Well, of they can. This move by MS won't stop that. They didn't buy perpetual upgrades, though, and MS didn't agree to provide perpetual upgrades at no cost to anyone.
Perhaps not; but by allowing one class of license owners to upgrade for free (those with MS-Windows licenses) and another to *not* upgrade for free (Wine users), MS is *clearly* tieing one product (MS-Office) to another (MS-Windows). This is prohibited *by law*, as it has been determined that MS-Windows is a monopoly in the realm of desktop operating systems.
Plus, it's underhanded. This is just like the case in which Microsoft had a beta of MS-Windows 3.1 detect for the presence of DR-DOS, and bail out with a generic message indicated that DOS had failed, and not MS-Windows. The bit of code that did the detecting and bailing was the only bit of encrypted code in that beta release.
This just shows that Microsoft is neither kinder nor gentler.
And on a related note...this is why teenagers shouldn't vote. There are the very few extremely intelligent ones that do understand the ramifications, but most need a little bit of maturity first.
Dude, by that criteria, most *adults* shouldn't vote.
The theory of gravity is only a theory. Should we distrust it?
Science is meant to be objective is it not?
Science is an epistomology, a method of learning the workings of the natural world. This method is marked by the gathering of information, the formulation of an hypothesis, the phrasing of that hypothesis such that the hypothesis may be disproved, the devising of an experiment to test the antithesis, followed by either more testing or the formulation of a new hypothesis.
Should we look at all relevant theories on a subject or should we just scoff at those that don't fit our agenda?
If by "don't fit our agenda" you mean, "don't follow the scientific method," then yes, we should scoff at them.
Intelligent design is another theory.
No. Intelligent design is a deopolitical agenda. As it is not disprovable, it is not scientific, and cannot claim the title of scientific theory.
This is the part of the whole equation that irks those of us who have studied the philosophy of science, even in the littlest bit. The ID crowd has proposed a solution to a problem that may or may not exist. Its as if we observed the revolution of the planets about the sun before formulating the concept of gravity, and we decided that the planets must be attached to big fuck-off strings, and the sun is spinning them around like bolos.
"After all," we might claim, "that is the only possible explanation! There is nothing left in nature to explain it."
The critics bash it because it takes into account that there might be a God and that things have happened due to design and not just accident.
There are many things wrong with this statement. I will cover two.
First, we bash it not because it takes into account that there might be a God, but that it requires God. You must first presuppose the existence of God before ID works, just like you must presuppose the existence of big fuck-off strings for the Bolo Theory of planetary movement.
The biggest problem with ID is that there is no way to disprove the existence of God. There is no test we could devise that would prove that God isn't there, playing dice with the Universe as the stake. With the Bolo Theory, we could concievably leave the atmosphere and travel around the moon and see that there was no big fuck-off string attaching the moon to the earth.
The second problem with your statement is simple. Science does not claim that our being here is just an accident. Just like the formation of a beautiful crystal or a stunning sunset is no accident, the evolution of life on earth follows distinct principles of physics. The expression of those principles is complex, and we simplify that into the study of biology and chemistry, but the outcome is no accident.
It just isn't designed, either. There is no "guiding force," or intelligence behind it. Things happen because the laws of the universe provide the means.
You have to believe, when you get down to it, that something comes from nothing - a contradiction to the known laws of physics.
You don't know much about the laws of physics, do you? Current theory includes the notion of particles popping into and falling out of existence. Just like background noise, there is no net gain of matter or energy, and so the balance is maintained: imagine a particle and anti-particle pair coming into existence, interacting, and recombining to form nothing.
This is a little simplistic. For a better, more accurate description, look up the Casimir Effect on Google.
This gets more at the heart of secularism, which IMO is an extremely repressive religion in and of itself.
Nice ad-hominem / strawman combination! Very elegantly done.
Just a quick note: the absence of something is not something. The absence of religious belief is not religious belief. Just so we're clear on that litt
The comparison would be skewed. I suspect that the ratios of well-educated to not-well-educated is different between the college-bound and those that don't go to college.
I'd like the study to be done on our political representatives, all the way up to the President.
But what life skills are actually learned in sporting programs? Instead of cutting sports, they cut the arts, funding for computer labs, and so-called "media offerings."
Everything I need to know I learned from sports.
I learned that the bigger you are, the more likely you are to beat the shit out of smaller people. As a smaller person, I learned the faster you are, the more likely you are to avoid a beating. As a slower person, I learned I was fucked no matter what I did.
I learned the better you were at useless activities (usually pushing a spherioid through some sort of goal) the more likely you were to get laid. Corollary: I learned how to cope with blue balls.
I learned about teamwork. It takes a team to truly humiliate the weakest player.
I learned about the political system. Important players didn't need to work to get good grades. Not-so-important players (say, those on the bench-warming team) better bust their asses.
I learned about loyalty. Admiring anything about the other team that wasn't a cheerleader leads to certain pain.
You can learn a lot about the real world from sports.
