Ok, but you are still going to pay for their health care, you ARE paying for their health care. Ever been overbilled at a hospital (I have, every single time), that's your "tax". Your insurance company gets hit doubly hard, and that hits your premiums too.
You are paying that tax for having had to show up to the hospital. Why not spread that across all americans, and tax the individuals who clearly have an income but who are not paying for health insurance too?
Aren't you a bit mad you're having to pay for these slobs yourself, when, as a social problem, everyone else should too?
Or maybe that's a false dichotomy. I think anyone with a brain agrees that congress is not qualified to administer a health care plan. Congress can only cause one to be funded.
Any rational attempt at national health care (which, incidentally, isn't being discussed here), would have: - Individual choice on health care providers - A guaranteed minimum level of coverage, for everyone in the US - Freedom for individuals to purchase more than the minimum, up to their level of satisfaction - Health care providers bill insurance companies, not individuals, for covered services.
Clearly there are holes in the above so wide you can drive a truck through it. We need to think about this system and figure out how to make it work, such that we maximize the benefits of capitalism and socialism. I want a leader who is going to invest in developing a good plan, using failed and "so called" failed systems as references.
4/5 may come into existence, but it will ANYWAY. My employer has already started offering $15/mo off for employees who sign a contract (with penalties) stating that they do not smoke. They offer up to $400/yr for people who take a company provided health exam and agree to follow a "health program" prescribed from whatever quack nutritionist they have on staff.
That's how it will go down at the national level too. You can't punish people for being fat or for smoking, but you can offer "incentives".
On the other hand, neither McCain's nor Obama's are any better. McCain's plan will have you get your own insurance, which likely will require a health examination to calculate your premium. If you're fat, it will be higher. If the doctor believes you smoke...it will be higher. etc. Obama's plan basically will boil down to "status quo". Allowing corporations to do as they are presently doing.
So while I agree with your statement, this is not avoidable. Insurance, by nature, is socialist, and insurance, by nature, determines your premium based on risk factors. I hate it, but it's not changing.
Yet his other point was that they do their best to avoid payouts, and throw you into the middle of the money game when in doubt.
Yeah as you are dying you can probably sue to make sure they put up the cash you paid in to the system to get, but you may be too busy dying to do so effectively, and too broke to afford an attorney.
It has nothing to do with arrogance or "IP" in the usual slashdot sense of the word. These export compliance laws have everything to do with countries we are attempting to sanction for whatever reasons.
For computers of the grade I work on there are some 7-8 countries we are simply not allowed to sell to (mostly middle eastern), not even if it's through a local US based exporter. Considerable effort is made on our part to try to uncover the ultimate destination of your machine(s). I would recommend, for example, never jokingly saying you intend to buy the machine for nuclear weapons. You seriously will be turned down, probably forever, and seriously will be investigated by people not well known for adherence to laws in any country, including the US. That would be obvious to anyone actually intending to do so, of course, but more subtle means are used as well.
This article is more akin to cuban cigars than pirated Britney Spears CDs. We know they have computers, but we don't want them to profit by our economic system in obtaining them. We can't stop them from manufacturing their own, or from buying from other countries...but by subtracting the US from the picture, like it or not, we can significantly hurt them. It does not matter what nationalities were involved in the design of a machine (often not American, or at least not by birth), it just matters who manufactured it. An Intel CPU should never show up in North Korea, for example.
The technology/designs itself? I think we know they probably have many important pieces. But knowing how something works is entirely different than being able to build it, and do so on a wide enough scale to be a threat. That's mostly what the intent is.
Dealing with ego's is eternal. You cannot escape it, anytime, anywhere. They're at work, they're in open source, they run your HOA or your local government. They crap on you all the time. The question is what can you do about it, to achieve what you consider to be an acceptable quality of life.
With open source, you are free to individually decide whether the ego behind a contribution is worth dealing with. He either is so prolific/intelligent/hard working, that his attitude is worth dealing with, or he is not, and you can take your business elsewhere. If enough people agree with you, you've got fork. Plus, your open source code is out there, and your reputation can be justified by actual work you do. You had no paycheck to begin with, so you really don't lose much.
