A lot of other medications have fewer side-effects than Morphine. Among them are CR-Oxycodone, Fentanyl, and dilaudid. There's little benefit to prescribing heroin given all of the other options. In fact, the only clear benefit is price. It's cheaper than all of the drugs I mentioned. And to the large majority, price isn't the biggest concern.
The real problem is diversion. A significant percentage of all prescribed opiates are diverted to the black market. There are obviously only estimates and anecdotes, but for some drugs (CR OxyCodone) I've seen numbers as high as 30%. The drugs that are diverted the most have more to do with street price than they do with the frequency of prescription. This is why CR OxyCodone is more of a problem than, say, Hydrocodone (Vicodin) or OxyCodone (Percocet).
It's the opinion of the FDA that heroin would be a nightmare of diversion problems. Furthermore, there isn't a CR form of heroin nor is there, to my knowledge, any Antagonist/Agonist combo that could help prevent diversion. Creation of such a formulary would probably increase the use of prescription heroin but it would cost a lot of money to produce and is, I'm guessing, seen as a risk by the pharma companies due to the serious stigma surrounding the drug.
In short, there's no clinical need for heroin in our current healthcare system. It's primary advantage (cost) doesn't outweigh it's many disadvantages. This is reinforced by the veritable nightmare of diversion that's plagued CR OxyCodone since it's release in the mid nineties.
At it's very core, when people talk about liberalism vs. (Goldwater) conservatism, they're talking about "The magic of Government" vs. "The magic of the free market." Obviously, both words have dogmas associated with them, but when it comes down to it, that's what it's all about. In other words, it's FDR vs. Goldwater.
I completely understand the concept of the free market. And in theory, your argument works. If a school is screwing over the poor, another businessman will move in and rescue the poor folks by offering a better product.
However, that's just theory.
In reality, the Free Market hasn't produced very impressive results. Especially in businesses that require a large initial investment. Like schools, for example, or telecom. For example, if I live in rural Montana, I probably cannot get high-speed cable internet. There's even a decent chance that I couldn't get highspeed internet at all. It's just not economically viable for business to offer this when the customer base is so small.
Well, we need schools everywhere. Even in the sparsest areas of the most rural states. The freemarket "fix" to this--in the case of highspeed internet, for example--is to charge more. This makes it economically viable for them.
But what about schools? Kids in rural areas have to pay 2-3-4x more to send their kids to school?
The same logic applies to the worst inner-city neighborhoods. How about the poorest kids in the worst parts of Detroit? Schools should be cheaper there, but from a free-market perspective, there would be less competition & higher costs, leading directly to higher prices.
Furthermore, schools benefit greatly from economies of scale. Think of bus service, for example. Bus service is essential. There's no way small, individual schools would be able to offer this. It costs a lot more for ten companies to maintain one bus each than it does for one "company" to maintain ten buses. And the same thing applies again: Rural, poor and remote areas would be much more challenging from a transportation perspective. So you'd have cases where the only company that runs schools in Nowhere, Idaho, doesn't offer bus service. And what's the free market going to do? There's no incentive for a company to move-in there and provide bus service. The market simply couldn't sustain 2 competing schools. Hell, like I said earlier, it would be difficult to get ONE school.
The free market system just does not work for education. I know libertarians and conservatives love to think like this, but it's just not true. Because even if all of these hurdles could be overcome, there's one more important issue: Wealthy areas subsidize education for poorer areas. This is a good thing. I know that the people in the 'wealthy' areas don't think so, but that's only because you're being short-sighted.
Imagine for a moment that there was no subsidization. The kids from poor areas would continually get lesser educations. This would reinforce poverty. Each generation a little worse-off than the next. Each time, less and less money is available in the community for schools, so the schools get worse and worse. And children have parents that are educated to a lesser and lesser extent. This means bigger diversity between the rich and the poor. I know that none of this sounds so bad to the "I wanna keep my tax dollars" upper-class, but what do you think would happen in such a world?
