You listed 12 shows, two of which are over, if memory serves. So, you've got 10 shows on I'm guessing well over 70 channels (but I'll stay conservative and say 50). That's one show for every 5 channels. I remember the days when most channels had more than one good show (and we're talking about a decade ago, when we had about 30 channels). 10 decent shows is nothing to toot your horn at.
Honestly it doesn't matter if there are 100 decent shows on. You only have 24 hours a day and x amount of hours to waste on TV.
So I agree with the Parent that an increase in the real number of quality tv shows (as opposed to the relative number) is good. Assuming, of course, you like to watch individual shows and you're not just watching TV to flip channels.
What follows is a long musing on the Dean campaign's use of internet tools, but it has a short thesis: the hard thing to explain is not how the Dean campaign blew such a huge lead, but rather why we ever thought that lead actually existed. Dean's campaign didn't just fail, it dissolved on contact with reality.
The intro to this article mentions Opera and Mozilla - forget it, there's much better out there. I've tried every browser out there, and for nearly 6 months now I've used MyIE2. It "takes over" IE2 and runs as a seperate program - not only does it do pop-up blocking, it also does _content_ blocking. My eyes are open, the internet (and slashdot) no longer has ads - try it, try it, try it (if you're stuck in Windows).
You do realize, right, that the point of using Mozilla Firefox is not just popup blocking. In fact, it's going to be hard to market Firefox on the aspect of pop-up blocking when you have options like you mentioned and the Google toolbar.
For me, the point of using Firefox is having a browser that I don't need to worry about. When I use IE, I'm not sure whether the next link will take me to an exploit. Or some annoying script. I don't really have that worry with Firefox....not yet..
I work in a similar industry, handling patient claims information. This story has been circulating around for a while. What really grabbed my attention from this article was the statement of Transcribe Stat's owner.
"After 23 years in business, it took just one little e-mail to ruin me."
And there it is. These are the things that keep me up at night, watching firewalls logs and everything else that keeps me from getting a good night's sleep.
Interesting. Looks like we just found the free market solution that will regulate the market by itself. (of course, assuming free press, lack of public apathy, and no monopoly)
But on a human-interest level, my sympathies to Transcription Stat.
Sadly, this is a perfect example of a gaping loophole in the law. It doesn't apply to contractors outside the hospital, it only applies to the hospital.
IANAL, but surely the hospital is responsible for the privacy of patients regardless of which party leaked the information?
this lawyer seems to have it down in plain English:
Under the Privacy Rule, covered entities [ed: hospitals, HMOs, etc] are required to mitigate any harmful effects of a wrongful use or disclosure of PHI by the covered entity or its business associates...
Despite all of these precautions, however, all extra-territorial contracts must be carefully analyzed, negotiated, and approached with extreme caution.
Perhaps he means that he sees a lawsuit on the horizon? Because one can argue that the covered provider, say a hospital, acted in negligence by contracting to a foreign country where they "knew" that the law could not be adequately enforced in the event of a privacy breach. That argument might not win, but it does seem reasonable to me and perhaps John Q. Public.
According to free market theory, if there is a perceived value for a service, then it will come into existence and people will pay for it.
If people perceive the offshoring to give some privacy risk then they will perhaps be prepared to pay an extra $5 or $10 or whatever each month to a service that guarantees your case will be handled by an American. Alternatively, a company that advertises that they guarantee American processing will get a competitive advantage over their offshoring competition.
Interesting. I see a business opportunity.
Perhaps the next time you go to UCSF Medical Center, you can fill out a check box saying:
[ ] I want all my medical transcription done in the US, certified by blahblah for $5 extra. Disclaimer: Transcription in the US has not been shown to be better or worse than offshored transcription.
I think that would be kind of cool. simple and elegant.
Yes, simply make the US companies (and government departments) truely responsible (ie their ass is on the line) for protecting this information. If the cost of failure is higher than other savings, then they themselves will implement strict requirements, and will only want to contract out to groups who have proven themselves to be trustworthy.