At work, coding professionally, you have to tolerate any egos you work with, period. Whether they contribute or not, whether they may be the bosses drinking buddy/son/daughter/blackmailer/etc. Until he stops working with you, you have to deal with him. Unless he crosses a line (in the US) into harassment of some legally accepted form, all you can do is quit. Your code will be proprietary, and you will only have word of mouth on your side. You lose your paycheck in the process. If enough people quit, maybe something will happen...but in this economy you will struggle to get that level of cooperation in this sector. Note it can be legally problematic to incite your coworkers to quit due to things you may have signed when hired, or other lawsuits.
That's really what it's about. There's no reason not to touch open source or to avoid open source jobs, unless you signed some agreement with your present employer stating that you would not. Plenty of people have made names for themselves in open source, some of which are actually great people.
Trust me, an internet nobody who is about to quote the muppets, never make a decision based on "people". "...So, peoples is peoples. Okay?" They're the same everywhere, every once in a while you land in a good group of motivated people who suppress their egos long enough to do something great...but most of time time you have to create that, starting with yourself, wherever you land.
If you retain the reference #, Mr. Voter Buying Man can force you to hand it over, and verify your vote. I'm not sure there's really a good way of knowing that your vote counted, and have it be anonymous. You can pick one or the other.
Mr Voter Buying Man can observe your vote directly, or he can do so by monkeying with the tally behind the scenes. I personally feel more secure having anonymous votes, but having a paper trail that is used/audited. It can still be corrupt, but the likelihood of leaving physical evidence of tampering is higher.
In any event, our responsibility to voting transcends simply showing up and marking a box. We have to be very sure that our vote appears to be cast for who we want, first and foremost. Make sure the ballot is clear and correct at face value. We can blame the machines all we like, but it's our responsibility to make sure our part is done perfectly. Our next responsibility is to observe the election results and match them to our perception of reality, and if we have doubts, participate in the counting process.
It's not easy to throw an election quietly. You have to be very subtle. Let's say you want to rig it for McCain (he's the underdog now). You can't rig it to let him win by a landslide, there'd be riots. Our BS detectors should say "If he wins, it will be by a narrow margin". So you need to rig the machines/process to give him just a slight victory across the several battleground states. Across many districts, state lines and different voting machines (some of which you have no control of).
But in mid-large corporations the IT nazi's usually win, at least this decade.
Our biggest victory was forbidding IT into our labs, but they can still get in if they "detect non-compliance". This is why I mention "infrastructure", both in hardware and politics.
Let's all lighten up. O-scopes are expensive, and used for so many things that it's impossible for us to say use Brand X Model Y. The question IS really specious and ill conceived at that. That said, I cringe at the thought of buying one for a department in a university or even a researchy corporate job, there are just too many different use cases and needs.
Plus, the UI is the part I care about the least. In fact Lecroy in the >1GHz range are my favorite scopes, but the UI is terrible.
What we should offer is a framework of asking better questions about this product. There are more options than a car, and the price is usually higher
1) What bandwidth range are you looking for? (Note: this is directly correlated with PRICE, so you do not buy more than you need) Do talk to your sales rep, and tell him what kind of signals you're measuring (say USB, SATA, ethernet...whatever). Do not simply assume the nyquist rate for your fundamental, and get that fast of a scope. Even if it worked the way you think it works, you will hurt yourself. Your rep will be happy to explain the architecture of your scope input, and help you find the right frequency.
2) What kind of probes are important to you/what is your application? Scopes are accessorized, heavily. There are various types of active/passive/differential/current/etc. probes out there, some brands are better than others for a given application. Some diff probes require solder on tips, these can be very, very expensive (but also very handy, depending on what you're doing).
3) Are you going to be doing compliance measurements/mask measurements/protocol analysis etc? Will you need to add new masks later? Have your rep demo these key features, ask about upgrades, support and expandability. Get him to take a measurement on your devices, make him show you how well it works. Often they don't work as well as you need.
