I'm a girl -- ok, a woman -- but girl-sized, with absurdly tiny hands. I have super coordination (I'm a musician) and even I have trouble with those da*m tiny touchscreens. God only knows how you big blokes manage.
Furthermore, there is nothing sexy about an elegantly-designed device with a screen that is covered with fingerprints.
And how well can we see graphics and photos on a tiny screen?
After decades in the US I'm returning to the UK and taking my American-born kids with me. The UK is far from perfect, but I have developed such a hatred for the US I can't live here anymore. I never believed it could happen.
It most certainly is, and you are a perfect example of the thoughtful, reasoned, smug all-American idiot.
Picture this: one day, in the fail-safe little world you you have created for yourself, you are taking your usual morning shower, when you discover... THE LUMP. You dash off to the doctor, who sends you to the specialist, they do tests, scans, more tests, more scans, and a biopsy. Yeppers... it's malignant. Surgery. No biggie that. However, you are not working during the recovery, and the recovery takes a bit longer than you expected. (You expected the Big Hit. You had planned for that. The co-pays, and all those little things that aren't covered add up to far more than you expected. The medications are a damned fortune. Unbelievable. Well, you can handle it.)
Then they start you on chemo. You thought you could get back to work, well, at least part-time. Forget about it. What you discover is that if you don't take it easy on your 'good days', your 'bad days' are horrendous, and you have many more of them. You become depressed, emotions in the pits, caused in part by other people's attitudes toward you. (You would be amazed how many people you thought were good friends stop inviting you and your wife to parties, barbeques, and such. Even if you can't go, or can only go for an hour, it's important to feel you are still as welcome as you were when you had hair and weighed more than an Auschwitz survivor.) People haven't forgotten you though, since you receive Mass cards from neighbours and acquaintances and you are on the prayer list over at the Baptist, UCC and Methodist Churches.
You develop anaemia. It's not unexpected, but it's nasty all the same. That calls for Procrit. (We all saw those Procrit ads a few years ago. Older man too weak to photograph his grandkids until he takes PROCRIT. TA DA! And the other man who was certain he would have to give up his pretty Bed and Breakfast, until... TA DA! He took Procrit. Anaemia can be dangerous. Procrit can cost up to $2K per injection, which was once a week back in those heady days. (We were fortunate. It only cost us $780/injection for Procrit. The total costs of the meds and non-covered expenses were high... very, very high.) You discover you are spending in three months what you used to save in a year.
You worry about your job. You may even miss it. Your income has either dried up entirely or is greatly reduced, depending on your insurance. However, as you said, your meds aren't covered. (Cancer meds are a fortune.) You watch as your nice pile of green bills diminishes.
Your daughter needs braces on her teeth. I mean, they are seriously crooked and misaligned, so much so she will have difficulty eating if the problem isn't corrected. She may even require surgery. None of this is covered under your insurance plan, by the way.
Christmas, New Year, and you are out another $2K and $6K. The expenses keep mounting, and the bills keep rolling in. The $6K you used to save is gone by the end of the first week in February.
You develop secondary problems. Stuff like infections and ulcers. They aren't usually life-threatening. But they are painful, and they make you miserable. More doctor visits, more meds, more expenses. Embolism stockings,
The usual expenses that come with living your life continue. Kids grow. They need new clothes and shoes. Everybody requires normal dental care.The car needs a timing belt.
Setback. They have discovered cancer along your kidney. You go back on chemo and quit work again.
Your wife discovers that she has a low thyroid, and early osteoporosis. These are common problems. Meds can handle it. (Oh yeah? Have you taken a look at the costs of Fosamax?) When she has her yearly mammogram they see shadows. Her doctor feels lumps in her breasts. They do a scan which shows cystic breasts, not cancer. However, the doctor wants to order a mammogram twice a year, and it is likely that each m
With the built in spell checker, I expect about 12% of the web's users to look smarter by at least 50% on Tuesday, with the number expected to grow as Firefox spreads.
News: that the US Government is monitoring all the traffic flowing through the internet backbones provided by major US service providers.
