And what will Johnny User do with that computer when the network is down?
- Can't do email if you can't access Gmail/Hotmail/Yahoo. - Can't chat with friends on IM - Can't socialize on Facebook/Myspace - Can't surf YouTube for funny or interesting videos. - Can't pay your bills online or manage your bank account
There goes probably 90% of your average user's computer use. Sure, they can always type a letter in MS Word, or update some Excel spreadsheet, or download their digital pictures (just don't try emailing them to anyone or uploading them anywhere!). Or maybe Solitaire. But let's face it, most of the exciting stuff to do on a computer now is online.
A good IT system could take the insurance and pharmaceutical companies almost entirely out of the loop. Let the doctors see ahead of time what the insurance company will pay for and decide based on that how to treat.
In theory.
In reality, the insurance companies don't want to cooperate, because that will make it easier for you (the doctor) to bill & get paid, meaning they (insurance) don't get to keep as much of the money. Also, we have this big thing in the US about not wanting money to drive health care decisions. Doctors don't want to talk to you about money and what your insurance will cover.
For example, if your insurance doesn't cover the MRI, and so you don't get it, but it would have revealed some terrible condition that ends up killing you - bam, malpractice lawsuit. If you get the MRI, now the doctor fights with the insurance to get it paid for, and/or fights with you for what insurance doesn't cover.
No one here is on the same side. That makes cooperation difficult.
The response to this should be that if it can't be used correctly by real people, especially those worn out by an 18-hour shift, the failure wasn't in the humans at all. The computer part was very badly designed for the conditions it must operate in.
I don't disagree with your argument at all, but I do want to add a twist... what if the conditions are wrong? If my life is dependent upon a doctor or nurse giving me the correct drugs & correct dosage at the end of an 18-hour shift, then I would absolutely want the IT system to run some safety checks & make sure they grabbed the right drug, mixed the right dosage, etc. But maybe the better solution is not more safety checks, but not having burned out medical staff?
We frequently discuss security vs usability - this is the same coin. The more rules & alerts you build into the system, the more you irritate regular users (see Vista's UAC for how well THAT's gone over).
And we still have the issue of how to get the data into the system in the first place - you don't want your expensive doctor to be a data entry clerk, but he or she is the one that has the information that ultimately needs to end up in the database. How do you get there? Ideally, good UI design makes that as easy as possible, but it still ends up being data entry - data that has to be scrubbed, sanitized, and validated to be of any real use. Otherwise all the safety checks in the world won't make a difference if the bleary-eyed nurse or doc keyed the wrong med or dosage into the system to begin with. Garbage in, garbage out.
I have the opposite experience -- for journeys any more than about 400-500 miles, I fly because of the time savings. It's more expensive than driving, but not only does flying take less time, its also time I don't have to be focused. I can read a book, watch a DVD, or just sleep. I don't have to worry about if the gas tank is low, where the next exit is, or other crazy drivers.
As for transportation at your destination - usually I'm traveling to visit family or friends who have cars. In other cases, I spend a little more on the hotel and stay closer to my points of interest and just walk (and take occasional taxis, if I need to). Or sometimes I rent, if I really need a car.
So, different strokes for different folks. I would love a great high-speed rail option - something priced cheaper than flying (but slower), and more expensive than driving (but faster). Then when my schedule is flexible, I would love to take the train!
You should not have to install a piece of software to use a fucking music store.
Do you have to install eTunes to use eBay? Do you have to install amaTunes to use Amazon?
"Should"!? Who cares -- Apple never claimed to have a web-based music store! And actually, yes, you do have to install special software if you want to download MP3 albums from Amazon. Not for individual tracks (or their other products), however.
I can understand you are a little annoyed that your 9-year old operating system doesn't work with a brand-new product, but, that's the digital life. Heck, the operating system that's required (XP), isn't going to be available much longer (at least not for OEMs).
As for other options, you could probably pick up a used computer on craiglist, with XP license, for less than $100. Doesn't even have to be a fancy computer, just something with the COA sticker. Or pick-up a used Mac and use that as the music computer. Might even save money in the long run over the power consumption of an "older computer".
You've picked a workaround solution for her, and that's fine, but I hardly think its fair to blame Apple for your klunky workaround when you didn't meet their minimum specs to begin with.
... but when the bill had a few billion in candy attached to it, it passed no problem. Who are "our" representatives representing?
I don't think the "who" was ever in question (sadly). Personally, I'm still divided on whether the "bailout" was really needed - it's a no-win situation that we'd gotten into.
I am entirely against state provided healthcare. If you want to see how the US government would preside over healthcare, go visit a VA hospital.
I don't personally have any experience with the VA hospital, although my elder uncle seems to like the service he gets at his.
Actually, the problem of effectiveness related to DENYing care happens in state systems, not private ones.
It's a slightly different context (as I understand it). We have a downward spiral in the US in that hospitals cannot refuse emergency care services to a patient. Patients who don't have insurance do not get proper preventative care or early diagnosis, and thus don't get medical attention until a problem becomes urgent, at which point it is much more difficult & expensive to fix. These patients can't/won't pay, so those with insurance (or Medicare/Medicaid) end up footing the bill (which raises costs for everyone else, and then more people can't afford basic health care). My perception of state-run systems (such as Canada & Europe) is that complaints about not receiving care tend to overstated. But I have no evidence to back that up.