The most important thing I learned: the head of our basketball team in highschool is now the manager of a gas station. At 37.
Sorry this is so late; I don't know if you will read it or not, but I wanted to respond.
As for including the Entire H&HS budget? It's cause Medicare/Medicaid is in there (and makes up most of it) and it is what we have been talking about here. And I notice that the amount spent on Medicare/caid is still greater than the DoD budget.
No-- you specifically equated welfare with HHS. My wife works in the welfare-to-work program (she is regional director in my area), and so this is a touchy subject for me.
For a little more than half of what Americans pay in health insurance and medicare/medicaid, we could have a first-rate subsidised healthcare system. About 90% of Americans would get better care than they receive now, with less cost. Most of the rest of the 10% would receive about what they get now. A few would have to pay for their first-class doctor, but they have to pay now anyway.
Private practice would still thrive.
I *do* agree that there are problems with fraud. However, the problems are not nearly as terrible as reported. There are a few cases of jaw-dropping fraud a year, such as the ones in the links you provided; but, sensationalism aside, these are rare. This happens in many other programs, whether federally-funded or privately-funded. It's just that people get worked up because they see "welfare queens" and think that they are getting away with something. Most people who defraud the system are caught in a timely manner, and prosecuted appropriately.
There are also problems with insuarance fraud that measure in the hundreds of millions of dollars a year.
And the insurance companies do *not* have much of an incentive to make our payments lower. The cost of *our* medical expenses (that is, the patient's cost) is increasing yearly. Any amount saved by the insurance company goes into the pocket of the insurance company.
Hospitals routinely charge two rates: one rate goes to the insurance company, and the other higher rate is charged to the patient without insurance. So any lower rate negotiated by the insurance companies do not translate to cost savings for any patient.
Given the money spent on the DoD, I could employ over 4 million people at $75k/year and solve all kinds of problems. Our DoD budget is greater than all our "enemies" combined, by a long shot. Just the increase in DoD budget this year (oddly enough, just about equal to the amount we pay in individual welfare) would pay for the *entire* defense budget of the middle east.
We gave about $200B in corporate welfare last year, including direct handouts and tax breaks. Consider where that money get be spent-- say, on education (to get people the fuck off the dole-- I don't like them there, either, no matter how bleeding-heart I sound), public transportation, research (get that oil monkey off our back), or even give it back to the corporations as contracts for services.
It's a tough debate, with no clear answer. But we can't turn our backs on those who need it, just because some people are fuckers and take advantage of the handout. There are *many* people who need help.
One last thing:
Given the money spent on welfare I could employ over 1.6 Million people at $30K/year and cut the unemployment rate significantly. As is, we are paying them to not work and stay unemployed.
As it stands now, welfare recipients are required to perform work activities. This may include volunteer work, education that will lead to work opportunities, or subsidised work activities (in which the welfare office helps pay wages during on-the-job training). Also, an individual is limited to 60 months total lifetime benefits. While receiving benefits, your home is subject to inspection, as are many other aspects of your personal life, such as your finances.
The welfare system is designed to get people back on their feet during a rough time. The work requirements promote a return to work, and discourages using the welfare system as a free ride. If you have to work anyway, you might as well work in a paying position.
Most forms of government have little reason to make things more efficient and much incentive to maintain the status quo.
Insurance companies get their pound of flesh. They have no reason to change the status quo, either.
Take a look at all the problems with the wellfare department (now Health and Human Services) and you will see why. H&HS now takes up about %25 of the US annual budget and recieves more in funding than the DoD.
Uhm... what problems with the welfare department? Please don't recite rhetoric, provide examples.
I'm not sure if you realize this, but H&HS is much more than welfare. In fact, welfare accounts for only $49B of the H&HS budget. (Source.) That is significantly less than the $390B that is going to the military.
H&HS covers NIH, the CDC, IHS, Medicare and Medicaid (which account for $453B of the H&HS budget), etc.
Imagine you are in public relations. Now imagine you tell nothing but lies. But I repeat myself.
In the wonderful world of "News" releases, up is down, SCO is a Linux company, our government is here to help us, and massive restrictions lead to innovation.
If you repeat a lie often enough, people forget the truth; eventually, the lie becomes Common Knowledge. Right now, the market seems rife with "Common Knowledge"-- like, the market will adjust itself because it's a "fair market", helping the rich get richer helps the poor get richer, and restrictions lead to freedom.
Ah, well. Such is life. As bad as it is, it still is pretty damned good. I mean, as long as you don't live in Afghanistan, Iraq, Bosnia, Rwanda, Uzbekistan...
The problem with monopolies is that they control the environment in which others compete. *They* set the rules of the game, and the rules will always favor them.
In the case of Microsoft, they were able to control distribution channels, making it impossible for a competitor to even get installed on a new PC. This happened with the OS itself, office suites, and then the web browser. Now it is also happening with media players.
"Customer choice" only works when the customer *has* a choice. Yes, a technically-savvy user can download and install Firefox. But, if they have Internet Explorer (which will always be "good enough"), why should they bother?