All the traffic flowing through the Internet backbones provided by major US service providers? Ye Gads!!! Think of all that spam they have to sift through.
Blowing a hole in the fuselage of an airplane in flight will almost certainly cause the deaths of everyone on board (at least 100-200 people on most US domestic flights). An aircraft is a fairly vulnerable thing, and it is unfortunately easy to destroy one with an easy-to-conceal amount of high explosive.
Been done.
In 1988 Libyan terrorists blew Pan Am #103 out of the sky over the wee Scottish village of Lockerbie. All 259 people on the plane were killed, including 35 students from New York's Syracuse University returning home for Christmas after a semester in the UK, and 11 Scottish villagers who were killed in their houses. The explosion that brought down the airliner was caused by a bomb smuggled aboard which was carried in the baggage compartment.
America acted as one might expect. There was the usual inquiry. There was the predictable bluster, and speechifying. Out of it all came promises that the airports serving American carriers would be made secure. It was uplifting. People wiped their eyes. People waved flags. It felt good to be American. And nothing terrible ever happened again.
Do they know how safe repeated scanning is for frequent fliers? What do they know about the effect of this technology on pregnant women and their unborn children?
Oh goody! I knew those rocks the kids brought home would come in handy someday. They've been sitting in the basement gathering dust for months. Now I know what to do with them.
When i went to the US as a British citizen i waited in a community hospital for psychiatric treatment and prescription refills. As i had no income and no social security number i was provided with free treatment (one appointment a month for a year) and $5 co-pay on all my medications. You'd be surprised at what kind of health care you can get in America if you're willing to spend 6 hours waiting around with the "common people" who don't have insurance.
You are missing one point. Unless they are on Medicaid, these Americans are billed for these services. Had these Americans owned anything, like a house, it would have been attached. The trick in the US is to be either filthy rich, or destitute. It isn't advisible to be destitute since the medical care for people who lose everything and end up on Medicaid can be terrible.
In addition to the points already made in response to this, I'd like to add that CIA and FBI have had lots of chances to prevent 9/11 **within existing legislation** if they would have done their jobs properly and communicated slightly more.
It's always the same with every disaster: Important people (difficult to blame) don't do their work, a disaster happens, and as a result new measures are imposed that wouldn't have prevented the disaster either if carried out with the same negligence (and the old measures would have prevented it if carried out more effectively).
There was the previous bombing of the WTC, which should have given them some warning. Also the bombing of Pan Am 103, over Lockerbie, Scotland back in 1988. Not only did that poor village suffer death and destruction, but back then New York suffered with many passengers coming from the New York region, including those 35 murdered kids from Syracuse University who were returning home after a semester in London.
In the US, whenever citizens expect accountability from bureaucrats who through incompetence, disinterest or some other reason don't do their jobs and, as you say, a disaster occurs, those citizens are accused of playing 'the blame game' and told to move on. I remember all those empty promises from the US government, assurances of increased security after Pan Am 103. The government has been ranting about terrorists ever since 9/11. It's a wee bit late for ranting. With what the government of what is, after all, the richest country in the world knew, they still lacked the wisdom and will to bring their security organisations up-to-date and effective in the years between the bombing over Scotland and the attacks in NYC and Washington. Those RealID cards won't make a damn bit of difference. These administrations couldn't organise a debs party.
Sad really, because there is so much greatness here, and there is potential for so much more.
You describe the scenario as it would play out. I would like to add something else. For a woman, her having to give this information to everyone from clerks to check in managers, when it really isn't necessary, makes her more vulnerable to being harassed and even stalked. It's goddamn dangerous.
The ID is a threat to one's privacy and safety. It will only be a matter of time before we hear of the government and employees selling personal information to corporations and employees selling personal information to criminals as happened about two weeks ago not far from here when employees from a bank were discovered selling personal information to the mob. Lovely!
In the days leading up to 9/11, the government couldn't be bothered to look into the information it had on these aliens they suspected and/or knew to have had ties with terrorist organisations.
These cards are an excuse for the government to gather information on Americans and law-abiding alien residents.
