... where all those Hollywood sex tapes come from.
Seriously, guys, you need to zoom in once in awhile and do a better editing job before dumping this stuff on the internet. Your production values are slipping...
Care to explain all those medical malpractice attorney commercials on tv all the time then? If there was no money in it, those ads would be nonexistant. Remember, when you sue somebody, the attorney takes it on contingency. 1/3 of the winnings. Why you think they like cool slam-dunk class action law suits? A few hundred million, and your firm can retire.
You're only letting the TSA stick around longer. If you protest by not flying (if you have the option to), then eventually they'll get the message. I stopped flying completely.
You've limited yourself to one geographical area that can be serviced by your automobile. If gas prices keep on climbing without wages climbing too, your accessible geographical area will shrink down to maybe 4 or 5 blocks. Now, maybe the Previous Regime and the Current Regime don't have vested interest in keeping you in one place, but how bout future Regimes?
I just keep in mind the old adage that 'even paranoids have enemies'.
Yeah, TSA employees are the guys who couldn't make the cut at Burger King. Yeah, they're bullies with badges. But keep in mind that Alex Jones et al aren't after the TSA guy at the checkpoint, he's looking at the scumbags who came up with these 'great ideas'. Wolfowitz, Cheney, Rumsfeld, and friends aren't dummies, in fact, they are pretty sharp people. Problem is, for people who claim to love America, they damned sure hate Americans as evidenced by their actions.
The police radar thing is especially troubling. A direct hit from a radar gun would no doubt have an even stronger effect on the device. Not good. Sounds like the PC board in question needs better shielding.
Um, no. Police radars are small, lightweight, and battery operated. They produce a narrow beam in the milliwatt range. All the beam needs to do is bounce off the 'target' and return to the gun. You can run the average radar gun off the cigarette lighter all day and the car will still start. The backscatter scanners have to generate enough signal to penetrate a human body. We're talking hundreds of watts to kilowatts there. Hook one of those mothers up to a cigarette lighter, and if it doesn't burn the wiring out, you'll need a jump start.
It's not as simple as taking the current number of hijackings and bombings, dividing by the current number of flights, ignoring the fact that screening is currently in place (and has been since the 1970's), and thus "proving" that we don't need screening of any kind.
WHAT 'screening in the 70's? Hell, as late as 1968, you could walk onto the tarmac, board a commuter flight, and buy your ticket on the plane. This was going on during riots in major American cities, militant groups screaming armed revolution and having regular shootouts with the cops, and hijackings were common enough that a skit on a national comedy show had a guy come into an airliner cockpit waving a gun screaming "This plane is going to Chicago!", and when he's informed it's already going to Chicago, claims "I was on this flight last week, and we ended up in Havana!"
All that was done was, they started placing a couple armed air marshals on board the most hijacked flights. No screenings. No patdowns. Yeah, they xrayed your luggage, but that was about it. Hell, they'd even let you smoke during the flight.
Ah, but 'security theatre' is visible, and so in-your-face that you can't escape looking at it. It shows the government is 'doing something', even though it's really ineffective.
Let's face it, the IRA didn't set bombs off in Belfast every single day for 40 years. Hamas didn't, either. Terrorism as an actuality really sucks if you're a victim, but the chances are much greater you'll be run down by a beer truck than die in a terrorist attack.
Doesn't stop the media from propagandizing about it and blowing it way out of proportion (for instance, the 'dirty bombs' that were gonna kill us all until somebody blew the whistle on that).
The White House just said the war on terror is over.
Lemme guess. We lost, right?
If the 'War on Terror' is over, and the 'threat level' is now green for the first time, where are all those terrorrorrorrist attacks the Old Regime promised us would happen the instant we dropped our guard? Hint: Underwear bombs with just enough force to blow somebody's nuts off don't count.
Seriously. What was that guy smoking? And why isn't he sharing?
Bottom line still is, insurance companies want to make a profit and will still charge all they think they can get away with. I'm thinking, the only real workable fix is, get rid of the medical insurance 'industry', nationalize hospitals, and go to a Canadian or European style healthcare system, maybe with some input from the Chinese. Stop thinking of hospitals as 'profit centers' who will turn away/dump patients for lack of insurance just because 'there's a county hospital just down the street that has to take him' while showcasing the high end expensive treatments for the 1%.
If you want private doctors, you can always go outside the system. The Brit's NHC still acknowledges private doctors that don't work inside the system and only take private patients.
Except that malpractice insurance companies tell the doctor that if he doesn't order up every test in the book and he misses something, he's on his own. Yeah, everybody, including the doctors know that in 99% of these cases, the test is a waste of time and resources. In the other 1%, though, it can find something that may severely impact somebody's life. It's not a sure thing, though. When the first question the plantiff's lawyer asks at your malpractice trial is, "Why didn't you test for $HOUSE_DISEASE_OF_THE_WEEK?", the answer had damned well better not be "Because there have only been 3 cases of that in the last 30 years", it better be "We did. The test was inconclusive. We need better, cheaper tests."
