HMO that will provide sufficient health insurance to meet your needs and is a non-profit organisation, go for it. I'm not thrilled about subsidizing other people's health care costs, though, and it's rude and unfair to ask me to do so.
I don't know that I'd call the advice about taking a job with a company that provides health coverage a "parting shot". It was advice, nothing more or less. If the cost of health coverage is so burdensome as things are, either he or his wife should consider finding (or keeping) a job that provides health insurance. Why? Because he's got a kid that has serious health care needs, and (I assume) he and his wife are responsible adults? Never said he should be thrilled about the prospects, just that it was something he should consider. Life gives you choices. If they were choices worth making, then they have meaningful consequences, and those consequences mean that there will be some things which are denied to you, however you choose.
As to employer lockin: so do lots of employer-provided benefits. That's why your employer gives you benefits in the first place. They want you to stick around. If you don't want to be beholden to your employer for health coverage, obtain health insurance of your own, and provide proof of same to your HR rep. They'll give you some money back each pay period. (Won't be much, but i'm not interested in arguing this point too much farther.)
As regards the American ideal: it's certainly there for all those willing and able to work hard enough to get it. Nobody ever said it was owed you, or anyone.
Actually, the guy who was afraid the government would screw up health care is the guy I replied to, and he's pretty much right (asked a Canadian how long it takes to get a doctor's appointment?). Government certainly has its place. Law enforcement and critical infrastructure, national defense, some other things, too. Mostly things that would qualify as market failures if left to the market to provide. The problem is that many of the distortions in the health insurance and health care markets are being caused by state intervention. Further state intervention will not solve them, and funding them with government monies will only bankrupt the government (or haven't you followed the problems facing that big drug entitlement Bush signed?).
Let me offer this by way of clarification: I am not unsympathetic to the guy's needs. I thank God that it's not a situation I find myself in. I am, however, unsympathetic to the demands for my sympathy and my money (though not stated directly, the latte
What you're looking for is called 'charity' not 'government' and certainly not 'business'.
Try poking around. You may be able to find a local charity which would be willing/able to give you some financial assistance to defray the cost of health care/health insurance.
The government's already done a fair amount of screwing around with respect to health insurance and health care costs. That's why employer-provided health care isn't taxable, which is why so many employers offer it.
Health insurance != health care, by the by. Anthem, et al, are not in the health *care* business, exactly. They're in health *insurance*, which is basically a bet between you, the insured party, and your insurer that you won't get sick or otherwise incur health care-related costs (usually with a lot of caveats, of course). You pay them a certain amount of money each month that says that you could, very well, get sick. And, if you do, they agree to cover that cost (deductibles, etc, notwithstanding). If government puts a ceiling on how much they're allowed to charge, it basically puts a limit on their ability to profit from the service they provide. No profit == no service. No service means we're *all* screwed. Chances are, they are losing money on the agreement they've made with you. Might be a little, might be a lot. Either way, Anthem's still a business, not a charity. They have an obligation to make money, not to lose it. (Heartless? Yes. Keep in mind, though, that a company employs many people, some of whom may, except for the company-provided health plan, be in precisely the same position. If the company goes under because there are too many customers on whom they are losing money, all those people are out of luck, too.) The loss they take on you has to be made up somewhere, which is probably the type of thing that caused my health insurance (which I was carrying myself) to go up ~10% a year, every year that I carried it.
Seriously: check around for charities. You may be able to get some help that way. If not, you might seriously consider getting a job through a company with a health care plan.
You're wrong about the economic realities of this problem for comparing the US and most of Europe. There are a few very dramatic outliers in Europe, however.
In the meantime, you might consider the proportion of Americans to Europeans in this thread and on Slashdot in general. It's not exclusively American, but I'd wager there are far more Americans than not. It could be, then, that the number of complaining Americans has more to do with the number of Americans than the number of complainers.
Keep your mitts off my freakin' beans!
I'm only half joking, actually. None of the outlets I have access to are any place that's convenient, and the place is already an awful mess of cables.
It was just too silly a thing to pass up noting.
I can't tell you how long I've been looking for a wireless extension cord.
That's because oil is a better medium for the transference of heat energy than is air.
(Well, that's why it cooks faster. It tastes better because you just cooked it in grease. Grease makes almost everything taste better.)
Yes, that is exactly what I mean. Unless I mean that it's a petty and trivial thing to get worked up over, and maybe the writer should relax, take a break, and visit the Big Blue Room with the Daystar in it?
Not really, no.
I did specify normal as a qualifier, after all. Also, 4-digit uid. I'd like to claim that Slashdotters had a bit more perspective, back in the day. However, I've been here plenty long enough to doubt that.
To the innumerable helpful pedants: I already knew what 'bishy' meant.
It's not really something that pops up in conversation with normal people, though.