4) Your corporate/university IT nazi's. All the fancy wizards and auto-testing tools are no good if you are going to be forbidden to have a scope on your corporate network, particularly if those rules are targeted at Windows based tools. Almost all scopes are Win95/98/2k based. Think about the infrastructure you will need to be compliant.
5) Expandability: for some kinds of measurements you will want to interface your o-scope with some equipment. One other poster here talked about linking to a logic analyzer. Many will interact with matlab/labview/etc. Some need licenses...investigate
6) UI's can be important, depending on your audience. If I were buying a scope to be used by my lab techs, I would choose one that I could script and wizard through, flashing pictures of what to measure and automatically logging data to the appropriate spot. For me, if it's worth using it's worth learning to use, UI doesn't matter to me.
Price is an output of these functions. The more you want, the more it costs. Start with what you NEED at a minimum. Use your sales reps, they are engineers, they are knowledgeable. Use your brain and ask dumb questions, and play one vendor's answers against another to figure out what's going on.
You can also consider leasing equipment, a good way to figure out what works or what doesn't.
Yet in the US (and anywhere else where you get high speed to your home), they already know who you are, and corporate interests can even get hold of that information to pursue bogus lawsuits.
Libertarianism in the US doesn't really equate to anarchism, quite the opposite, it's more like feudalism. Really you should differentiate libertarians (little 'l') as people who value individual liberty, from Libertarians, supporters of the US Libertarian Party who are really more interested in free trade.
As far as I can see, Libertarians are very much based on law and order, just a lack of government regulation over business interests. Libertarians are very dubiously libertarians, in that they very much believe in society and it's trappings that place limits on individual liberty, they just want reduced controls over business. They rely on the government, or their own power, to deal with those who do not live up to contracted terms. Many of the more well spoken Libertarians are wealthy, and would be the new royalty.
I consider myself a libertarian, but I want nothing to do with Libertarians. Corporations to me, are another form of government, one I can't elect. My viewpoint is that government exists to promote liberty for all individuals, and in so doing, must curtail some liberties for all individuals and other entities. Thus as a libertarian, I can't be much of an anarchist.
For example: I naively and unwittingly joined a corporation which has no-hire agreements with most companies that would hire me (in my industry, or not) in this area, I am not free to find a new employer (short of a long distance move), in spite of how many are out there. My individual liberty has been seriously compromised. Libertarians, however, may endorse this practice and would resent government interference here. I would get little support in my state in proposing a law to make this behavior illegal. My state (which normally votes republican), is very much Libertarian in philosophy.
And really, all of that is the trouble with Libertarians and libertarians. To quote Oliver Wendell Holmes "The right to swing my fist ends where the other man's nose begins". Only one person can have true freedom. So the precise way in which you legislate liberty tends to migrate towards more mainstream politics and the false dichotomy we call the Democrats vs. Republicans. None of those parties adequately represents pretty much anyones position on anything, but they are more cohesive in philosophy than "libertarianism", however you define it. There is no liberty or Liberty to be had by either party, just lesser evils. Libertarianism (either type of L) really doesn't work as a political philosophy, so when an American calls themselves a [L|l]ibertarian I'm not sure what to make of them either.
Health care in the US is socialized, health care wants to be socialized. You get it from your company, where you pay in to a system that may or may not pay out for you as much as you put in, either in the short run or the long run.
You can pay for it privately, but it's still socialized, most insurance is socialized. You aren't investing in a fund that you manage, and can elect to spend the invested money on something else. Your insurance is doing a lot for you, it's giving you buying power when you go to a doctor, for one. Your fellow man is helping you get a better deal than the doctor might otherwise want to offer. In some sense, this is legalized price fixing, in your favor.
The only question about health care is who manages it. Corporations or the government. Republicans are quick to point out how poorly the government does...everything. Democrats are quick to point out how self serving corporations are, and thus how poorly they handle health care.