First, Crime. Lotsa Crime. Those poor kids would be trolling the suburbs in ever growing numbers, stealing anything they could. This would essentially be a tax-increase on the wealthy. It would drive insurance rates up, and it would also swell the prisons.
Second, we'd have a workforce that grows progressively dumber. This means a shallow labor pool, putting upward pressure on wages for those that actually have the basic skills needed. On top of that, the cost of education would be pushed up for even the "richer" kids. If the bottom class of workers can no longer, say, work up to managing their Burger King,
Your post reveals your desire for--for lack of a better term--an electoral fantasy land.
The only way you're going to eliminate either "tactical voting" or the advantages of negative campaigning is to have at least three totally equal parties. This is just not possible. You can't simply erase the 230 year history of a two party system overnight. As long as there are two dominant parties--and it's likely that will often be the case--then it would benefit the "number 2" party to criticize the "number 1" party. Look at the Democratic Primaries for an example. This is sort of the same as multi-party election: it's a NO PARTY election. There are, say, 5 candidates that all have a "party" apparatus that is basically equal. And even then there are always multiple tiers of candidates, and those in the top tier benefit by attacking one another.
And while you're certainly right that there are no candidates elected by national popular vote in America, the electoral system can hardly be compared to a parliament voting on a prime minister. The obvious analog would be our congress voting on the President, which wouldn't even slightly resemble our current system. The electors aren't bound by popular vote in their state but they do follow it with noteworthy consistency.
And the fact that GB, Germany, Israel, Canada, Australia, etc, have multi-party systems and a parliamentary style of government, I don't think, is a coincidence.
And one final thing: Did you seriously suggest Taiwan as an example of multi-party political systems? Do you realize that until very, very recently there was ONE PARTY RULE in Taiwan? Even today, the Taiwanese system is a lot closer to our current system than it is to true multiparty states like the ones I mentioned. There are only 2 dominant parties (only 2 parties that have ever won a Presidential election there). The third party has served a token role without any real chance of winning, not unlike Ross Perot, Ralph Nader, etc.
And, for what it's worth, the idea that more parties means more voters *is* a postulation. There is nothing to suggest that would actually happen. Even if you have seen 'evidence & studies' from other countries, you can't just apply those conclusions to America. Something like voting is tied directly to national identity.
But you do have interesting ideas. That's not too common on/.
You're entire argument hinges on the postulation that if we had multiple parties, more people would vote. If the turnout stayed at the current level, all of the arguments you made for multiple parties dissolve. And while I can understand how you made that connection, I don't think it's necessarily accurate.
There's obviously no way to prove this one way or the other, but I'm sure we all can look anecdotally at our own life. Of all the people I know that don't vote, by far the biggest reason is simply not liking or enjoying the political process. Some say they don't vote because they don't like either candidate, but that's not a majority of my tiny sample.
Among other reasons, there's no reason to think that having 3 candidates would automatically mean that one would be better than JFKerry or GWBush.
BTW - I confused the act of preference voting with the result of IRL. I just grouped this into the "Run Off" option.
And you're entirely right, Clinton was elected both times with only a plurality. And that's CW for a reason: It's generally considered a bad thing.
The basis of my characterization of multi-party systems is based not on some flowery glittery theory of being able to elect your Libertarian to the Presidency. It's based on the facts of how multi-party systems work around the world. Specifically, Israel, Germany, and, to a lesser extent, Great Britain. And I think that it's no coincidence that in each of these cases there are no nationally-elected candidates. Not a single one.
We have a 2-party system. For some reason those on the fringe seem to think that all of our problems would be solved if we just had more parties.
That wouldn't solve anything. In fact, it would make things worse.
We'd have Presidents elected with 25-30% of the popular vote. How does that make our government more representative?
There are only two solutions to that. One, is a 2-stage election w/ a runoff. In which case you're still, in effect, given 2 choices. It's no more likely for, say, a Green to be elected thru this system than it is thru our existing system.