I do believe that HIPAA is already in place to provide for this "cost of failure." And I do think that UCSF and its immediate contractor handled the situation professionally and in a way that I'd like to see. (as opposed to say many recent companies we've seen with coverups and FUD). I'm not sure what you're really proposing beyond this.
She can go in an say, but I didn't know. I was swamped with work, people deserve to have this thing done, Tom was highly recommended and trustworthy, I can't be blamed for holding information hostage! I'm a good person I never have and never would do that. This other sort of innocuous thing is my fault, and I am SOOOO SORRY.
If we put in a type of liability where the ends don't justify the means, but the means are responsible for the whole end, at every point of failure that by passed the normal protections like bankruptcy and incorporation, it would probably stop, with all business in the US.
What you seem to be proposing is some kind of contractural obligation not to outsource to another country.
Fine.
But in the article, the author cites that "The outsourcing chain was supposed to end with her, as per Newburn's contract with the Sausalito firm."
So actually, a protection beyond and above what you proposed was already stipulated in contract.
But sadly, I do see this bitch saying I am SOOOO SORRY and that argument. So you do have a point.
Most transciption services are now computer-transcription now anyway.
You speak. Human transcribes. Computer learns. Human error checks... eventually the computer is good enough that the human is not needed at all.
We are using this system now. It, of course, sucks compared to a real transciptionist... but it is 10 times cheaper.
Are you sure it's cheaper than a real, trained transcriptionist--in California or India?
Consider the cost of labor to get the doctor to look over all of his transcriptions. Since his ass is on the line for medical malpractice if anything is wrong, his incentive is to read every single line of transcription. And what is the cost of labor of a doctor...say $100/hr?
Now, if your father has an automated computer system where he can just use checkboxes for the majority of his work -- then maybe.
One of the doctors in my family was using such a "checkbox" system but the clinic system (the largest processor of VA claims in the US) abandoned the pilot program, citing that well...it sucked.
Perhaps you have a suggestion for a better one? Or just a better system in general? Agreed, the human transcription system seems relatively inefficient.
All docters should have their computers transcribe their dictations like my father does.
Well, hope God helps you when you get "an a cute case of men in vaginas".
Seriously, I haven't seen any natural-language software reach the point where I would trust it with medical information. I would rather get the right treatment than someone fucking up my patient records...
Not to mention the cost of a doctor having to sit down and error-check afterwards, etc. If you look at a doctor making $100/hr (hey, they went to 7+ years of school, residency, internship, etc) that would add even more to the current cost of health care.
On an unrelated note, my uncle (who is a doctor), works in the ER. He says that because persons on Medicare don't pay for amublance rides, he sees people in the ER who have cuts on their fingers, minor abrasions, etc, who have their ambulance rides paid for by us, the public. And considering one of my friends got billed $1000+ for a recent ambulance ride, I think we're getting screwed.
Before we get to all the anti-India comments, here is the crux of the problem:
"The problem is not that they're in India," said Chris Hoofnagle, associate director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center in Washington. "The problem is that American laws are not going to be enforced in India."
Does anyone have a free-market solution to this? I would hate to see Democrats legislate this to hell. IMHO overlegislation will solve 1 problem but cause another...
But while the above point is interesting, it's somewhat irrelevant to this case: the breach of contract occured in the US:
A Transcription Stat worker, Dennis Centore, quickly traced the files to a batch of notes that had been subcontracted to a woman in Florida named Sonya Newburn, who typically handled as many as 30 files on individual UCSF patients every day.
"She was quiet until I mentioned Tom Spires," Centore recalled. "Then she said, 'Oh my God,' and said that she had contracted for Tom to do the work."
Neither Transcription Stat nor UCSF knew that Newburn was subcontracting. The outsourcing chain was supposed to end with her, as per Newburn's contract with the Sausalito firm.