Meanwhile, we all see that the health care system is broken in various ways. The only question is who is working on fixing it. I hear a lot more from the democrats than the republicans. I haven't heard a good solution yet, I've heard a lot of bitching and moaning from the republicans, and a lot of hearts bleeding from the democrats. But the democrats do have it somewhere on their agenda, even if it rates beneath irate bullshitting for no purpose on the taxpayer dime.
He is, the existence of a QA department is an admission of weakness. As others have said, there's nothing "easy" about QA, it's as hard as design, if you are doing it right. To a large degree, because you should be doing the same job.
I get nervous when there's a dedicated QA role in a company. It tells me that every pigeon has his hole.
I was going to say the mandatory voice would be a pre-pubescent boy, shrieking loudly. If you can stand what you're saying with that coming over the speakers, it's probably exceptionally intelligent and informed.
In spite of the beta period, and the number of people in it...we could all see, a month before launch, a week before launch, a day before launch... it wasn't going to be ready, the patches were coming in too slow.
Even that, maybe, could be tolerated. But the gameplay was lame, some basic concepts were way off, the combat was a confused attempt at visual realism but "real time", the net result was suck. The game felt like it was being designed for the console in terms of focus on graphics and style over functionality and depth of gameplay. The controls were overly simplistic, and brainless. Yet it called itself a mmog, acted in a few ways like a mmog. It has multiple personality disorder on many levels.
The game needed another year or two to bake in the oven, some good professional therapy, and a clear direction. Instead it's basically stillborn. There is/was some potential in the game, but there are also so many competitors, and no reason for John Q. Public to invest the montly fees required to bring this game to launch readiness. Let it die.
Slashdot Mirror
Ok, but you are still going to pay for their health care, you ARE paying for their health care. Ever been overbilled at a hospital (I have, every single time), that's your "tax". Your insurance company gets hit doubly hard, and that hits your premiums too.
You are paying that tax for having had to show up to the hospital. Why not spread that across all americans, and tax the individuals who clearly have an income but who are not paying for health insurance too?
Aren't you a bit mad you're having to pay for these slobs yourself, when, as a social problem, everyone else should too?
Or maybe that's a false dichotomy. I think anyone with a brain agrees that congress is not qualified to administer a health care plan. Congress can only cause one to be funded.
Any rational attempt at national health care (which, incidentally, isn't being discussed here), would have:
- Individual choice on health care providers
- A guaranteed minimum level of coverage, for everyone in the US
- Freedom for individuals to purchase more than the minimum, up to their level of satisfaction
- Health care providers bill insurance companies, not individuals, for covered services.
Clearly there are holes in the above so wide you can drive a truck through it. We need to think about this system and figure out how to make it work, such that we maximize the benefits of capitalism and socialism. I want a leader who is going to invest in developing a good plan, using failed and "so called" failed systems as references.
4/5 may come into existence, but it will ANYWAY. My employer has already started offering $15/mo off for employees who sign a contract (with penalties) stating that they do not smoke. They offer up to $400/yr for people who take a company provided health exam and agree to follow a "health program" prescribed from whatever quack nutritionist they have on staff.
That's how it will go down at the national level too. You can't punish people for being fat or for smoking, but you can offer "incentives".
On the other hand, neither McCain's nor Obama's are any better. McCain's plan will have you get your own insurance, which likely will require a health examination to calculate your premium. If you're fat, it will be higher. If the doctor believes you smoke...it will be higher. etc. Obama's plan basically will boil down to "status quo". Allowing corporations to do as they are presently doing.
So while I agree with your statement, this is not avoidable. Insurance, by nature, is socialist, and insurance, by nature, determines your premium based on risk factors. I hate it, but it's not changing.
Yet his other point was that they do their best to avoid payouts, and throw you into the middle of the money game when in doubt.
Yeah as you are dying you can probably sue to make sure they put up the cash you paid in to the system to get, but you may be too busy dying to do so effectively, and too broke to afford an attorney.
The track ball I can ignore. I wouldn't buy it because I have never met a happy HTC owner.
Plus, 90% of the time I own such a phone I will (want to) have it plugged into my laptop at work. So far no one is exactly embracing this usage model.