I haven't done an exhaustive study of pre-HMO healthcare in America but the reading I've done suggests that the system was much more affordable and that people got better care.
I don't doubt that it was much more affordable, but I think a couple of key things have changed: - Insurance companies are 800lb gorillas (negotiating huge discounts) with a huge disincentive to pay. - More & more advanced technology & drugs are available, at higher costs. People who couldn't be saved in the early 20th century can now be run through a huge number of tests, scans, and referrals to specialists (and then still may or may not be saved) - American lifestyles are much more sedentary (leading to overall degradation of health)
It would be very interesting if one could study pre-HMO health care in America, and extrapolate out how that might look today, given our current capabilities & situation.
The federal government of today has more powers than it is constitutionally authorized to have by the letter of the law and certainly more than it was intended to have by the spirit of the law.
I definitely agree with this. I wish the states had a lot more power, to keep the Fed in check. My "ideal" scenario would be that the Fed collects its money from the states (in the same proportion as Congressional representation), and however the states collect money from their citizens is up to the individual states. I really dislike this end-run around states power and the abuses of Federal government.
That said, I don't see much hope for change regarding this. I think the only chance we have is if more people get more active in local politics and that groundswell bubbles up, with people pushing back on the powers up the ladder. But consolidation of power is such a big win for corporations, media (easier to cover national stories 24 hrs/day vs local stories), and those that already have power, that I'm not going to hold my breath for it...
The statue of liberty doesn't say "give me your top 1%, at any cost, and let them contribute to our tax base". It talks about the tired, the hungry, etc. If they're willing to work, I want them. If they want to be looked after, I don't. And I want the federal government to stop "looking after" people born within US borders first.
Yeah, like those damn bankers!
Your post sounds great, but ideology tends to fail when it meets reality. Things aren't black & white -- such as health care. What do you think about state-provided health care? Sounds like another case of the "nanny state" -- but the only way for private healthcare to work efficiently is to DENY people access. Otherwise you get a freeloading / tragedy of the commons problem.
Note that I don't explicitly disagree with any of the points in your post -- except this: We're more than willing to dispense with the rule of law and to vote ourselves or our interests more powers than are strictly legal, should it so suit us.
I'm no history major, but I think that's a rose-colored look at the past. I do think our society is more consumption-focused than in the past, thanks to the technological progress and wealth that's been generated (and debt that's been used), but I chalk that up to more opportunity, not some fundamental shift in individual psychology.
People don't always do what's right or sensible, even for themselves.
Right on. 'Investors' is really a misnomer -- more people in the market are interested in short-term results and short-term profits, instead of doing what's right in the long-term. It's no different than you or I feeling craving and going out for a smoke (or a drink, or whatever your vice is). Sure, it may give us cancer in 20-30 years, but it makes us feel better *now*. A buyout may kill Yahoo in the long-term, but it makes us feel better about being 'invested' in Yahoo *now*. Same psychology.
But to run tests on water and find that it is cleaner then "normal" municipal sources and not trust it is absurd.
That's the catch though, isn't it - How good are your tests? I could tell you that your converted water looks clear & doesn't smell funny, so it must be clean, right? That might not pass muster today, but it probably did 200 years ago. And 200 years from now, people will be aghast at the daily things we do/consume that we think aren't so dangerous.
I do agree that the only real risk we face, on the global scale, is wiping out ourselves. In the long run, the planetary ecosystems will re-balance & re-adjust as necessary for whatever we do, but we may not survive to see it -- and, frankly, that's really all that matters, isn't it? Do I really care about the ozone hole if my brethren (interpreted as broadly as you care to) & I aren't around anymore?
I see your point; what I meant was that, if the file format is popular enough, people will continue to use it. In my case, I have Word 2007 and I still have to save files in '97-'03 format, because the customers & vendors that I work with don't have '07. I think they are probably using Office 2000 or 2003, not '97 anymore, but just because I'm using the latest & greatest doesn't mean that I can't communicate with those who aren't.
Now it pretty safe to assume that in 2027, people won't be using (by default) the '97-'03 format anymore, in which case you are right. If you haven't upgraded yet you either have to ask people to save in an old format, or find some kind of converter.
What I find interesting to ponder, however, is how much file transfer there will be of word-processing documents in the future. Email already supports formatted text. As another comment posted, a lot of internal documents are moving to web-based apps. I don't think it's really going to die anytime soon, but at least in my office life, Word has a pretty minimal role, and ends up being redundant to the other tools & apps that I use. (This is a side tangent, of course, since this same entire argument can apply to spreadsheets, which I use almost daily).
I use MS Office, OpenOffice, and Google Apps, so I don't consider myself a fanboy of any particular stripe. But c'mon - seriously:
Ooo and word could both change overnight. Sure, you can continue to run the old version that you liked better, but that's a pretty poor option with word (you'll soon find yourself unable to open other people's files, written by newer versions) (emphasis mine)
Word 2007 still opens (and can save) file formats in Word '97 format. That's 10+ years old -- not a length of time I typically associate with "soon". And since the format (as near as I can tell, anyway) doesn't seem to have dramatically changed between the '97 through '03 versions, I don't think it's unreasonable to assume that in 2027 you'll still be able to open files from Word '97. Maybe Word '27 won't be able to save in the Word '97 format, however.