Which is more important to you? Your right to personal privacy, or my right to freedom of speech? Would you be OK with me posting your home address & phone number in my blog, along with an account of what I saw you doing last Saturday?
I'd think you were despicable, but the First Amendment was designed to do the important job of protecting assholes. Keep in mind that if you post something that qualifies as "fighting words," I could kick your ass in some jurisdictions.
Americans aren't yet sufficiently mature to understand that there is a difference between freedom and license.
It is beyond many Americans to understand that people who have been hunted down and killed because their personal information has been made public are in no position to 'kick ass', to use that very American phrase. You may be willing to sacrifice your life and the life of your children for this so-called 'freedom', but I'm not.
Perhaps someday American society will mature and begin to value human life over ideology. But after living living here for almost two decades I'm not holding my breath. Time to go home.
Thank you for this. The iPods are very nice. However, as a musician I have wanted an iriver for yonks. I don't care whether or not my equipment looks 'cool'. Great equipment is always cool. I don't care what anybody thinks, especially when my choice works for me.
http://www.iriveramerica.com/prod/hd/h340.aspx
The sleek and compact H340 40GB digital music player holds up to 1200 hours of your favorite songs. Plus, you can transfer and store digital pictures and view them on the vivid color display. A rechargeable battery that lasts up to 16 hours, enhanced 3D sound, ultra-fast USB 2.0 file transfers and simple navigation are just a few of the features you won't find anywhere else.
The H340:
Plays up to 1200 hours of digital music
40GB of internal storage
Large, vivid color display
Ultra-fast USB 2.0 transfers
Supports secure transfers from Windows Media
Player
Rechargeable battery lasts up to 16hrs
View JPEG or BMP images
Built-in FM tuner
Integrated voice recorder
Record music from any audio source(no PC required)
Supports MP3, WMA, ASF and OGG music files
Store or transfer files of any type
Enhanced 3D audio
Packed With:
iriver earphones
Carrying case
USB 2.0 cable
Audio line-in cable
Installation CD
AC adapter
This iriver is the perfect Valentine present for a sweet geek girl like me.
I was once working a crossword and the clue for a 5-letter word was "What a Scotsman wears under his kilt". Naturally I put "SOCKS". It turned out the answer they were looking for was "TREWS"!
At that point I decided that ignoramuses had no business making up crossword puzzles.
"Trews?" I'm scunnered! And socks are worn on feet.;)
Wool is good, but not on the beach. Too itchy. What would one wear on the beach? That running kilt looks interesting. I wonder what they wear under a running kilt?
Because I read somewhere that only vertical movement in the ocean causes tsunamis, that not all quakes in the ocean cause tsunamis. But, not sure about this...
A large asteroid crashing into the ocean would cause a tsunami. (Think of the rings of water when you toss a pebble into a pond.) An underwater volcanic eruption could cause a tsunami. Tsunamis are caused by displacement.
Slashdot Mirror
Tell that to Ada Lovelace.
I'm a girl -- ok, a woman -- but girl-sized, with absurdly tiny hands. I have super coordination (I'm a musician) and even I have trouble with those da*m tiny touchscreens. God only knows how you big blokes manage. Furthermore, there is nothing sexy about an elegantly-designed device with a screen that is covered with fingerprints. And how well can we see graphics and photos on a tiny screen?
Yes, but Sanjay was in the US and CA was an American company. He should have acted like an American. American execs are never corrupt.
Oh wait....
After decades in the US I'm returning to the UK and taking my American-born kids with me. The UK is far from perfect, but I have developed such a hatred for the US I can't live here anymore. I never believed it could happen.
It most certainly is, and you are a perfect example of the thoughtful, reasoned, smug all-American idiot.
Picture this: one day, in the fail-safe little world you you have created for yourself, you are taking your usual morning shower, when you discover... THE LUMP. You dash off to the doctor, who sends you to the specialist, they do tests, scans, more tests, more scans, and a biopsy. Yeppers... it's malignant. Surgery. No biggie that. However, you are not working during the recovery, and the recovery takes a bit longer than you expected. (You expected the Big Hit. You had planned for that. The co-pays, and all those little things that aren't covered add up to far more than you expected. The medications are a damned fortune. Unbelievable. Well, you can handle it.)