It has nothing to do with arrogance or "IP" in the usual slashdot sense of the word. These export compliance laws have everything to do with countries we are attempting to sanction for whatever reasons.
For computers of the grade I work on there are some 7-8 countries we are simply not allowed to sell to (mostly middle eastern), not even if it's through a local US based exporter. Considerable effort is made on our part to try to uncover the ultimate destination of your machine(s). I would recommend, for example, never jokingly saying you intend to buy the machine for nuclear weapons. You seriously will be turned down, probably forever, and seriously will be investigated by people not well known for adherence to laws in any country, including the US. That would be obvious to anyone actually intending to do so, of course, but more subtle means are used as well.
This article is more akin to cuban cigars than pirated Britney Spears CDs. We know they have computers, but we don't want them to profit by our economic system in obtaining them. We can't stop them from manufacturing their own, or from buying from other countries...but by subtracting the US from the picture, like it or not, we can significantly hurt them. It does not matter what nationalities were involved in the design of a machine (often not American, or at least not by birth), it just matters who manufactured it. An Intel CPU should never show up in North Korea, for example.
The technology/designs itself? I think we know they probably have many important pieces. But knowing how something works is entirely different than being able to build it, and do so on a wide enough scale to be a threat. That's mostly what the intent is.
Dealing with ego's is eternal. You cannot escape it, anytime, anywhere. They're at work, they're in open source, they run your HOA or your local government. They crap on you all the time. The question is what can you do about it, to achieve what you consider to be an acceptable quality of life.
With open source, you are free to individually decide whether the ego behind a contribution is worth dealing with. He either is so prolific/intelligent/hard working, that his attitude is worth dealing with, or he is not, and you can take your business elsewhere. If enough people agree with you, you've got fork. Plus, your open source code is out there, and your reputation can be justified by actual work you do. You had no paycheck to begin with, so you really don't lose much.
At work, coding professionally, you have to tolerate any egos you work with, period. Whether they contribute or not, whether they may be the bosses drinking buddy/son/daughter/blackmailer/etc. Until he stops working with you, you have to deal with him. Unless he crosses a line (in the US) into harassment of some legally accepted form, all you can do is quit. Your code will be proprietary, and you will only have word of mouth on your side. You lose your paycheck in the process. If enough people quit, maybe something will happen...but in this economy you will struggle to get that level of cooperation in this sector. Note it can be legally problematic to incite your coworkers to quit due to things you may have signed when hired, or other lawsuits.
That's really what it's about. There's no reason not to touch open source or to avoid open source jobs, unless you signed some agreement with your present employer stating that you would not. Plenty of people have made names for themselves in open source, some of which are actually great people.
Trust me, an internet nobody who is about to quote the muppets, never make a decision based on "people". "...So, peoples is peoples. Okay?" They're the same everywhere, every once in a while you land in a good group of motivated people who suppress their egos long enough to do something great...but most of time time you have to create that, starting with yourself, wherever you land.
If you retain the reference #, Mr. Voter Buying Man can force you to hand it over, and verify your vote. I'm not sure there's really a good way of knowing that your vote counted, and have it be anonymous. You can pick one or the other.
Mr Voter Buying Man can observe your vote directly, or he can do so by monkeying with the tally behind the scenes. I personally feel more secure having anonymous votes, but having a paper trail that is used/audited. It can still be corrupt, but the likelihood of leaving physical evidence of tampering is higher.
In any event, our responsibility to voting transcends simply showing up and marking a box. We have to be very sure that our vote appears to be cast for who we want, first and foremost. Make sure the ballot is clear and correct at face value. We can blame the machines all we like, but it's our responsibility to make sure our part is done perfectly. Our next responsibility is to observe the election results and match them to our perception of reality, and if we have doubts, participate in the counting process.