I'm not as familiar with emacs and latex, but any documents that I think might have a 20+ year lifetime (that I'm not updating periodically), I'd rather default to ASCII text or RTF. Or PDF, if I just need the image saved.
You also paid the same price for a game with features (ie multiplayer) that you'll never use. Sorry, but that's the way the market works - manufacturers design their products to appeal to as many customers as possible. And those customers, in turn, have to determine if the product is right for them. He (presumably) paid $60 for a game with single + multiplayer + bonus maps. If (multiplayer + bonus maps) are zero-value to you, then you have to decide if the single-player content is worth $60 to you. If it's not, don't buy the game. If you can't find any single-player games that you find are worth $60 (or $55 used), then you may need to adjust your valuation scale, or find another hobby.
It's the same deal with phones -- you can't find a new phone that doesn't have a gazillion features that you'll never use, but you still have to pay for them because phone manufacturers & marketers have determined the marginal cost of adding those features will mean increased sales & higher profitability. If someone though a simple, no-frills phone would be a hot item, they would sell it. If no one is, and you think it would be, then you may have a hot business idea.
The job of taking care of your fellow man is YOUR job, not the government's. That is how it was in this and other countries, until Marx and others of that philosophy came along.
That's not exactly how I understand it... Marx said that socialism/communism is the natural evolution of capitalism. That eventually, the worker bees would rise up against their capitalist exploiters, revolt, and institute a government that supports them, the workers.
What are we seeing happening today? Government is bailing out the *capitalists*, with the workers' money. Notice how there's a lot of discussion in this election season about wanting to bail out homeowners, prevent foreclosures, etc? That's your nod to socialism. Give the people just enough so they don't actually revolt and overthrow our current big business + big government regime, which is highly profitable to the capitalists.
Government only provides social welfare toward 2 goals: 1. Money/deals for someone (see Medicare Part D) 2. Keep the people just pacified enough to not enact real change (see economic stimulus checks)
I tell them to picture themselves sick...or even worse, an emergency. And then, they have to basically go into the DMV to get evaluated and meds. I know how much fun it is for me to go in there, and wait for 3+ hrs to renew plates or drivers license, even when I DO have all the proper paperwork.
Why? Because poor people don't have insurance. This hurts you in 3 ways: 1. They don't get preventative care, so their ailments don't get treated until their become serious conditions. 2. They don't go to a normal doctor because they can't afford one, so they go to the ER where they cannot be turned away. 3. They can't afford to pay their ER visits, so the hospital has to write off their expenses in providing that (expensive) ER care, meaning less revenue available to expand or improve services. And/or they raise prices for everyone with insurance to cover these costs.
This is with private insurance. Government-sponsored insurance has its own problems, but if more people had their basic health care covered, there's a strong likelihood we could improve health care efficiency overall.
The problem is, it's not that simple to define "truth". 2+2=4 is not true... if you are in a base-3 numbering system. And math is a poor example to use, because it is a system with clear & concise rules. A much better example is Jaron Lanier (from the summary). Wikipedia had claimed he was a film-director. He says he had directed an experimental film that was shown once in a film festival and never distributed.
So is he a film director?
By literal interpretation, yes he was - he literally directed a film. But by conventional (consensus?) understanding, he's no more a film director than I am a graphic designer when I doodle stick people on my notebook in boring meetings.
So what is the truth? Is literal interpretation "truth"? If so, Jaron should just STFU. But it's clearly (per the article) an issue for him, because he says multiple reporters have asked about his "film-making career" (which he doesn't have - he has directed a film, not made a career of it). Reporters were simply using the conventional understand - a director has a film-making career.
Most of us are born with mirror circuitry in our brains that gives us empathy, the ability to feel what others are feeling.... Only sociopaths and psychopaths act entirely in their own self interest, because they are born without mirror circuitry.
Agreed... but "most of us" are not CEOs of banks and don't live on Wall Street. So it doesn't really matter what "most of us" have, when it only takes a small population who doesn't to fool the rest & build a big house of cards.
t is more efficient to work on multiple tasks. You work on another task, and periodically check on the first one to see when it needs input (this would be similar to how an OS multitasks on a single processor).
You assume humans context-switch as efficiently as machines do. The studies indicate this is not true. Your workstation can do thousands of context switches in a second. From TFA:
"...they found that workers took an average of twenty-five minutes to recover from interruptions such as phone calls or answering e-mail and return to their original task."
You can barely do 2 context switches an hour.
As a simple example of where I've seen multi-tasking work much faster due to tasks that don't require constant input was setting up some software in a lab.
Your point is valid, but we're not using "multitasking" to mean the same thing here. You were flipping back & forth between computers, but you were doing the same task (installing software), multiple times, and *you* chose when to switch between computers (ie probably when your current computer didn't require your input anymore).
That's a much different scenario than being constantly interrupted. How many of those computers would you have gotten the software installed on if you had been stopping to check your email every time something new popped into your inbox? Or if the phone was ringing every 5 minutes? Or if the student worker asked you what to answer, to every install prompt, on every computer he touched? Or if every time a dialog box popped up on one of your computers, you stopped what you were doing immediately and jumped to *that* computer?
Another nice thing about your example was that it was routine task. I assume you were installing the same software set on every machine. Then it doesn't matter which machine you were jumping to, you only had 1 master process that you just had to figure out this machine's progress in that process, and take the next step. I can't imagine doing that job nearly so well as if you had 3-4 computers that had different lists of packages to install, and one of them was a Mac, another was Windows, and then you had a couple of KDE and GNOME workstations as well. Sure you could still do it, but its going to be a lot more mentally challenging & stressful.