Basically, while the article brings up the interesting concept of what offshoring information can do, this particular case of offshoring is really not the greatest example, since the breach of contract occured in the US. And yet we have sensationalist newspapers like the Chronicle and opportunistic politicians who call themselves privacy advocates; the current state of affairs is fucked. The comment leads me to believe that he didn't even RTFA:
"We've reached the point where American companies ship personal information outside the country and tell customers to check their privacy at the shore," said Rep. Edward Markey, D-Mass., one of the leading privacy advocates on Capitol Hill.
Honestly I wish I knew what this was about, but I don't. So I'll defer to greater authorities. Perhaps someone can explain in a Feynman-esque manner?
Atiyah is of The University of Edinburgh and is one of the founders of K-theory, a branch of topology. He won the Fields in 1966 (sic). Singer is of MIT, and is an institute professor, which is supposed to be a big deal.
I hope that posterity will judge me kindly, not only as to the things which I have explained, but also to those which I have intentionally omitted so as to leave to others the pleasure of discovery. -Descartes
Interesting quote they left. Perhaps a more classy way of saying that their margin was too small to write another wonderful proof in?
Some British commentators have semi-seriously suggested that the UK should join the US, as it would thus become by far the wealthiest and most populous - and therefore the most politically influential - state in the Union.
I am NOT british but what do Brits on the street REALLY think of this???? I would think a resounding NO would be the answer.
At least the bit about Canada shows that 19% of Canadians favor the idea of joining the US. Interesting.....
I'm not a fan of piracy, but if Australia felt like going easy on him, that's his concern. he never broke a law in the united states. is someone going to arrest me for a law I broke in Ukraine?
this could have set a dangerous precedent. considering how foreigners rights can be trampled due to the PATRIOT act, I'm glad we can't add unlawful and/or unwilling extradition to the list of powers we hold over non-citizens.
If we one day live in virtual worlds, I wonder if the physical sovereignty of nations will become less important. For example, take your classic case of spammer or DDoS'er from Eastern Europe or Asia, if you like. Think they'll get extradited one day?
I think the day will come. Not sure if it's a good or bad thing.
Well I knew it would sell. Just like I knew Windows XP would sell. Why? It looks pretty, it has a massive marketing campaign behind it, and most people don't know there are better and cheaper alternatives.
Actually, it seems to me that massive marketing campaigns are a bit of a crapshoot. think of all the failed products that were massively marketed to us (i.e. Burger King fries, at&t mlife, etc.).
I think there's definitely something else to this iPod success than massive marketing. Obviously marketing is indispensable but I don't think it was the end-all of this product.
I think it has something to do with "buzz". You can argue that buzz is marketing but certainly not in the "massive marketing campaign" sense currently used.
Yes, but TechTV's outgoing owner is Vulcan Ventures, which is a VC firm that's mainly owned by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen. So, one link to MS out, another in. I don't think this is much of a net change at all from that perspective.
It has been noted several times on this venerable website that Paul Allen was out of MS...way before it became the evil empire.
The original linked article is really long, so I read the next page. Luckily, it was shorter yet interesting.
The website claims that "Information Wants to be Free" is a myth:
The ``Information Wants to be Free'' Myth
There is another myth, equal and opposite to the factory-model delusion, which often confuses peoples' thinking about the economics of open-source software. It is that ``information wants to be free''. This usually unpacks to a claim that the zero marginal cost of reproducing digital information implies that its clearing price ought to be zero (or that a market full of duplicators will force it to zero).
Some kinds of information really do want to be free, in the weak sense that their value goes up as more people have access to them--a technical standards document is a good example. But the myth that all information wants to be free is readily exploded by considering the value of information that constitutes a privileged pointer to a rivalrous good--a treasure map, say, or a Swiss bank account number, or a claim on services such as a computer account password. Even though the claiming information can be duplicated at zero cost, the item being claimed cannot be. Hence, the non-zero marginal cost for the item can be inherited by the claiming information.
We mention this myth mainly to assert that it is almost unrelated to the economic-utility arguments for open source; as we'll see later, those would generally hold up well even under the assumption that software actually does have the (nonzero) value structure of a manufactured good. We therefore have no need to tackle the question of whether software `should' be free or not.