It's not easy to throw an election quietly. You have to be very subtle. Let's say you want to rig it for McCain (he's the underdog now). You can't rig it to let him win by a landslide, there'd be riots. Our BS detectors should say "If he wins, it will be by a narrow margin". So you need to rig the machines/process to give him just a slight victory across the several battleground states. Across many districts, state lines and different voting machines (some of which you have no control of).
But in mid-large corporations the IT nazi's usually win, at least this decade.
Our biggest victory was forbidding IT into our labs, but they can still get in if they "detect non-compliance". This is why I mention "infrastructure", both in hardware and politics.
This is so intriguing that I am going to try it tomorrow.
Bonus points if OSHA comes to inspect while we're doing it.
Let's all lighten up. O-scopes are expensive, and used for so many things that it's impossible for us to say use Brand X Model Y. The question IS really specious and ill conceived at that. That said, I cringe at the thought of buying one for a department in a university or even a researchy corporate job, there are just too many different use cases and needs.
Plus, the UI is the part I care about the least. In fact Lecroy in the >1GHz range are my favorite scopes, but the UI is terrible.
What we should offer is a framework of asking better questions about this product. There are more options than a car, and the price is usually higher
1) What bandwidth range are you looking for? (Note: this is directly correlated with PRICE, so you do not buy more than you need) Do talk to your sales rep, and tell him what kind of signals you're measuring (say USB, SATA, ethernet...whatever). Do not simply assume the nyquist rate for your fundamental, and get that fast of a scope. Even if it worked the way you think it works, you will hurt yourself. Your rep will be happy to explain the architecture of your scope input, and help you find the right frequency.
2) What kind of probes are important to you/what is your application? Scopes are accessorized, heavily. There are various types of active/passive/differential/current/etc. probes out there, some brands are better than others for a given application. Some diff probes require solder on tips, these can be very, very expensive (but also very handy, depending on what you're doing).
3) Are you going to be doing compliance measurements/mask measurements/protocol analysis etc? Will you need to add new masks later? Have your rep demo these key features, ask about upgrades, support and expandability. Get him to take a measurement on your devices, make him show you how well it works. Often they don't work as well as you need.
4) Your corporate/university IT nazi's. All the fancy wizards and auto-testing tools are no good if you are going to be forbidden to have a scope on your corporate network, particularly if those rules are targeted at Windows based tools. Almost all scopes are Win95/98/2k based. Think about the infrastructure you will need to be compliant.
5) Expandability: for some kinds of measurements you will want to interface your o-scope with some equipment. One other poster here talked about linking to a logic analyzer. Many will interact with matlab/labview/etc. Some need licenses...investigate
6) UI's can be important, depending on your audience. If I were buying a scope to be used by my lab techs, I would choose one that I could script and wizard through, flashing pictures of what to measure and automatically logging data to the appropriate spot. For me, if it's worth using it's worth learning to use, UI doesn't matter to me.
Price is an output of these functions. The more you want, the more it costs. Start with what you NEED at a minimum. Use your sales reps, they are engineers, they are knowledgeable. Use your brain and ask dumb questions, and play one vendor's answers against another to figure out what's going on.
You can also consider leasing equipment, a good way to figure out what works or what doesn't.
No, most memories I'd like to erase occurred immediately after a night of heavy drinking.
ggrrA! sgod yvrucs ey tsavA! zeraw em gnirB!
Crap, I bought a whole pile of pickles to stone them with...
You need to read between the lines, clearly the generously proportioned man was Steve Ballmer.
Yet in the US (and anywhere else where you get high speed to your home), they already know who you are, and corporate interests can even get hold of that information to pursue bogus lawsuits.
There is no shortage of idiots on the web.
Libertarianism in the US doesn't really equate to anarchism, quite the opposite, it's more like feudalism. Really you should differentiate libertarians (little 'l') as people who value individual liberty, from Libertarians, supporters of the US Libertarian Party who are really more interested in free trade.
As far as I can see, Libertarians are very much based on law and order, just a lack of government regulation over business interests. Libertarians are very dubiously libertarians, in that they very much believe in society and it's trappings that place limits on individual liberty, they just want reduced controls over business. They rely on the government, or their own power, to deal with those who do not live up to contracted terms. Many of the more well spoken Libertarians are wealthy, and would be the new royalty.