And with anything serious, like possible cancer or heart attacks, they send the patients to a 'real' doctor. Nurse practicioners are kinda like medics. Good for field first aid & triage, but they won't go in after shrapnel, they'll stabilize the wounded as best they can & pass them up to the field hospital where they can be treated by MDs.
IIRC, I read something similar to this working in China. They had basically overtrained medics, called 'berefoot doctors', running the local clinics in the villages to deal with things like tetnus shots & setting broken bones. Anything more serious, they called in the 'city doctors'.
I was giving an example in easy nice round numbers. 10K was a bit low, so I went for the order of magnitude to show what the costs would be on a 100K song.
Of course, you do miss out on some of the "unskippable" content that, on rare occasions, can be quite funny. They put an ad for Windex at the start of My Big Fat Greek Wedding, for example... and the ad for Head & Shoulders at the end of Evolution.
That Head & Shoulders ad is buried in the credits, and funny as hell. And it shows up on my ripped copy I pulled off my DVD.
The argument is that although you have the money it doesn't mean that you're a potential customer.
RIAA's position is, if you have any 'disposable income', you need to hand it over to them right now. And if you dare to not hand it right over, they're willing to invest in legislation that will force you to consume their product
I know geeks (and those with asperger's syndrome) usually think in this kind of 0/1 binary way. Since it's just data and your copy will directly only generate cost of the bandwidth, then there must be no other costs involved, right? That, however, is far from truth and I find people with this kind of reasoning to be either extremely stupid or lying. Sure, pirate if you must, but at least be honest about it and stop lying to yourself and others.
Amortization. That's the reason your car, your house, everything you buy doesn't cost the national debt. It's because you don't have to reinvent the wheel every time you want to sell something.
Quickie back of the envelope math time. It costs $100,000 to 'create' a random pop song in digital format, all in. The original will thus cost you $100,000. Subsequent copies cost you a penny to duplicate it. Or less, if you already have a script covered by that 100K to clone it for you. Thus, 1 million copies will cost you $10,000. So, now you're all in at $110K. The cost of each of those 1 million copies is now 11 cents per. Not 110K.
That got modded Troll? To me, it looked like a reasonably accurate observation of that human trainwreck.
Or, in terms that our more erudite NeoCon True Believers would understand: On the day God was passing out brains, Sarah Palin thought God said 'trains' and replied "It's too nice a day to take a ride!"
Slashdot Mirror
They're working on walling off the rest of it. Parts of the US/Mexico border already are walled off.
Btw, you are aware, NAFTA to the contrary, that Mexico and the US are seperate countries, each requiring a passport to enter?
... where all those Hollywood sex tapes come from.
Seriously, guys, you need to zoom in once in awhile and do a better editing job before dumping this stuff on the internet. Your production values are slipping...
Care to explain all those medical malpractice attorney commercials on tv all the time then? If there was no money in it, those ads would be nonexistant. Remember, when you sue somebody, the attorney takes it on contingency. 1/3 of the winnings. Why you think they like cool slam-dunk class action law suits? A few hundred million, and your firm can retire.
It's a secret. Now hurry, or you'll miss your flight. The beaches around Guantanamo are reputed to be lovely this time of year. Send me a post card.
You've limited yourself to one geographical area that can be serviced by your automobile. If gas prices keep on climbing without wages climbing too, your accessible geographical area will shrink down to maybe 4 or 5 blocks. Now, maybe the Previous Regime and the Current Regime don't have vested interest in keeping you in one place, but how bout future Regimes?
I just keep in mind the old adage that 'even paranoids have enemies'.
Yeah, TSA employees are the guys who couldn't make the cut at Burger King. Yeah, they're bullies with badges. But keep in mind that Alex Jones et al aren't after the TSA guy at the checkpoint, he's looking at the scumbags who came up with these 'great ideas'. Wolfowitz, Cheney, Rumsfeld, and friends aren't dummies, in fact, they are pretty sharp people. Problem is, for people who claim to love America, they damned sure hate Americans as evidenced by their actions.
Careful, Comrade, they're on to you!!!
Um, no. Police radars are small, lightweight, and battery operated. They produce a narrow beam in the milliwatt range. All the beam needs to do is bounce off the 'target' and return to the gun. You can run the average radar gun off the cigarette lighter all day and the car will still start. The backscatter scanners have to generate enough signal to penetrate a human body. We're talking hundreds of watts to kilowatts there. Hook one of those mothers up to a cigarette lighter, and if it doesn't burn the wiring out, you'll need a jump start.
Then somebody dropped the ball, either in her high school, or somewhere else. Not informing somebody of their rights is criminal. Somebody needs sued.
Of course, this is the US, where they don't want you to know your rights so they can push you around that much easier.
