Why was it necessary to create the current behemoth of a website when the delivery system already existed?
Because health care in the USA involves more than 50 separate regulatory bodies and delivery bureaucracies. Health insurance has traditionally been regulated on the state level*. And the states and insurance companies refused to let go of this system. And then there's Medicare (and also Medicaid). Federal programs that are in many cases administrated by the individual states for the benefit of powerful special interest groups (the old and the poor). None of which wanted their little slice of privilege messed with.
So we had a system with N government entities all involved in regulating and delivering health care dollars. Where N might be well over 100. All Obamacare did was to make that N+1.
*One of the sales pitches of Obamacare was portability. But health care insurance isn't portable across state lines due to regulatory jurisdictions. One thing the ACA should have done was to throw every state insurance commission out of the health biz.
Photograph user's hand in the appropriate IR band. Print to film stock that uses silver (or some other metallic/conductive) based emulsion. Place print in microwave* oven to selectively warm the image of the vein patterns. Place on keyboard and log in.
*Other heating technology could be used, including a print with conductive layers and resistive heating.
Twisted pair back to the CO is past its time and needs to change. But what I hear happening is the telcos trying to weasel out of existing regulatory structures and push more costly service out to their customers.
I have VoIP. It consists of a box (with battery backup) plugged into broadband on one end and my home's Cat 2 phone wiring on the other. My phones still think they are connected to a CO 5 miles away. Actually, the voice quality is quite good, as the old copper was getting pretty ragged toward the end of its life. There is nothing stopping the telcos from packaging the equivalent hardware into a weatherproof box, screwing it to the side of a house and feeding plain old phone service in from there. But what I'm guessing they want is relief from the current regulatory requirements. So they can retire your phone line and swap it for new bundled services with TV, broadband and $100 plus per month.
Fighting the new technology is less likely to work than "working with" the telcos. Encourage them to upgrade their distribution systems and save maintenance costs. So long as they still offer regulated POTS from the network adapter on the outside wall.
From a strictly technical/engineering perspective, it's 100% the right choice. Copper loop is functionally obsolete in almost every way.
Right. As long as the FCC imposes the same requirements on the replacement that currently apply to POTS, I don't care. This means backup power, availability (up time) requirements and cheap lifeline local service (~$12 to $15 per month). I don't care what the telco uses to carry the signal, so long as it looks like an old style phone line when it enters my premises.
Also, POTS is required by law to provide 911 service even if the homeowner isn't paying for any phone service.
Are you sure about that? When I dropped my POTS service, I checked the loop about a month later. Dead. I'm guessing they unplugged it somewhere between the CO and the pedestal in front of my house. As copper pairs fail over time, the telco switches POTS lines over to a spare working loop. So, after a while, your old loop back to the CO may no longer be available. Then, its FiOS or nothing. That's all I could get if I requested new service today. Available copper or not, the telco is under no obligation to give me new real POTS service. The new houses get a fiber interface at the house to the copper in the building.
The bit about developers using "copyleft as a means of collecting ransom,".
This doesn't sound like a complaint from the end user (data center) for all the nice, free software. It sounds like butthurt from proprietary s/w vendors who can't find a way to take open code back into a closed product.
But these works are available in a reading room. So issues of privacy or needing to protect some IP are moot. Its totally an issue of distribution rights. Not that these shouldn't be addressed. But in a world where mass publication is starting to look a lot different than Salinger ever conceived of, how can we determine his intent? Perhaps he didn't want some heirs to profit from his works, in which case Bittorrent distribution might have been perfectly OK with him.
Some ministry of the UK government tried contacting us in regard to content filtering. But we had already blacklisted them as a member of an extremist totalitarian regime. So their communication was blocked.
When the IRS audits you, it is YOUR responsibility to back up your claims with evidence
My claims (deductions, etc.) are all neatly documented and easy to prove. Its when the IRS tries to establish a link between me and some offshore bank or corporation that they'll be on their own, digging through unsorted crap in subzero weather.
Slashdot Mirror
I've been sitting here, entering "Joshua" all this time.
Its OK. After nap time, we're bringing in Walter White to teach chemistry.
.... Dr. Walter White, Dean of the College of Chemistry.
Luckily I'm not an atheist.
Luckily I'm not Western European.
Why was it necessary to create the current behemoth of a website when the delivery system already existed?
Because health care in the USA involves more than 50 separate regulatory bodies and delivery bureaucracies. Health insurance has traditionally been regulated on the state level*. And the states and insurance companies refused to let go of this system. And then there's Medicare (and also Medicaid). Federal programs that are in many cases administrated by the individual states for the benefit of powerful special interest groups (the old and the poor). None of which wanted their little slice of privilege messed with.