Interesting. I guess the point is that even if the cost of replicating code/software/information is very close to zero, the marginal utility can certainly be greater than zero. (high school economics, pull me through!)
With that said, the fees are absolutely horrendous. I checked it out - $1000/year for "small implementations", and $10000 for other. While I'm all for paying for a good solution, I can't see how having a single-sign-in solution on any website would generate $10000/year in profits.
You have to wonder why MS doesn't flood the market with free Passport implementations a la MS Office CD's.
Then again, since we all think MS is the evil empire, I suppose we should be grateful that Passport really does cost $10k to everyone who is non-MS.
you missed a slash, that would take you to http://dot.org. Surely you meant to say:
heytch tee tee pee colon slash slash slash dot dot org
Re:Problem that doesn't exist big time...
on
Passport to Nowhere
·
· Score: 1
The most recent Cryptogram has a highly relevant comment on this issue:
[Suppose t]here are 10 $100 piles, each secured by individual $200 security systems. They're all secure. There are another 10 $100 piles, each secured by individual $50 systems. They're all insecure.
Clearly something must be done.
One suggestion is to replace all the individual security systems by a single centralized system. The new system is much better than the ones being replaced; it's a $500 system.
Unfortunately, the new system won't provide more security. Under the old systems, 10 piles of money could be stolen at a cost of $50 per pile; an attacker would realize a total profit of $500. Under the new system, we have 20 $100 piles all secured by a single $500 system. An attacker now has an incentive to break that more-secure system, since he can steal $2000 by spending $500 -- a profit of $1500.
The problem is centralization. When individual security systems are combined in one centralized system, the incentive to break that new system is generally higher. Even though the centralized system may be harder to break than any of the individual systems, if it is easier to break than ALL of the individual systems, it may result in less security overall.
There is a security benefit to decentralized security.
If I'm reading correctly, your comment assumes that the cost of a system to you = the cost of a breaking in to the attacker.
Obviously, this model falls apart with free software implementations.
I couldn't agree more. Add in a mortgage, wife and kids and you aren't going anywhere. it's the trap of middle/upper class. You lock yourself into a lifestyle that requires you continue to spend more and more time in the office and enjoy it less and less.
And *I* absolutely agree with you. I feel pain when I see people on/. complain about having no money to survive when in fact they're stuck in the consumerist upper-middle style life.
Slashdot Mirror
Honestly it doesn't matter if there are 100 decent shows on. You only have 24 hours a day and x amount of hours to waste on TV.
So I agree with the Parent that an increase in the real number of quality tv shows (as opposed to the relative number) is good. Assuming, of course, you like to watch individual shows and you're not just watching TV to flip channels.
Extensive reading, but just read line by line.
Of course, though, we know that the GOP has done better in communicating their message, while the Democrats continue to fail Influence 101...a sad sight.
You do realize, right, that the point of using Mozilla Firefox is not just popup blocking. In fact, it's going to be hard to market Firefox on the aspect of pop-up blocking when you have options like you mentioned and the Google toolbar.
For me, the point of using Firefox is having a browser that I don't need to worry about. When I use IE, I'm not sure whether the next link will take me to an exploit. Or some annoying script. I don't really have that worry with Firefox....not yet..
Interesting. Looks like we just found the free market solution that will regulate the market by itself. (of course, assuming free press, lack of public apathy, and no monopoly)
But on a human-interest level, my sympathies to Transcription Stat.
IANAL, but surely the hospital is responsible for the privacy of patients regardless of which party leaked the information?
this lawyer seems to have it down in plain English:
Perhaps he means that he sees a lawsuit on the horizon? Because one can argue that the covered provider, say a hospital, acted in negligence by contracting to a foreign country where they "knew" that the law could not be adequately enforced in the event of a privacy breach. That argument might not win, but it does seem reasonable to me and perhaps John Q. Public.
Interesting. I see a business opportunity.