WHAT 'screening in the 70's? Hell, as late as 1968, you could walk onto the tarmac, board a commuter flight, and buy your ticket on the plane. This was going on during riots in major American cities, militant groups screaming armed revolution and having regular shootouts with the cops, and hijackings were common enough that a skit on a national comedy show had a guy come into an airliner cockpit waving a gun screaming "This plane is going to Chicago!", and when he's informed it's already going to Chicago, claims "I was on this flight last week, and we ended up in Havana!"
All that was done was, they started placing a couple armed air marshals on board the most hijacked flights. No screenings. No patdowns. Yeah, they xrayed your luggage, but that was about it. Hell, they'd even let you smoke during the flight.
Ah, but 'security theatre' is visible, and so in-your-face that you can't escape looking at it. It shows the government is 'doing something', even though it's really ineffective.
Let's face it, the IRA didn't set bombs off in Belfast every single day for 40 years. Hamas didn't, either. Terrorism as an actuality really sucks if you're a victim, but the chances are much greater you'll be run down by a beer truck than die in a terrorist attack.
Doesn't stop the media from propagandizing about it and blowing it way out of proportion (for instance, the 'dirty bombs' that were gonna kill us all until somebody blew the whistle on that).
Lemme guess. We lost, right?
If the 'War on Terror' is over, and the 'threat level' is now green for the first time, where are all those terrorrorrorrist attacks the Old Regime promised us would happen the instant we dropped our guard? Hint: Underwear bombs with just enough force to blow somebody's nuts off don't count.
Seriously. What was that guy smoking? And why isn't he sharing?
Bottom line still is, insurance companies want to make a profit and will still charge all they think they can get away with. I'm thinking, the only real workable fix is, get rid of the medical insurance 'industry', nationalize hospitals, and go to a Canadian or European style healthcare system, maybe with some input from the Chinese. Stop thinking of hospitals as 'profit centers' who will turn away/dump patients for lack of insurance just because 'there's a county hospital just down the street that has to take him' while showcasing the high end expensive treatments for the 1%.
If you want private doctors, you can always go outside the system. The Brit's NHC still acknowledges private doctors that don't work inside the system and only take private patients.
Except that malpractice insurance companies tell the doctor that if he doesn't order up every test in the book and he misses something, he's on his own. Yeah, everybody, including the doctors know that in 99% of these cases, the test is a waste of time and resources. In the other 1%, though, it can find something that may severely impact somebody's life. It's not a sure thing, though. When the first question the plantiff's lawyer asks at your malpractice trial is, "Why didn't you test for $HOUSE_DISEASE_OF_THE_WEEK?", the answer had damned well better not be "Because there have only been 3 cases of that in the last 30 years", it better be "We did. The test was inconclusive. We need better, cheaper tests."
And with anything serious, like possible cancer or heart attacks, they send the patients to a 'real' doctor. Nurse practicioners are kinda like medics. Good for field first aid & triage, but they won't go in after shrapnel, they'll stabilize the wounded as best they can & pass them up to the field hospital where they can be treated by MDs.
IIRC, I read something similar to this working in China. They had basically overtrained medics, called 'berefoot doctors', running the local clinics in the villages to deal with things like tetnus shots & setting broken bones. Anything more serious, they called in the 'city doctors'.
I was giving an example in easy nice round numbers. 10K was a bit low, so I went for the order of magnitude to show what the costs would be on a 100K song.
That Head & Shoulders ad is buried in the credits, and funny as hell. And it shows up on my ripped copy I pulled off my DVD.
RIAA's position is, if you have any 'disposable income', you need to hand it over to them right now. And if you dare to not hand it right over, they're willing to invest in legislation that will force you to consume their product
Yes, and I'm still bleaching my eyeballs.
Amortization. That's the reason your car, your house, everything you buy doesn't cost the national debt. It's because you don't have to reinvent the wheel every time you want to sell something.
Quickie back of the envelope math time.
It costs $100,000 to 'create' a random pop song in digital format, all in. The original will thus cost you $100,000.
Subsequent copies cost you a penny to duplicate it. Or less, if you already have a script covered by that 100K to clone it for you. Thus, 1 million copies will cost you $10,000. So, now you're all in at $110K. The cost of each of those 1 million copies is now 11 cents per. Not 110K.
Amortization. It's a beautiful thing.
260 comments and nobody mentioned Cordwainer Smith and/or 'The Ballad of Lost C'Mell'.
Seriously, what are they teaching you kids these days???
And GET OFF MY LAWN!!
Or, as Monty Python said, "Pray there's intelligent life somewhere out in space cause there's bugger-all down here on Earth!!"
Congratulations, you've just reinvented the concept of $NATIONAL Idol. Their IP lawyers will be contacting you shortly...
FTFY.
That got modded Troll? To me, it looked like a reasonably accurate observation of that human trainwreck.
Or, in terms that our more erudite NeoCon True Believers would understand: On the day God was passing out brains, Sarah Palin thought God said 'trains' and replied "It's too nice a day to take a ride!"