That's ridiculous. It's only true if you assume that everyone knows & understands the negative impacts of interruptions, and clearly (given TFA), a majority of people don't.
If I'm your boss & I want to chat with you about my kid's school play, I'm probably not thinking about that big bug you've been troubleshooting and how I might be interrupting your concentration and that you'll lose 15-30 minutes of productive time because of me. If I do know that, and I still do it, then I'm a bad boss and my boss should be firing me for wasting your time.
Another example would be a mother who is able to cook for her family and supervise her children at the same time. A mother that could not handle both tasks would greatly increase their child's likely to have an accident and perish.
I understand the idea, but I don't think this is a relevant example. In my (very limited) understanding of early human civilization, you wouldn't have had the mother cooking & watching the children. If anything, mothers would cook and older children would supervise the younger children. This would allow mothers to focus on preparing good meals, and give older children the experience & responsibility for watching over each other.
That's the other fallacy in your example -- you implicitly assume that the mother is doing an equally sufficient job of cooking & supervising, when the evidence (such as referenced by TFA), is that people who multi-task do each task much more poorly. A multi-tasking mother is much more likely to under or overcook food, or miss key ingredients or steps, or not be paying attention at the crucial moment when the child is running around with a stick, etc.
One simple fix for that would be to let the page administrator handle the rating themselves. If the admin knowingly makes porn available to minors you just punish him by law.
Whose law?
Not a troll, serious question. Or perhaps rhetorical, because there is no global law.
Besides, this already exists (the ratings) -- see "Content Adviser" in IE. The fact that Firefox doesn't support it (that I can find), should give you an idea as to how effective it was (not).
YES!!! That is a wonderful idea. Now all we need is a way for us to identify which sites contain content we don't want to see. If we only had something that would help us distinguish the content of a site just by looking at the address. Damn! I'm stumped!
What makes the internet so special? You don't have this in ANY OTHER MEDIA! "To Kill A Mockingbird" is not, actually, a bird-hunting manual. "This Is Spinal Tap" will not teach you medical procedures. "Wal-mart" is not the place you go to purchase paneling & drywall. "Coke" does not contain cocaine (at least, not any more). 123 First Avenue Lane does not give you any inherent indication of the business at that address. The name of the establishment may or may not give you the real nature of the business.
The internet is no different - domain names are at the mercy of Marketing (with some technical limitations) and creativity.
You're right, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't try. Besides, this isn't about censorship, but about organization by categorization. I'd even be happy if it were 100% voluntary. At least then adult sites can show that they are trying to be responsible. Again, you are correct. But I want to have some say as to WHEN my kids are exposed to sex and how it is presented to them. I don't want my 5-yr old daughter learning about sex from a porn site no more than I want my wife learning about relationships from Oprah!
The solution to your problem seems (to me) to be obvious - use filtering software. It's not 100%, but it's better than not using it. And it will be far more effective than a.xxx TLD, for the simple reason that adding.xxx will not make otbm.com go away -- it will just add otbm.xxx. So you haven't really solved anything!
Now, maybe filtering software triggers some false-positives and blocks sites you (or your children) may need or want to see. That's when you need to have that conversation about how & when sex is presented to your children, and then you can turn off the filter. Or you send the kid in the other room, turn the filter off, copy & paste the page you need, then turn the filter back on and let the kid back in.
As parents, IT Admins, librarians, school teachers and other people that responsible for filtering content, these tools can only help us do our jobs so we can concentrate on other things.
You already have the tools -- I still don't understand what the issue is??
<I don't believe government regulation is the way to solve this kind of issue, but I think it's well within your rights (including your First Amendment rights), to speak out and ask the corporations, who do have some kind of control what gets displayed where, to do something about it.
No, its not. Instead of getting government to censor people, you're trying to get corporations to do it for you. Same result, different tactic. Censorship is censorship no matter what group is enforcing it.
I disagree, for the simple reason that the government is much more of a blunt instrument when it comes to legislation & enforcement. Laws & regulations get passed for all the wrong reasons (usually involving lobbyists & pandering to popular-media opinion), and/or can have ill-effects. Business tends to be much more adaptable & open to change. To use the GP's example, if the store I shop at insists on putting these titillating headlines right in my face, and I really don't approve of that, I have every right (and responsibility) to take my business elsewhere. If there is no "elsewhere", then I have every right (and responsibility) to try & convince my friends & family & neighbors that this is an important issue and that we should band together and try to convince at least one store to support our plight. Then it becomes an economics decision for business owners, and different businesses may make difference decisions. And they are free to change those decisions as conditions change.
On the other hand, if our little activist groups goes to City Hall and demands a city ordinance, then no one can be happy -- either the ordinance passes and all stores have to remove those magazines from the checkout lanes (meaning those people who WANT the magazines are not happy), or the ordinance fails and the people wanting to "protect the children" are not happy (unless they take the economic route & try to convince individual shop owners to remove them).
Slashdot Mirror
And what will Johnny User do with that computer when the network is down?
- Can't do email if you can't access Gmail/Hotmail/Yahoo.
- Can't chat with friends on IM
- Can't socialize on Facebook/Myspace
- Can't surf YouTube for funny or interesting videos.