The other solution is a coalition government like in Israel. That would mean the end of the imperial presidency and it's not going to happen in America.
No matter how you put it, I don't think a President that 75% of the people didn't vote for is a good thing.
How much content do you think there'd be if there were no ads?
If people can't make money off the web, it would be a place full of retail stores, dissertations and term-papers.
You are a freeloader. You call me names because you don't like to hear the truth, but that doesn't change things.
The only reason you can skate by like you do is because the vast majority of people have, you know, morals, and they're picking up the slack for children like you.
Do you steal your music, too?
If you're over 18, and actually hold down a job, there's no excuse for either.
"There is not one company to have survived a partnership with Microsoft."
Please. This is asinine. You just don't remember the ones that weren't pushed out of the market because they're not interesting news stories that reinforce your personal stereotype.
How about these companies:
Apple IBM AltaVista Tivo Toshiba Autodesk Intel WebTrends
And that's just the beginning. Microsoft is a huge multi-gazillion dollar business
You're getting a service that you obviously value (you do use it) at no charge to you.
In exchange for such a service, they display ads.
Would your browsing experience be "so much nicer" without the ads? Of course. Would things load faster. Of course. Does that mean you should circumvent the ads? Only if you want to pay for it outta your pocket.
You can do that at any time, you know. It's very easy.
It's just such a joke to me when someone says "I like this free service. I use it. But it's not good enough. Moreover, the tiny price I am asked to pay (in the currency of your time and your eyeballs) is just too much. I can't be bothered to wait 5 seconds (on a bad day) for my ad to load."
Rather than look outside the U.S with the usual language barriers that ensue, look instead to the middle 90% of the country.
A lot of talent lives between Pennsylvania and Nevada. Advertise in those metro areas, do a couple levels of phone screens to keep costs down, fly candidates out for interviews and offer decent relo packages.
Look past NYC, DC, Boston, SoCal, Seattle, Portland, Austin, and the research triangle. Those places are meccas, but there are, oh, 250,000,000 people in flyover states that you're forgetting about.
It's obvious how much you identify as part of the slashdot community. I mean, only dedicated slashdotters would go to the trouble to adblock the few banner adverts on this page just so they can get to the comments faster. That's a clear sign that you care more about the good of the community than yourself. I just wanted to say: Thank you for making such a commitment to this website. If everyone took the extraordinary steps to block completely unobtrusive advertising than this website would be a much better place.
We all know that slashdot doesn't NEED advertising revenue. It's a little-known fact that Slashdot servers don't need bandwidth or electricity: You just pour a four-pack of redbull directly into the gigabit ethernet port and it serves requests like a daemon for 2-3 days without needing to sleep().
Why is it that every comment in this page that compares IE favorably to FF is modded -1? Why is it that every comment in this page that mentions problems w/ FF like memory leaks, crashes, etc, is either not modded up or is modded down?
Slashdot users pride themselves as a bit more informed that the dumbass NOOBs, so why are we incapable of holding 2 opposing viewpoints at the same time? Isn't that supposed to be the mark of intelligence?
Nobody has ever accused Slashdot of having intelligence, but I think the average user would consider themselves to be a notch or 2 above average.
It just seems like people that have the political agenda of advancing FireFox thinks that the best way to do that is to hide any criticism and treat any suggestions to convert to IE7 as totally unacceptable.
When firefox debuted--and I've been running it since then (since v.9)-- most of the comments were about how firefox is just BETTER. Users were sold on it based on it's merits. Now, maybe because of IE7, FF promoters here apparently aren't satisfied with these arguments and instead resort to these misguided tactics.
What I'm saying is, we used to convince people to switch by giving them MORE INFORMATION. Now, it seems, the accepted tactic is trying to play-up FF strengths and hide FF criticism.
That's sad to me.