Perhaps the next time you go to UCSF Medical Center, you can fill out a check box saying:
I think that would be kind of cool. simple and elegant.
I do believe that HIPAA is already in place to provide for this "cost of failure." And I do think that UCSF and its immediate contractor handled the situation professionally and in a way that I'd like to see. (as opposed to say many recent companies we've seen with coverups and FUD). I'm not sure what you're really proposing beyond this.
What you seem to be proposing is some kind of contractural obligation not to outsource to another country.
Fine.
But in the article, the author cites that "The outsourcing chain was supposed to end with her, as per Newburn's contract with the Sausalito firm."
So actually, a protection beyond and above what you proposed was already stipulated in contract.
But sadly, I do see this bitch saying I am SOOOO SORRY and that argument. So you do have a point.
Are you sure it's cheaper than a real, trained transcriptionist--in California or India?
Consider the cost of labor to get the doctor to look over all of his transcriptions. Since his ass is on the line for medical malpractice if anything is wrong, his incentive is to read every single line of transcription. And what is the cost of labor of a doctor...say $100/hr?
Now, if your father has an automated computer system where he can just use checkboxes for the majority of his work -- then maybe.
One of the doctors in my family was using such a "checkbox" system but the clinic system (the largest processor of VA claims in the US) abandoned the pilot program, citing that well...it sucked.
Perhaps you have a suggestion for a better one? Or just a better system in general? Agreed, the human transcription system seems relatively inefficient.
All docters should have their computers transcribe their dictations like my father does.
Well, hope God helps you when you get "an a cute case of men in vaginas".
Seriously, I haven't seen any natural-language software reach the point where I would trust it with medical information. I would rather get the right treatment than someone fucking up my patient records...
Not to mention the cost of a doctor having to sit down and error-check afterwards, etc. If you look at a doctor making $100/hr (hey, they went to 7+ years of school, residency, internship, etc) that would add even more to the current cost of health care.
On an unrelated note, my uncle (who is a doctor), works in the ER. He says that because persons on Medicare don't pay for amublance rides, he sees people in the ER who have cuts on their fingers, minor abrasions, etc, who have their ambulance rides paid for by us, the public. And considering one of my friends got billed $1000+ for a recent ambulance ride, I think we're getting screwed.
Does anyone have a free-market solution to this? I would hate to see Democrats legislate this to hell. IMHO overlegislation will solve 1 problem but cause another...
But while the above point is interesting, it's somewhat irrelevant to this case: the breach of contract occured in the US:
Basically, while the article brings up the interesting concept of what offshoring information can do, this particular case of offshoring is really not the greatest example, since the breach of contract occured in the US. And yet we have sensationalist newspapers like the Chronicle and opportunistic politicians who call themselves privacy advocates; the current state of affairs is fucked. The comment leads me to believe that he didn't even RTFA:
From the website:
The prize amount is 6 million NOK (about 750,000 Euro) and was awarded for the first time on 3 June 2003.
That's about $909k USD.
Honestly I wish I knew what this was about, but I don't. So I'll defer to greater authorities. Perhaps someone can explain in a Feynman-esque manner?
Atiyah is of The University of Edinburgh and is one of the founders of K-theory, a branch of topology. He won the Fields in 1966 (sic). Singer is of MIT, and is an institute professor, which is supposed to be a big deal.
I hope that posterity will judge me kindly, not only as to the things which I have explained, but also to those which I have intentionally omitted so as to leave to others the pleasure of discovery. -Descartes
Interesting quote they left. Perhaps a more classy way of saying that their margin was too small to write another wonderful proof in?
The article you linked says:
Some British commentators have semi-seriously suggested that the UK should join the US, as it would thus become by far the wealthiest and most populous - and therefore the most politically influential - state in the Union.
I am NOT british but what do Brits on the street REALLY think of this???? I would think a resounding NO would be the answer.
At least the bit about Canada shows that 19% of Canadians favor the idea of joining the US. Interesting.....