- Can't pay your bills online or manage your bank account
There goes probably 90% of your average user's computer use. Sure, they can always type a letter in MS Word, or update some Excel spreadsheet, or download their digital pictures (just don't try emailing them to anyone or uploading them anywhere!). Or maybe Solitaire. But let's face it, most of the exciting stuff to do on a computer now is online.
A good IT system could take the insurance and pharmaceutical companies almost entirely out of the loop. Let the doctors see ahead of time what the insurance company will pay for and decide based on that how to treat.
In theory.
In reality, the insurance companies don't want to cooperate, because that will make it easier for you (the doctor) to bill & get paid, meaning they (insurance) don't get to keep as much of the money. Also, we have this big thing in the US about not wanting money to drive health care decisions. Doctors don't want to talk to you about money and what your insurance will cover.
For example, if your insurance doesn't cover the MRI, and so you don't get it, but it would have revealed some terrible condition that ends up killing you - bam, malpractice lawsuit. If you get the MRI, now the doctor fights with the insurance to get it paid for, and/or fights with you for what insurance doesn't cover.
No one here is on the same side. That makes cooperation difficult.
The response to this should be that if it can't be used correctly by real people, especially those worn out by an 18-hour shift, the failure wasn't in the humans at all. The computer part was very badly designed for the conditions it must operate in.
I don't disagree with your argument at all, but I do want to add a twist... what if the conditions are wrong? If my life is dependent upon a doctor or nurse giving me the correct drugs & correct dosage at the end of an 18-hour shift, then I would absolutely want the IT system to run some safety checks & make sure they grabbed the right drug, mixed the right dosage, etc. But maybe the better solution is not more safety checks, but not having burned out medical staff?
We frequently discuss security vs usability - this is the same coin. The more rules & alerts you build into the system, the more you irritate regular users (see Vista's UAC for how well THAT's gone over).
And we still have the issue of how to get the data into the system in the first place - you don't want your expensive doctor to be a data entry clerk, but he or she is the one that has the information that ultimately needs to end up in the database. How do you get there? Ideally, good UI design makes that as easy as possible, but it still ends up being data entry - data that has to be scrubbed, sanitized, and validated to be of any real use. Otherwise all the safety checks in the world won't make a difference if the bleary-eyed nurse or doc keyed the wrong med or dosage into the system to begin with. Garbage in, garbage out.
I have the opposite experience -- for journeys any more than about 400-500 miles, I fly because of the time savings. It's more expensive than driving, but not only does flying take less time, its also time I don't have to be focused. I can read a book, watch a DVD, or just sleep. I don't have to worry about if the gas tank is low, where the next exit is, or other crazy drivers.
As for transportation at your destination - usually I'm traveling to visit family or friends who have cars. In other cases, I spend a little more on the hotel and stay closer to my points of interest and just walk (and take occasional taxis, if I need to). Or sometimes I rent, if I really need a car.
So, different strokes for different folks. I would love a great high-speed rail option - something priced cheaper than flying (but slower), and more expensive than driving (but faster). Then when my schedule is flexible, I would love to take the train!
You should not have to install a piece of software to use a fucking music store.
Do you have to install eTunes to use eBay? Do you have to install amaTunes to use Amazon?
"Should"!? Who cares -- Apple never claimed to have a web-based music store! And actually, yes, you do have to install special software if you want to download MP3 albums from Amazon. Not for individual tracks (or their other products), however.
I can understand you are a little annoyed that your 9-year old operating system doesn't work with a brand-new product, but, that's the digital life. Heck, the operating system that's required (XP), isn't going to be available much longer (at least not for OEMs).
As for other options, you could probably pick up a used computer on craiglist, with XP license, for less than $100. Doesn't even have to be a fancy computer, just something with the COA sticker. Or pick-up a used Mac and use that as the music computer. Might even save money in the long run over the power consumption of an "older computer".
You've picked a workaround solution for her, and that's fine, but I hardly think its fair to blame Apple for your klunky workaround when you didn't meet their minimum specs to begin with.
... but when the bill had a few billion in candy attached to it, it passed no problem. Who are "our" representatives representing?
I don't think the "who" was ever in question (sadly). Personally, I'm still divided on whether the "bailout" was really needed - it's a no-win situation that we'd gotten into.
I am entirely against state provided healthcare. If you want to see how the US government would preside over healthcare, go visit a VA hospital.
I don't personally have any experience with the VA hospital, although my elder uncle seems to like the service he gets at his.
Actually, the problem of effectiveness related to DENYing care happens in state systems, not private ones.
It's a slightly different context (as I understand it). We have a downward spiral in the US in that hospitals cannot refuse emergency care services to a patient. Patients who don't have insurance do not get proper preventative care or early diagnosis, and thus don't get medical attention until a problem becomes urgent, at which point it is much more difficult & expensive to fix. These patients can't/won't pay, so those with insurance (or Medicare/Medicaid) end up footing the bill (which raises costs for everyone else, and then more people can't afford basic health care). My perception of state-run systems (such as Canada & Europe) is that complaints about not receiving care tend to overstated. But I have no evidence to back that up.
I haven't done an exhaustive study of pre-HMO healthcare in America but the reading I've done suggests that the system was much more affordable and that people got better care.