I consider myself a libertarian, but I want nothing to do with Libertarians. Corporations to me, are another form of government, one I can't elect. My viewpoint is that government exists to promote liberty for all individuals, and in so doing, must curtail some liberties for all individuals and other entities. Thus as a libertarian, I can't be much of an anarchist.
For example: I naively and unwittingly joined a corporation which has no-hire agreements with most companies that would hire me (in my industry, or not) in this area, I am not free to find a new employer (short of a long distance move), in spite of how many are out there. My individual liberty has been seriously compromised. Libertarians, however, may endorse this practice and would resent government interference here. I would get little support in my state in proposing a law to make this behavior illegal. My state (which normally votes republican), is very much Libertarian in philosophy.
And really, all of that is the trouble with Libertarians and libertarians. To quote Oliver Wendell Holmes "The right to swing my fist ends where the other man's nose begins". Only one person can have true freedom. So the precise way in which you legislate liberty tends to migrate towards more mainstream politics and the false dichotomy we call the Democrats vs. Republicans. None of those parties adequately represents pretty much anyones position on anything, but they are more cohesive in philosophy than "libertarianism", however you define it. There is no liberty or Liberty to be had by either party, just lesser evils. Libertarianism (either type of L) really doesn't work as a political philosophy, so when an American calls themselves a [L|l]ibertarian I'm not sure what to make of them either.
Health care in the US is socialized, health care wants to be socialized. You get it from your company, where you pay in to a system that may or may not pay out for you as much as you put in, either in the short run or the long run.
You can pay for it privately, but it's still socialized, most insurance is socialized. You aren't investing in a fund that you manage, and can elect to spend the invested money on something else. Your insurance is doing a lot for you, it's giving you buying power when you go to a doctor, for one. Your fellow man is helping you get a better deal than the doctor might otherwise want to offer. In some sense, this is legalized price fixing, in your favor.
The only question about health care is who manages it. Corporations or the government. Republicans are quick to point out how poorly the government does...everything. Democrats are quick to point out how self serving corporations are, and thus how poorly they handle health care.
Meanwhile, we all see that the health care system is broken in various ways. The only question is who is working on fixing it. I hear a lot more from the democrats than the republicans. I haven't heard a good solution yet, I've heard a lot of bitching and moaning from the republicans, and a lot of hearts bleeding from the democrats. But the democrats do have it somewhere on their agenda, even if it rates beneath irate bullshitting for no purpose on the taxpayer dime.
My name is Austerity Empowers and I approve of this message.
What if you get the customer of 1000 truths?
He is, the existence of a QA department is an admission of weakness. As others have said, there's nothing "easy" about QA, it's as hard as design, if you are doing it right. To a large degree, because you should be doing the same job.
I get nervous when there's a dedicated QA role in a company. It tells me that every pigeon has his hole.
Just and suggestion but maybe we don't need background music every where?
They're my theme music. Every hero's got to have some.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0095348/quotes
I was going to say the mandatory voice would be a pre-pubescent boy, shrieking loudly. If you can stand what you're saying with that coming over the speakers, it's probably exceptionally intelligent and informed.
In spite of the beta period, and the number of people in it...we could all see, a month before launch, a week before launch, a day before launch... it wasn't going to be ready, the patches were coming in too slow.
Even that, maybe, could be tolerated. But the gameplay was lame, some basic concepts were way off, the combat was a confused attempt at visual realism but "real time", the net result was suck. The game felt like it was being designed for the console in terms of focus on graphics and style over functionality and depth of gameplay. The controls were overly simplistic, and brainless. Yet it called itself a mmog, acted in a few ways like a mmog. It has multiple personality disorder on many levels.
The game needed another year or two to bake in the oven, some good professional therapy, and a clear direction. Instead it's basically stillborn. There is/was some potential in the game, but there are also so many competitors, and no reason for John Q. Public to invest the montly fees required to bring this game to launch readiness. Let it die.