Go ahead, mark me -129 offtopic flamebait troll, but anyone reading this page knows that what I'm saying is true.
First of all, NK Farmers are a rare beast. There's not enough food to feed the country. Secondly, NK is *already* dependent on aid. Last year they received something like 1 Million Tons of food from foreign countries, mostly China and South Korea.
Not that there might not be downsides, but the idea is, if people know that the bread on their table, literally, was made in America, they might find it in their heart to like us.
We can't fix the PROBLEM in the short-term, but we do have to manage the SYMPTOMS. And right now, that means listening to international phone calls, for example.
But you're totally right. Look at the pictures of Hezbollah handing out $10k (in US MONEY!!) after the israeli-lebabon conflict during the summer.
We need to be there. We should be smuggeling bags of food into North Korea w/ the US Flag emblazoned on the side. We should give farm subsidies to Afghanies to make it cost effective for them to grow, say, corn, instead of opium poppies. Etc.
If I was in charge at MSFT, I'd never give away Zunes. I'd give away the music.
How many people would buy a Zune over an iPod if it included 50 free songs? Or maybe 5 free songs a month for 3 years.
Another idea would be an "iPod exchange" program. Turn in any working iPod and get a free Zune w/ more storage. (turn in a 60gb iPod, get an 80gb Zune, etc). Similarly, buy a zune and get free credits for any music purchased thru iTMS so you can download the songs from the MSFT store for free.
Obviously the iPod exchange would be the most expensive of the ideas I've listed, but what a way to pick-up market share. You're removing an iPod from the market and adding a Zune.
The only question I have: What would they do with all the iPods?
I'm far from a Bush supporter. I quit my job software development job in 2004 to drive across the country and work for Howard Dean for America making about $11 an hour.
But I do agree that we need to handle terrorism and terrorists very seriously and very sternly. It *is* a war. Iraq is a total fuck job, but we need to focus intelligence, law enforcement, special forces and full military operations on killing every Bin-*, Abu-*, and Al-* that wants to do us harm.
This does require special tactics. Lincoln suspended Habeous during the civil war for all citizens. FDR interred 110,000 Japanese during WWII.
And it's totally false to say that these laws "stretching" the constitution are against what the "founding fathers" had in mind. The original Sedition act was passed in 1798, making it illegal to criticize the President or Congress. This was signed by John Adams. Thomas Jefferson was a vocal critic.
The law had a sunset clause built-in, so it expired uneventfully, but the fact that it passed the congress and was signed by the 2nd president of the united states should show you that the Constitution has never been concrete. It's mallable. This is a good thing. Sometimes it's bad, but it's very nature means that the bad things can be corrected.
Besides, the constituion specifically provides for the suspension of Habeas if required for public safety.
As for the "spying" nonsense, do you realize that international calls were also monitored during WWII?
You're blowing this out of proportion. No long-term harm is being done to our country, its citizens, or the constituion. Bush didn't invent any of the techniques he's using. And if listening to Americans INTERNATIONAL calls ends up thwarting a terrorist attack, I think it's worth it. Domestic calls are another thing. Mostly because they're so much more common. For most of us international calls aren't that common. And if I'm calling my friend who lives in Lebanon, for example, I don't care that the call is being screened by a computer system for certain keywords. It's *FAR* from spying".
imagine getting back to your seat and having ads in your inbox for Purell Hand Sanitizer (Bob, you didn't wash your hands), Dockers Stain Resistant pants due to the occasional splatter-back, and, of course, Whizzinators.
Slashdot Mirror
...The SmartWare site isn't much better. (SmartWare is the company that did the study the WP article is based on)
See for yourself: http://www.smartware.com/
A lot of other medications have fewer side-effects than Morphine. Among them are CR-Oxycodone, Fentanyl, and dilaudid. There's little benefit to prescribing heroin given all of the other options. In fact, the only clear benefit is price. It's cheaper than all of the drugs I mentioned. And to the large majority, price isn't the biggest concern.