I don't doubt that it was much more affordable, but I think a couple of key things have changed:
- Insurance companies are 800lb gorillas (negotiating huge discounts) with a huge disincentive to pay.
- More & more advanced technology & drugs are available, at higher costs. People who couldn't be saved in the early 20th century can now be run through a huge number of tests, scans, and referrals to specialists (and then still may or may not be saved)
- American lifestyles are much more sedentary (leading to overall degradation of health)
It would be very interesting if one could study pre-HMO health care in America, and extrapolate out how that might look today, given our current capabilities & situation.
The federal government of today has more powers than it is constitutionally authorized to have by the letter of the law and certainly more than it was intended to have by the spirit of the law.
I definitely agree with this. I wish the states had a lot more power, to keep the Fed in check. My "ideal" scenario would be that the Fed collects its money from the states (in the same proportion as Congressional representation), and however the states collect money from their citizens is up to the individual states. I really dislike this end-run around states power and the abuses of Federal government.
That said, I don't see much hope for change regarding this. I think the only chance we have is if more people get more active in local politics and that groundswell bubbles up, with people pushing back on the powers up the ladder. But consolidation of power is such a big win for corporations, media (easier to cover national stories 24 hrs/day vs local stories), and those that already have power, that I'm not going to hold my breath for it...
The statue of liberty doesn't say "give me your top 1%, at any cost, and let them contribute to our tax base". It talks about the tired, the hungry, etc. If they're willing to work, I want them. If they want to be looked after, I don't. And I want the federal government to stop "looking after" people born within US borders first.
Yeah, like those damn bankers!
Your post sounds great, but ideology tends to fail when it meets reality. Things aren't black & white -- such as health care. What do you think about state-provided health care? Sounds like another case of the "nanny state" -- but the only way for private healthcare to work efficiently is to DENY people access. Otherwise you get a freeloading / tragedy of the commons problem.
Note that I don't explicitly disagree with any of the points in your post -- except this:
We're more than willing to dispense with the rule of law and to vote ourselves or our interests more powers than are strictly legal, should it so suit us.
I'm no history major, but I think that's a rose-colored look at the past. I do think our society is more consumption-focused than in the past, thanks to the technological progress and wealth that's been generated (and debt that's been used), but I chalk that up to more opportunity, not some fundamental shift in individual psychology.
People don't always do what's right or sensible, even for themselves.
Right on. 'Investors' is really a misnomer -- more people in the market are interested in short-term results and short-term profits, instead of doing what's right in the long-term. It's no different than you or I feeling craving and going out for a smoke (or a drink, or whatever your vice is). Sure, it may give us cancer in 20-30 years, but it makes us feel better *now*. A buyout may kill Yahoo in the long-term, but it makes us feel better about being 'invested' in Yahoo *now*. Same psychology.
But to run tests on water and find that it is cleaner then "normal" municipal sources and not trust it is absurd.
That's the catch though, isn't it - How good are your tests? I could tell you that your converted water looks clear & doesn't smell funny, so it must be clean, right? That might not pass muster today, but it probably did 200 years ago. And 200 years from now, people will be aghast at the daily things we do/consume that we think aren't so dangerous.
I do agree that the only real risk we face, on the global scale, is wiping out ourselves. In the long run, the planetary ecosystems will re-balance & re-adjust as necessary for whatever we do, but we may not survive to see it -- and, frankly, that's really all that matters, isn't it? Do I really care about the ozone hole if my brethren (interpreted as broadly as you care to) & I aren't around anymore?
I see your point; what I meant was that, if the file format is popular enough, people will continue to use it. In my case, I have Word 2007 and I still have to save files in '97-'03 format, because the customers & vendors that I work with don't have '07. I think they are probably using Office 2000 or 2003, not '97 anymore, but just because I'm using the latest & greatest doesn't mean that I can't communicate with those who aren't.
Now it pretty safe to assume that in 2027, people won't be using (by default) the '97-'03 format anymore, in which case you are right. If you haven't upgraded yet you either have to ask people to save in an old format, or find some kind of converter.
What I find interesting to ponder, however, is how much file transfer there will be of word-processing documents in the future. Email already supports formatted text. As another comment posted, a lot of internal documents are moving to web-based apps. I don't think it's really going to die anytime soon, but at least in my office life, Word has a pretty minimal role, and ends up being redundant to the other tools & apps that I use. (This is a side tangent, of course, since this same entire argument can apply to spreadsheets, which I use almost daily).
I use MS Office, OpenOffice, and Google Apps, so I don't consider myself a fanboy of any particular stripe. But c'mon - seriously:
Ooo and word could both change overnight. Sure, you can continue to run the old version that you liked better, but that's a pretty poor option with word (you'll soon find yourself unable to open other people's files, written by newer versions) (emphasis mine)
Word 2007 still opens (and can save) file formats in Word '97 format. That's 10+ years old -- not a length of time I typically associate with "soon". And since the format (as near as I can tell, anyway) doesn't seem to have dramatically changed between the '97 through '03 versions, I don't think it's unreasonable to assume that in 2027 you'll still be able to open files from Word '97. Maybe Word '27 won't be able to save in the Word '97 format, however.
I'm not as familiar with emacs and latex, but any documents that I think might have a 20+ year lifetime (that I'm not updating periodically), I'd rather default to ASCII text or RTF. Or PDF, if I just need the image saved.