Then they start you on chemo. You thought you could get back to work, well, at least part-time. Forget about it. What you discover is that if you don't take it easy on your 'good days', your 'bad days' are horrendous, and you have many more of them. You become depressed, emotions in the pits, caused in part by other people's attitudes toward you. (You would be amazed how many people you thought were good friends stop inviting you and your wife to parties, barbeques, and such. Even if you can't go, or can only go for an hour, it's important to feel you are still as welcome as you were when you had hair and weighed more than an Auschwitz survivor.) People haven't forgotten you though, since you receive Mass cards from neighbours and acquaintances and you are on the prayer list over at the Baptist, UCC and Methodist Churches.
You develop anaemia. It's not unexpected, but it's nasty all the same. That calls for Procrit. (We all saw those Procrit ads a few years ago. Older man too weak to photograph his grandkids until he takes PROCRIT. TA DA! And the other man who was certain he would have to give up his pretty Bed and Breakfast, until... TA DA! He took Procrit. Anaemia can be dangerous. Procrit can cost up to $2K per injection, which was once a week back in those heady days. (We were fortunate. It only cost us $780/injection for Procrit. The total costs of the meds and non-covered expenses were high... very, very high.) You discover you are spending in three months what you used to save in a year.
You worry about your job. You may even miss it. Your income has either dried up entirely or is greatly reduced, depending on your insurance. However, as you said, your meds aren't covered. (Cancer meds are a fortune.) You watch as your nice pile of green bills diminishes.
Your daughter needs braces on her teeth. I mean, they are seriously crooked and misaligned, so much so she will have difficulty eating if the problem isn't corrected. She may even require surgery. None of this is covered under your insurance plan, by the way.
Christmas, New Year, and you are out another $2K and $6K. The expenses keep mounting, and the bills keep rolling in. The $6K you used to save is gone by the end of the first week in February.
You develop secondary problems. Stuff like infections and ulcers. They aren't usually life-threatening. But they are painful, and they make you miserable. More doctor visits, more meds, more expenses. Embolism stockings,
The usual expenses that come with living your life continue. Kids grow. They need new clothes and shoes. Everybody requires normal dental care.The car needs a timing belt.
Setback. They have discovered cancer along your kidney. You go back on chemo and quit work again.
Your wife discovers that she has a low thyroid, and early osteoporosis. These are common problems. Meds can handle it. (Oh yeah? Have you taken a look at the costs of Fosamax?) When she has her yearly mammogram they see shadows. Her doctor feels lumps in her breasts. They do a scan which shows cystic breasts, not cancer. However, the doctor wants to order a mammogram twice a year, and it is likely that each m
U ar right.
All the traffic flowing through the Internet backbones provided by major US service providers? Ye Gads!!! Think of all that spam they have to sift through.
Only if they're other geeks.
Pffft. Please send £126.50 to the BBC, Wood Lane, London and we might let you have access for a year.
Marooned by circumstance in the US, I wish I could! I wish... Oh, please...
Hi!
It's me, Kathy from next door. (I use this dumb alias online cause Tom doesn't like me using my real name on the interweb.)
Anyways, Tom and I are sorry about the kids, your family room picture window, and the baseball.
We are really, really sorry about your TV. You'll know what I'm talking about when you get home.
Best,
Kathy
Been done.
In 1988 Libyan terrorists blew Pan Am #103 out of the sky over the wee Scottish village of Lockerbie. All 259 people on the plane were killed, including 35 students from New York's Syracuse University returning home for Christmas after a semester in the UK, and 11 Scottish villagers who were killed in their houses. The explosion that brought down the airliner was caused by a bomb smuggled aboard which was carried in the baggage compartment.
America acted as one might expect. There was the usual inquiry. There was the predictable bluster, and speechifying. Out of it all came promises that the airports serving American carriers would be made secure. It was uplifting. People wiped their eyes. People waved flags. It felt good to be American. And nothing terrible ever happened again.
.
Oh wait....
Do they know how safe repeated scanning is for frequent fliers? What do they know about the effect of this technology on pregnant women and their unborn children?