The real problem is diversion. A significant percentage of all prescribed opiates are diverted to the black market. There are obviously only estimates and anecdotes, but for some drugs (CR OxyCodone) I've seen numbers as high as 30%. The drugs that are diverted the most have more to do with street price than they do with the frequency of prescription. This is why CR OxyCodone is more of a problem than, say, Hydrocodone (Vicodin) or OxyCodone (Percocet).
It's the opinion of the FDA that heroin would be a nightmare of diversion problems. Furthermore, there isn't a CR form of heroin nor is there, to my knowledge, any Antagonist/Agonist combo that could help prevent diversion. Creation of such a formulary would probably increase the use of prescription heroin but it would cost a lot of money to produce and is, I'm guessing, seen as a risk by the pharma companies due to the serious stigma surrounding the drug.
In short, there's no clinical need for heroin in our current healthcare system. It's primary advantage (cost) doesn't outweigh it's many disadvantages. This is reinforced by the veritable nightmare of diversion that's plagued CR OxyCodone since it's release in the mid nineties.
Are you serious? Your solution is to force everyone to move to a city?
Please tell me that was a joke.
At it's very core, when people talk about liberalism vs. (Goldwater) conservatism, they're talking about "The magic of Government" vs. "The magic of the free market." Obviously, both words have dogmas associated with them, but when it comes down to it, that's what it's all about. In other words, it's FDR vs. Goldwater.
I completely understand the concept of the free market. And in theory, your argument works. If a school is screwing over the poor, another businessman will move in and rescue the poor folks by offering a better product.
However, that's just theory.
In reality, the Free Market hasn't produced very impressive results. Especially in businesses that require a large initial investment. Like schools, for example, or telecom. For example, if I live in rural Montana, I probably cannot get high-speed cable internet. There's even a decent chance that I couldn't get highspeed internet at all. It's just not economically viable for business to offer this when the customer base is so small.
Well, we need schools everywhere. Even in the sparsest areas of the most rural states. The freemarket "fix" to this--in the case of highspeed internet, for example--is to charge more. This makes it economically viable for them.
But what about schools? Kids in rural areas have to pay 2-3-4x more to send their kids to school?
The same logic applies to the worst inner-city neighborhoods. How about the poorest kids in the worst parts of Detroit? Schools should be cheaper there, but from a free-market perspective, there would be less competition & higher costs, leading directly to higher prices.
Furthermore, schools benefit greatly from economies of scale. Think of bus service, for example. Bus service is essential. There's no way small, individual schools would be able to offer this. It costs a lot more for ten companies to maintain one bus each than it does for one "company" to maintain ten buses. And the same thing applies again: Rural, poor and remote areas would be much more challenging from a transportation perspective. So you'd have cases where the only company that runs schools in Nowhere, Idaho, doesn't offer bus service. And what's the free market going to do? There's no incentive for a company to move-in there and provide bus service. The market simply couldn't sustain 2 competing schools. Hell, like I said earlier, it would be difficult to get ONE school.
The free market system just does not work for education. I know libertarians and conservatives love to think like this, but it's just not true. Because even if all of these hurdles could be overcome, there's one more important issue: Wealthy areas subsidize education for poorer areas. This is a good thing. I know that the people in the 'wealthy' areas don't think so, but that's only because you're being short-sighted.
Imagine for a moment that there was no subsidization. The kids from poor areas would continually get lesser educations. This would reinforce poverty. Each generation a little worse-off than the next. Each time, less and less money is available in the community for schools, so the schools get worse and worse. And children have parents that are educated to a lesser and lesser extent. This means bigger diversity between the rich and the poor. I know that none of this sounds so bad to the "I wanna keep my tax dollars" upper-class, but what do you think would happen in such a world?
First, Crime. Lotsa Crime. Those poor kids would be trolling the suburbs in ever growing numbers, stealing anything they could. This would essentially be a tax-increase on the wealthy. It would drive insurance rates up, and it would also swell the prisons.