So we had a system with N government entities all involved in regulating and delivering health care dollars. Where N might be well over 100. All Obamacare did was to make that N+1.
*One of the sales pitches of Obamacare was portability. But health care insurance isn't portable across state lines due to regulatory jurisdictions. One thing the ACA should have done was to throw every state insurance commission out of the health biz.
Photograph user's hand in the appropriate IR band. Print to film stock that uses silver (or some other metallic/conductive) based emulsion. Place print in microwave* oven to selectively warm the image of the vein patterns. Place on keyboard and log in.
*Other heating technology could be used, including a print with conductive layers and resistive heating.
That's a lie! I don't stuff a sock in there.
A new lunar crater!
Why don't more people get into amateur radio? It's terribly practical.
Look up Eternal September.
This.
Twisted pair back to the CO is past its time and needs to change. But what I hear happening is the telcos trying to weasel out of existing regulatory structures and push more costly service out to their customers.
I have VoIP. It consists of a box (with battery backup) plugged into broadband on one end and my home's Cat 2 phone wiring on the other. My phones still think they are connected to a CO 5 miles away. Actually, the voice quality is quite good, as the old copper was getting pretty ragged toward the end of its life. There is nothing stopping the telcos from packaging the equivalent hardware into a weatherproof box, screwing it to the side of a house and feeding plain old phone service in from there. But what I'm guessing they want is relief from the current regulatory requirements. So they can retire your phone line and swap it for new bundled services with TV, broadband and $100 plus per month.
Fighting the new technology is less likely to work than "working with" the telcos. Encourage them to upgrade their distribution systems and save maintenance costs. So long as they still offer regulated POTS from the network adapter on the outside wall.
You're scaring all the old people!
From a strictly technical/engineering perspective, it's 100% the right choice. Copper loop is functionally obsolete in almost every way.
Right. As long as the FCC imposes the same requirements on the replacement that currently apply to POTS, I don't care. This means backup power, availability (up time) requirements and cheap lifeline local service (~$12 to $15 per month). I don't care what the telco uses to carry the signal, so long as it looks like an old style phone line when it enters my premises.
Also, POTS is required by law to provide 911 service even if the homeowner isn't paying for any phone service.
Are you sure about that? When I dropped my POTS service, I checked the loop about a month later. Dead. I'm guessing they unplugged it somewhere between the CO and the pedestal in front of my house. As copper pairs fail over time, the telco switches POTS lines over to a spare working loop. So, after a while, your old loop back to the CO may no longer be available. Then, its FiOS or nothing. That's all I could get if I requested new service today. Available copper or not, the telco is under no obligation to give me new real POTS service. The new houses get a fiber interface at the house to the copper in the building.
The first one is packaging things in a way that can be opened easily.
There is a handy tool designed specifically for opening such packaging. Unfortunately, it comes in its own blister pack.
Sí, señor.
Heck, I don't want to live in a town with a guy who hears voices and the cops still won't take away his guns. But that's life in a free society.
Same way they get everything else: From the NSA.
The bit about developers using "copyleft as a means of collecting ransom,".
This doesn't sound like a complaint from the end user (data center) for all the nice, free software. It sounds like butthurt from proprietary s/w vendors who can't find a way to take open code back into a closed product.
But these works are available in a reading room. So issues of privacy or needing to protect some IP are moot. Its totally an issue of distribution rights. Not that these shouldn't be addressed. But in a world where mass publication is starting to look a lot different than Salinger ever conceived of, how can we determine his intent? Perhaps he didn't want some heirs to profit from his works, in which case Bittorrent distribution might have been perfectly OK with him.
how else to get a private fucking reading room for your book?
Write it on the inside of a bathroom stall door?
Basically another HP Touchpad
Except that AFAIK, the HP Touchpad wasn't locked down. Someone could develop and load a new O/S if they wanted.
Some ministry of the UK government tried contacting us in regard to content filtering. But we had already blacklisted them as a member of an extremist totalitarian regime. So their communication was blocked.
but we still have to put out a public position offering...
Let me guess; some sort of government contract.
When the IRS audits you, it is YOUR responsibility to back up your claims with evidence
My claims (deductions, etc.) are all neatly documented and easy to prove. Its when the IRS tries to establish a link between me and some offshore bank or corporation that they'll be on their own, digging through unsorted crap in subzero weather.
You don't want the IRS visiting your house.
Like I said, unheated warehouse. They don't know where I live.