You also paid the same price for a game with features (ie multiplayer) that you'll never use. Sorry, but that's the way the market works - manufacturers design their products to appeal to as many customers as possible. And those customers, in turn, have to determine if the product is right for them. He (presumably) paid $60 for a game with single + multiplayer + bonus maps. If (multiplayer + bonus maps) are zero-value to you, then you have to decide if the single-player content is worth $60 to you. If it's not, don't buy the game. If you can't find any single-player games that you find are worth $60 (or $55 used), then you may need to adjust your valuation scale, or find another hobby.
It's the same deal with phones -- you can't find a new phone that doesn't have a gazillion features that you'll never use, but you still have to pay for them because phone manufacturers & marketers have determined the marginal cost of adding those features will mean increased sales & higher profitability. If someone though a simple, no-frills phone would be a hot item, they would sell it. If no one is, and you think it would be, then you may have a hot business idea.
The job of taking care of your fellow man is YOUR job, not the government's. That is how it was in this and other countries, until Marx and others of that philosophy came along.
That's not exactly how I understand it... Marx said that socialism/communism is the natural evolution of capitalism. That eventually, the worker bees would rise up against their capitalist exploiters, revolt, and institute a government that supports them, the workers.
What are we seeing happening today? Government is bailing out the *capitalists*, with the workers' money. Notice how there's a lot of discussion in this election season about wanting to bail out homeowners, prevent foreclosures, etc? That's your nod to socialism. Give the people just enough so they don't actually revolt and overthrow our current big business + big government regime, which is highly profitable to the capitalists.
Government only provides social welfare toward 2 goals:
1. Money/deals for someone (see Medicare Part D)
2. Keep the people just pacified enough to not enact real change (see economic stimulus checks)
I tell them to picture themselves sick...or even worse, an emergency. And then, they have to basically go into the DMV to get evaluated and meds. I know how much fun it is for me to go in there, and wait for 3+ hrs to renew plates or drivers license, even when I DO have all the proper paperwork.
Stop kidding yourself, this happens now:
* Woman waited 19 hours in ER
* ER Waits Getting Longer
Why? Because poor people don't have insurance. This hurts you in 3 ways:
1. They don't get preventative care, so their ailments don't get treated until their become serious conditions.
2. They don't go to a normal doctor because they can't afford one, so they go to the ER where they cannot be turned away.
3. They can't afford to pay their ER visits, so the hospital has to write off their expenses in providing that (expensive) ER care, meaning less revenue available to expand or improve services. And/or they raise prices for everyone with insurance to cover these costs.
This is with private insurance. Government-sponsored insurance has its own problems, but if more people had their basic health care covered, there's a strong likelihood we could improve health care efficiency overall.
2+2=4 is true whether you believe it or not.
The problem is, it's not that simple to define "truth". 2+2=4 is not true... if you are in a base-3 numbering system. And math is a poor example to use, because it is a system with clear & concise rules. A much better example is Jaron Lanier (from the summary). Wikipedia had claimed he was a film-director. He says he had directed an experimental film that was shown once in a film festival and never distributed.
So is he a film director?
By literal interpretation, yes he was - he literally directed a film. But by conventional (consensus?) understanding, he's no more a film director than I am a graphic designer when I doodle stick people on my notebook in boring meetings.
So what is the truth? Is literal interpretation "truth"? If so, Jaron should just STFU. But it's clearly (per the article) an issue for him, because he says multiple reporters have asked about his "film-making career" (which he doesn't have - he has directed a film, not made a career of it). Reporters were simply using the conventional understand - a director has a film-making career.
I generally agree with you, but...
Last year I gave the government 3000 extra which could have ... been invested rather than getting it back with no interest.
You should thank Uncle Sam for keeping your money out of the stock market for you! :)
Most of us are born with mirror circuitry in our brains that gives us empathy, the ability to feel what others are feeling.... Only sociopaths and psychopaths act entirely in their own self interest, because they are born without mirror circuitry.
Agreed... but "most of us" are not CEOs of banks and don't live on Wall Street. So it doesn't really matter what "most of us" have, when it only takes a small population who doesn't to fool the rest & build a big house of cards.
t is more efficient to work on multiple tasks. You work on another task, and periodically check on the first one to see when it needs input (this would be similar to how an OS multitasks on a single processor).
You assume humans context-switch as efficiently as machines do. The studies indicate this is not true. Your workstation can do thousands of context switches in a second. From TFA:
"...they found that workers took an average of twenty-five minutes to recover from interruptions such as phone calls or answering e-mail and return to their original task."
You can barely do 2 context switches an hour.
As a simple example of where I've seen multi-tasking work much faster due to tasks that don't require constant input was setting up some software in a lab.
Your point is valid, but we're not using "multitasking" to mean the same thing here. You were flipping back & forth between computers, but you were doing the same task (installing software), multiple times, and *you* chose when to switch between computers (ie probably when your current computer didn't require your input anymore).
That's a much different scenario than being constantly interrupted. How many of those computers would you have gotten the software installed on if you had been stopping to check your email every time something new popped into your inbox? Or if the phone was ringing every 5 minutes? Or if the student worker asked you what to answer, to every install prompt, on every computer he touched? Or if every time a dialog box popped up on one of your computers, you stopped what you were doing immediately and jumped to *that* computer?