Second, we'd have a workforce that grows progressively dumber. This means a shallow labor pool, putting upward pressure on wages for those that actually have the basic skills needed. On top of that, the cost of education would be pushed up for even the "richer" kids. If the bottom class of workers can no longer, say, work up to managing their Burger King,
Your post reveals your desire for--for lack of a better term--an electoral fantasy land.
/.
The only way you're going to eliminate either "tactical voting" or the advantages of negative campaigning is to have at least three totally equal parties. This is just not possible. You can't simply erase the 230 year history of a two party system overnight. As long as there are two dominant parties--and it's likely that will often be the case--then it would benefit the "number 2" party to criticize the "number 1" party. Look at the Democratic Primaries for an example. This is sort of the same as multi-party election: it's a NO PARTY election. There are, say, 5 candidates that all have a "party" apparatus that is basically equal. And even then there are always multiple tiers of candidates, and those in the top tier benefit by attacking one another.
And while you're certainly right that there are no candidates elected by national popular vote in America, the electoral system can hardly be compared to a parliament voting on a prime minister. The obvious analog would be our congress voting on the President, which wouldn't even slightly resemble our current system. The electors aren't bound by popular vote in their state but they do follow it with noteworthy consistency.
And the fact that GB, Germany, Israel, Canada, Australia, etc, have multi-party systems and a parliamentary style of government, I don't think, is a coincidence.
And one final thing: Did you seriously suggest Taiwan as an example of multi-party political systems? Do you realize that until very, very recently there was ONE PARTY RULE in Taiwan? Even today, the Taiwanese system is a lot closer to our current system than it is to true multiparty states like the ones I mentioned. There are only 2 dominant parties (only 2 parties that have ever won a Presidential election there). The third party has served a token role without any real chance of winning, not unlike Ross Perot, Ralph Nader, etc.
And, for what it's worth, the idea that more parties means more voters *is* a postulation. There is nothing to suggest that would actually happen. Even if you have seen 'evidence & studies' from other countries, you can't just apply those conclusions to America. Something like voting is tied directly to national identity.
But you do have interesting ideas. That's not too common on
You're entire argument hinges on the postulation that if we had multiple parties, more people would vote. If the turnout stayed at the current level, all of the arguments you made for multiple parties dissolve. And while I can understand how you made that connection, I don't think it's necessarily accurate.
There's obviously no way to prove this one way or the other, but I'm sure we all can look anecdotally at our own life. Of all the people I know that don't vote, by far the biggest reason is simply not liking or enjoying the political process. Some say they don't vote because they don't like either candidate, but that's not a majority of my tiny sample.
Among other reasons, there's no reason to think that having 3 candidates would automatically mean that one would be better than JFKerry or GWBush.
BTW - I confused the act of preference voting with the result of IRL. I just grouped this into the "Run Off" option.
And you're entirely right, Clinton was elected both times with only a plurality. And that's CW for a reason: It's generally considered a bad thing.
The basis of my characterization of multi-party systems is based not on some flowery glittery theory of being able to elect your Libertarian to the Presidency. It's based on the facts of how multi-party systems work around the world. Specifically, Israel, Germany, and, to a lesser extent, Great Britain. And I think that it's no coincidence that in each of these cases there are no nationally-elected candidates. Not a single one.
This is a form of run-off. The name of it is failing me, but the sentiment is that it's an "instant runoff" or something like that.
We have a 2-party system. For some reason those on the fringe seem to think that all of our problems would be solved if we just had more parties.
That wouldn't solve anything. In fact, it would make things worse.
We'd have Presidents elected with 25-30% of the popular vote. How does that make our government more representative?
There are only two solutions to that. One, is a 2-stage election w/ a runoff. In which case you're still, in effect, given 2 choices. It's no more likely for, say, a Green to be elected thru this system than it is thru our existing system.