Oh goody! I knew those rocks the kids brought home would come in handy someday. They've been sitting in the basement gathering dust for months. Now I know what to do with them.
You are missing one point. Unless they are on Medicaid, these Americans are billed for these services. Had these Americans owned anything, like a house, it would have been attached. The trick in the US is to be either filthy rich, or destitute. It isn't advisible to be destitute since the medical care for people who lose everything and end up on Medicaid can be terrible.
It's always the same with every disaster: Important people (difficult to blame) don't do their work, a disaster happens, and as a result new measures are imposed that wouldn't have prevented the disaster either if carried out with the same negligence (and the old measures would have prevented it if carried out more effectively).
There was the previous bombing of the WTC, which should have given them some warning. Also the bombing of Pan Am 103, over Lockerbie, Scotland back in 1988. Not only did that poor village suffer death and destruction, but back then New York suffered with many passengers coming from the New York region, including those 35 murdered kids from Syracuse University who were returning home after a semester in London.
In the US, whenever citizens expect accountability from bureaucrats who through incompetence, disinterest or some other reason don't do their jobs and, as you say, a disaster occurs, those citizens are accused of playing 'the blame game' and told to move on. I remember all those empty promises from the US government, assurances of increased security after Pan Am 103. The government has been ranting about terrorists ever since 9/11. It's a wee bit late for ranting. With what the government of what is, after all, the richest country in the world knew, they still lacked the wisdom and will to bring their security organisations up-to-date and effective in the years between the bombing over Scotland and the attacks in NYC and Washington. Those RealID cards won't make a damn bit of difference. These administrations couldn't organise a debs party.
Sad really, because there is so much greatness here, and there is potential for so much more.
The ID is a threat to one's privacy and safety. It will only be a matter of time before we hear of the government and employees selling personal information to corporations and employees selling personal information to criminals as happened about two weeks ago not far from here when employees from a bank were discovered selling personal information to the mob. Lovely!
In the days leading up to 9/11, the government couldn't be bothered to look into the information it had on these aliens they suspected and/or knew to have had ties with terrorist organisations.
These cards are an excuse for the government to gather information on Americans and law-abiding alien residents.
Americans aren't yet sufficiently mature to understand that there is a difference between freedom and license.
It is beyond many Americans to understand that people who have been hunted down and killed because their personal information has been made public are in no position to 'kick ass', to use that very American phrase. You may be willing to sacrifice your life and the life of your children for this so-called 'freedom', but I'm not.
Perhaps someday American society will mature and begin to value human life over ideology. But after living living here for almost two decades I'm not holding my breath. Time to go home.
Maybe the woman he interviewed has kids to feed.
Maybe like me, she's a young widow who is the sole support of her family. Did you think of that?
-
-
-
No, of course you didn't.
The H340:
Plays up to 1200 hours of digital music
40GB of internal storage
Large, vivid color display
Ultra-fast USB 2.0 transfers
Supports secure transfers from Windows Media Player
Rechargeable battery lasts up to 16hrs
View JPEG or BMP images
Built-in FM tuner
Integrated voice recorder
Record music from any audio source(no PC required)
Supports MP3, WMA, ASF and OGG music files
Store or transfer files of any type
Enhanced 3D audio
Packed With:
iriver earphones
Carrying case
USB 2.0 cable
Audio line-in cable
Installation CD
AC adapter
This iriver is the perfect Valentine present for a sweet geek girl like me.
At that point I decided that ignoramuses had no business making up crossword puzzles.
"Trews?" I'm scunnered! And socks are worn on feet. ;)
Wool is good, but not on the beach. Too itchy. What would one wear on the beach? That running kilt looks interesting. I wonder what they wear under a running kilt?
Whoever patents the Beach Kilt(tm) is going to make a fortune!
Aye, but what do they wear under it?
No.
A large asteroid crashing into the ocean would cause a tsunami. (Think of the rings of water when you toss a pebble into a pond.) An underwater volcanic eruption could cause a tsunami. Tsunamis are caused by displacement.
Not Winsocks, surely?