Another nice thing about your example was that it was routine task. I assume you were installing the same software set on every machine. Then it doesn't matter which machine you were jumping to, you only had 1 master process that you just had to figure out this machine's progress in that process, and take the next step. I can't imagine doing that job nearly so well as if you had 3-4 computers that had different lists of packages to install, and one of them was a Mac, another was Windows, and then you had a couple of KDE and GNOME workstations as well. Sure you could still do it, but its going to be a lot more mentally challenging & stressful.
That's ridiculous. It's only true if you assume that everyone knows & understands the negative impacts of interruptions, and clearly (given TFA), a majority of people don't.
If I'm your boss & I want to chat with you about my kid's school play, I'm probably not thinking about that big bug you've been troubleshooting and how I might be interrupting your concentration and that you'll lose 15-30 minutes of productive time because of me. If I do know that, and I still do it, then I'm a bad boss and my boss should be firing me for wasting your time.
Another example would be a mother who is able to cook for her family and supervise her children at the same time. A mother that could not handle both tasks would greatly increase their child's likely to have an accident and perish.
I understand the idea, but I don't think this is a relevant example. In my (very limited) understanding of early human civilization, you wouldn't have had the mother cooking & watching the children. If anything, mothers would cook and older children would supervise the younger children. This would allow mothers to focus on preparing good meals, and give older children the experience & responsibility for watching over each other.
That's the other fallacy in your example -- you implicitly assume that the mother is doing an equally sufficient job of cooking & supervising, when the evidence (such as referenced by TFA), is that people who multi-task do each task much more poorly. A multi-tasking mother is much more likely to under or overcook food, or miss key ingredients or steps, or not be paying attention at the crucial moment when the child is running around with a stick, etc.
One simple fix for that would be to let the page administrator handle the rating themselves. If the admin knowingly makes porn available to minors you just punish him by law.
Whose law?
Not a troll, serious question. Or perhaps rhetorical, because there is no global law.
Besides, this already exists (the ratings) -- see "Content Adviser" in IE. The fact that Firefox doesn't support it (that I can find), should give you an idea as to how effective it was (not).
Wow - mod parent up! I didn't know that document existed!
YES!!! That is a wonderful idea. Now all we need is a way for us to identify which sites contain content we don't want to see. If we only had something that would help us distinguish the content of a site just by looking at the address. Damn! I'm stumped!
What makes the internet so special? You don't have this in ANY OTHER MEDIA! "To Kill A Mockingbird" is not, actually, a bird-hunting manual. "This Is Spinal Tap" will not teach you medical procedures. "Wal-mart" is not the place you go to purchase paneling & drywall. "Coke" does not contain cocaine (at least, not any more). 123 First Avenue Lane does not give you any inherent indication of the business at that address. The name of the establishment may or may not give you the real nature of the business.
The internet is no different - domain names are at the mercy of Marketing (with some technical limitations) and creativity.
You're right, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't try. Besides, this isn't about censorship, but about organization by categorization. I'd even be happy if it were 100% voluntary. At least then adult sites can show that they are trying to be responsible.
.xxx TLD, for the simple reason that adding .xxx will not make otbm.com go away -- it will just add otbm.xxx. So you haven't really solved anything!
Again, you are correct. But I want to have some say as to WHEN my kids are exposed to sex and how it is presented to them. I don't want my 5-yr old daughter learning about sex from a porn site no more than I want my wife learning about relationships from Oprah!
The solution to your problem seems (to me) to be obvious - use filtering software. It's not 100%, but it's better than not using it. And it will be far more effective than a
Now, maybe filtering software triggers some false-positives and blocks sites you (or your children) may need or want to see. That's when you need to have that conversation about how & when sex is presented to your children, and then you can turn off the filter. Or you send the kid in the other room, turn the filter off, copy & paste the page you need, then turn the filter back on and let the kid back in.
As parents, IT Admins, librarians, school teachers and other people that responsible for filtering content, these tools can only help us do our jobs so we can concentrate on other things.
You already have the tools -- I still don't understand what the issue is??
<I don't believe government regulation is the way to solve this kind of issue, but I think it's well within your rights (including your First Amendment rights), to speak out and ask the corporations, who do have some kind of control what gets displayed where, to do something about it.
No, its not. Instead of getting government to censor people, you're trying to get corporations to do it for you. Same result, different tactic. Censorship is censorship no matter what group is enforcing it.
I disagree, for the simple reason that the government is much more of a blunt instrument when it comes to legislation & enforcement. Laws & regulations get passed for all the wrong reasons (usually involving lobbyists & pandering to popular-media opinion), and/or can have ill-effects. Business tends to be much more adaptable & open to change. To use the GP's example, if the store I shop at insists on putting these titillating headlines right in my face, and I really don't approve of that, I have every right (and responsibility) to take my business elsewhere. If there is no "elsewhere", then I have every right (and responsibility) to try & convince my friends & family & neighbors that this is an important issue and that we should band together and try to convince at least one store to support our plight. Then it becomes an economics decision for business owners, and different businesses may make difference decisions. And they are free to change those decisions as conditions change.
On the other hand, if our little activist groups goes to City Hall and demands a city ordinance, then no one can be happy -- either the ordinance passes and all stores have to remove those magazines from the checkout lanes (meaning those people who WANT the magazines are not happy), or the ordinance fails and the people wanting to "protect the children" are not happy (unless they take the economic route & try to convince individual shop owners to remove them).