The other solution is a coalition government like in Israel. That would mean the end of the imperial presidency and it's not going to happen in America.
No matter how you put it, I don't think a President that 75% of the people didn't vote for is a good thing.
How much content do you think there'd be if there were no ads?
If people can't make money off the web, it would be a place full of retail stores, dissertations and term-papers.
You are a freeloader. You call me names because you don't like to hear the truth, but that doesn't change things.
The only reason you can skate by like you do is because the vast majority of people have, you know, morals, and they're picking up the slack for children like you.
Do you steal your music, too?
If you're over 18, and actually hold down a job, there's no excuse for either.
"There is not one company to have survived a partnership with Microsoft."
Please. This is asinine. You just don't remember the ones that weren't pushed out of the market because they're not interesting news stories that reinforce your personal stereotype.
How about these companies:
Apple
IBM
AltaVista
Tivo
Toshiba
Autodesk
Intel
WebTrends
And that's just the beginning. Microsoft is a huge multi-gazillion dollar business
You're getting a service that you obviously value (you do use it) at no charge to you.
In exchange for such a service, they display ads.
Would your browsing experience be "so much nicer" without the ads? Of course. Would things load faster. Of course. Does that mean you should circumvent the ads? Only if you want to pay for it outta your pocket.
You can do that at any time, you know. It's very easy.
It's just such a joke to me when someone says "I like this free service. I use it. But it's not good enough. Moreover, the tiny price I am asked to pay (in the currency of your time and your eyeballs) is just too much. I can't be bothered to wait 5 seconds (on a bad day) for my ad to load."
Freeloader.
PARENT IS AN ANONYMOUS COWARD
Rather than look outside the U.S with the usual language barriers that ensue, look instead to the middle 90% of the country.
A lot of talent lives between Pennsylvania and Nevada. Advertise in those metro areas, do a couple levels of phone screens to keep costs down, fly candidates out for interviews and offer decent relo packages.
Look past NYC, DC, Boston, SoCal, Seattle, Portland, Austin, and the research triangle. Those places are meccas, but there are, oh, 250,000,000 people in flyover states that you're forgetting about.
It's obvious how much you identify as part of the slashdot community. I mean, only dedicated slashdotters would go to the trouble to adblock the few banner adverts on this page just so they can get to the comments faster. That's a clear sign that you care more about the good of the community than yourself. I just wanted to say: Thank you for making such a commitment to this website. If everyone took the extraordinary steps to block completely unobtrusive advertising than this website would be a much better place.
We all know that slashdot doesn't NEED advertising revenue. It's a little-known fact that Slashdot servers don't need bandwidth or electricity: You just pour a four-pack of redbull directly into the gigabit ethernet port and it serves requests like a daemon for 2-3 days without needing to sleep().
Can someone explain this to me w/o modding me -1:
.9)-- most of the comments were about how firefox is just BETTER. Users were sold on it based on it's merits. Now, maybe because of IE7, FF promoters here apparently aren't satisfied with these arguments and instead resort to these misguided tactics.
Why is it that every comment in this page that compares IE favorably to FF is modded -1?
Why is it that every comment in this page that mentions problems w/ FF like memory leaks, crashes, etc, is either not modded up or is modded down?
Slashdot users pride themselves as a bit more informed that the dumbass NOOBs, so why are we incapable of holding 2 opposing viewpoints at the same time? Isn't that supposed to be the mark of intelligence?
Nobody has ever accused Slashdot of having intelligence, but I think the average user would consider themselves to be a notch or 2 above average.
It just seems like people that have the political agenda of advancing FireFox thinks that the best way to do that is to hide any criticism and treat any suggestions to convert to IE7 as totally unacceptable.
When firefox debuted--and I've been running it since then (since v
What I'm saying is, we used to convince people to switch by giving them MORE INFORMATION. Now, it seems, the accepted tactic is trying to play-up FF strengths and hide FF criticism.
That's sad to me.