I'm not a fan of piracy, but if Australia felt like going easy on him, that's his concern. he never broke a law in the united states. is someone going to arrest me for a law I broke in Ukraine?
this could have set a dangerous precedent. considering how foreigners rights can be trampled due to the PATRIOT act, I'm glad we can't add unlawful and/or unwilling extradition to the list of powers we hold over non-citizens.
If we one day live in virtual worlds, I wonder if the physical sovereignty of nations will become less important. For example, take your classic case of spammer or DDoS'er from Eastern Europe or Asia, if you like. Think they'll get extradited one day?
I think the day will come. Not sure if it's a good or bad thing.
Infocombot and InfocomBot2 are offline, it seems.
Well I knew it would sell. Just like I knew Windows XP would sell. Why? It looks pretty, it has a massive marketing campaign behind it, and most people don't know there are better and cheaper alternatives.
Actually, it seems to me that massive marketing campaigns are a bit of a crapshoot. think of all the failed products that were massively marketed to us (i.e. Burger King fries, at&t mlife, etc.).
I think there's definitely something else to this iPod success than massive marketing. Obviously marketing is indispensable but I don't think it was the end-all of this product.
I think it has something to do with "buzz". You can argue that buzz is marketing but certainly not in the "massive marketing campaign" sense currently used.
Yes, but TechTV's outgoing owner is Vulcan Ventures, which is a VC firm that's mainly owned by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen. So, one link to MS out, another in. I don't think this is much of a net change at all from that perspective.
It has been noted several times on this venerable website that Paul Allen was out of MS...way before it became the evil empire.
The website claims that "Information Wants to be Free" is a myth:
Interesting. I guess the point is that even if the cost of replicating code/software/information is very close to zero, the marginal utility can certainly be greater than zero. (high school economics, pull me through!)
apparently in the past 5 years, the number of math majors at berkeley has gone from 200-odd to over 400.
doesn't seem to fit into the whole "us students abandoning math/science" idea.
With that said, the fees are absolutely horrendous. I checked it out - $1000/year for "small implementations", and $10000 for other. While I'm all for paying for a good solution, I can't see how having a single-sign-in solution on any website would generate $10000/year in profits.
You have to wonder why MS doesn't flood the market with free Passport implementations a la MS Office CD's.
Then again, since we all think MS is the evil empire, I suppose we should be grateful that Passport really does cost $10k to everyone who is non-MS.
you missed a slash, that would take you to http://dot.org. Surely you meant to say:
heytch tee tee pee colon slash slash slash dot dot org
The most recent Cryptogram has a highly relevant comment on this issue:
[Suppose t]here are 10 $100 piles, each secured by individual $200 security systems. They're all secure. There are another 10 $100 piles, each secured by individual $50 systems. They're all insecure.
Clearly something must be done.
One suggestion is to replace all the individual security systems by a single centralized system. The new system is much better than the ones being replaced; it's a $500 system.
Unfortunately, the new system won't provide more security. Under the old systems, 10 piles of money could be stolen at a cost of $50 per pile; an attacker would realize a total profit of $500. Under the new system, we have 20 $100 piles all secured by a single $500 system. An attacker now has an incentive to break that more-secure system, since he can steal $2000 by spending $500 -- a profit of $1500.
The problem is centralization. When individual security systems are combined in one centralized system, the incentive to break that new system is generally higher. Even though the centralized system may be harder to break than any of the individual systems, if it is easier to break than ALL of the individual systems, it may result in less security overall.
There is a security benefit to decentralized security.
If I'm reading correctly, your comment assumes that the cost of a system to you = the cost of a breaking in to the attacker.
Obviously, this model falls apart with free software implementations.
I couldn't agree more. Add in a mortgage, wife and kids and you aren't going anywhere. it's the trap of middle/upper class. You lock yourself into a lifestyle that requires you continue to spend more and more time in the office and enjoy it less and less.
/. complain about having no money to survive when in fact they're stuck in the consumerist upper-middle style life.
And *I* absolutely agree with you. I feel pain when I see people on