Go ahead, mark me -129 offtopic flamebait troll, but anyone reading this page knows that what I'm saying is true.
Good point. I was thinking of market share as "% of mp3 players in usage" and not "% of mp3 players sold"
What?
You mean: There's a Hell: Michigan as well
you're wrong.
and for your "as well" crit, you're wrong there as well.
For whatever the reason, smaller motors can be used to spin these lighter platters.
Plus, AFAIK, drives don't spin the entire time your PC is on, do they?
There's a Hell, Michigan as well
That's not free!
First of all, NK Farmers are a rare beast. There's not enough food to feed the country. Secondly, NK is *already* dependent on aid. Last year they received something like 1 Million Tons of food from foreign countries, mostly China and South Korea.
Not that there might not be downsides, but the idea is, if people know that the bread on their table, literally, was made in America, they might find it in their heart to like us.
I agree 100%
We can't fix the PROBLEM in the short-term, but we do have to manage the SYMPTOMS. And right now, that means listening to international phone calls, for example.
But you're totally right. Look at the pictures of Hezbollah handing out $10k (in US MONEY!!) after the israeli-lebabon conflict during the summer.
We need to be there. We should be smuggeling bags of food into North Korea w/ the US Flag emblazoned on the side. We should give farm subsidies to Afghanies to make it cost effective for them to grow, say, corn, instead of opium poppies. Etc.
If I was in charge at MSFT, I'd never give away Zunes. I'd give away the music.
How many people would buy a Zune over an iPod if it included 50 free songs? Or maybe 5 free songs a month for 3 years.
Another idea would be an "iPod exchange" program. Turn in any working iPod and get a free Zune w/ more storage. (turn in a 60gb iPod, get an 80gb Zune, etc). Similarly, buy a zune and get free credits for any music purchased thru iTMS so you can download the songs from the MSFT store for free.
Obviously the iPod exchange would be the most expensive of the ideas I've listed, but what a way to pick-up market share. You're removing an iPod from the market and adding a Zune.
The only question I have: What would they do with all the iPods?
I'm far from a Bush supporter. I quit my job software development job in 2004 to drive across the country and work for Howard Dean for America making about $11 an hour.
But I do agree that we need to handle terrorism and terrorists very seriously and very sternly. It *is* a war. Iraq is a total fuck job, but we need to focus intelligence, law enforcement, special forces and full military operations on killing every Bin-*, Abu-*, and Al-* that wants to do us harm.
This does require special tactics. Lincoln suspended Habeous during the civil war for all citizens. FDR interred 110,000 Japanese during WWII.
And it's totally false to say that these laws "stretching" the constitution are against what the "founding fathers" had in mind. The original Sedition act was passed in 1798, making it illegal to criticize the President or Congress. This was signed by John Adams. Thomas Jefferson was a vocal critic.
The law had a sunset clause built-in, so it expired uneventfully, but the fact that it passed the congress and was signed by the 2nd president of the united states should show you that the Constitution has never been concrete. It's mallable. This is a good thing. Sometimes it's bad, but it's very nature means that the bad things can be corrected.
Besides, the constituion specifically provides for the suspension of Habeas if required for public safety.
As for the "spying" nonsense, do you realize that international calls were also monitored during WWII?
You're blowing this out of proportion. No long-term harm is being done to our country, its citizens, or the constituion. Bush didn't invent any of the techniques he's using. And if listening to Americans INTERNATIONAL calls ends up thwarting a terrorist attack, I think it's worth it. Domestic calls are another thing. Mostly because they're so much more common. For most of us international calls aren't that common. And if I'm calling my friend who lives in Lebanon, for example, I don't care that the call is being screened by a computer system for certain keywords. It's *FAR* from spying".
imagine getting back to your seat and having ads in your inbox for Purell Hand Sanitizer (Bob, you didn't wash your hands), Dockers Stain Resistant pants due to the occasional splatter-back, and, of course, Whizzinators.