In the case of office suites, I remember when a full-fledged office suite was only about $250, new retail. Now it's more like $400. And, when you compare that with the price of a new computer, it's gone from 10% the cost of a new computer to 50% the cost of the new computer.
Since software benefits greatly from economy of scale, it doesn't make sense that the relative cost should go up as computer sales have gone up.
Anyway, the point is this: in certain areas, the monopolist has a distinct advantage over competitors. In the case of Microsoft, that advantage allows Microsoft to provide more regulation of the industry than any government.
The first version of Windows NT was released in 1993, and called "Windows NT 3.1" (3.1 was used for marketing reasons, since that was the latest version of DOS/Windows at the time).
It would have made more sense to distinguish NT from regular MS-Windows by using a new version number (such as MS-Windows NT 4.0), rather than confuse the issue with the *same* version number.
There was another reason for the "Windows 3.1" moniker-- Microsoft had a license agreement with Novell, in which Microsoft was able to include Netware drivers in all 3.x versions of MS-Windows. By labelling the shipping product as a 3.x version of MS-Windows, Microsoft was able to avoid re-negotiating a license.
Since MS-Windows NT was aimed squarely at Novell and Netware, the dominant PC-based networking product at the time, Novell would not have negotiated such favorable terms.
Microsoft maintained the 3.x versioning of MS-Windows NT until Netware was no longer dominant.
It certainly seems premature to throw out a very successful theory on the basis of this evidence.
What evidence? ID proponents present irreducible complexity as if it were evidence, but it is not. IC is merely an example of a structure that we don't yet understand how it evolved.
That's not evidence. Just because we can't explain why gravity works doesn't mean it's powered by a creator.
The eye is a perfect example. We have a great evolutionary path set up for the eye, from light-sensitive spots on the backs of certain single-cell organisms (great for detecting sudden changes in ambient light, such as the shadow of a predator), to the pinhole camera of the nautilus, to the human eye, to octopus eyes (thanks, other poster in this thread).
We didn't understand them once, and creationists used them to "prove" (as "irreducibly complex") the existence of God.
To sum up, I will state once again: Our ignorance does not prove the existence of God! There. Was that loud enough? 'cause I can make it all caps if you like.
Now, when the ID folks start spouting Micheal Behe at you, you can refute them with vigor and glee.
ID fails to address specifics, but what it does point out is that the complexity of certain biological systems cannot always reasonably be explained by evoluation, as evoluation should choose the _simplest_ mechanisms to accomplish a goal.
Uhm... there is no choice. Per the theory, natural selection works on the phenotypes that are available. Within a given population, there is divergence of phenotypes. This divergence is the raw materials which power the engine of evolution. There is no "choice," nor is evolution directed. We are not evolving toward some goal. We are not getting better. We are merely changing, as our environment pushes the phenotypes one direction or another.
How the divergence occurs is up for debate; the "classical" view of mutation is almost certianly a fringe case at the most, and genetic combination is limited to sexual reproduction or transcription errors (SEE mutations). There is a promising line of investigation into the role of viruses and bacteria in genetic recombination. It could be that we are all built of Legos, and we are merely the playground of microscopic creatures.
Intelligent Design fails the basic scientific requirement: it is not falsifiable. And, it fails the basic test of logic: it's not even necessary. It adds an element that must be taken on faith-- the "intelligence."
That, in and of itself, makes it a much more complex and unbelievable "theory" than evolution.
Religion is an organized set of believes (sic). Science falls into this category.
This shows your ignorance of the scientific method.
There are really two things meant by "science."
The common meaning of "science" is the body of knowledge gained by observation, logic, and experimentation as required by the scientific method.
The most fundamental meaning refers to the scientific method itself, which is an epistomology used to learn about the workings of the universe. This epistomology is based on two human abilities: the ability to observe, and the ability to organize observed information logically.
The absolute most important aspect of the scientific method is simply this: an hypothesis must be disprovable. It's as simple as that. When I make a statement of hypothesis, people must have the ability to make further observations that may disprove that statement. So, I can say things like, "If the theory of evolution by natural selection is correct, we should see a remarkable amount of speciation after a long-term cataclysmic event such as an ice age." This is one of the many ways that the theory of evolution by natural selection could be disproved.
And that is the key.
There is no way to say, "If the theory of God is correct, the believers should lead longer, healthier lives than non-believers, because God favors them." Oh, I could say it all right, but if it turns out to not be the case (which it isn't), does it disprove the Theory of God? In fact, I claim that there is no such statement of prediction that can be made against any religious belief.
That's why it's called "faith."
Further, I claim that every single scientific hypothesis and theory can be disproved. I'm not saying that they will be disproved; many are correct, and so no evidence exists contrary to the statements of prediction made by those hypothesis and theories. But, for every one, you can design a test that will discover (or not discover, if the theory is wrong) new information predicted by the theory or hypothesis.
Science is not a religion, no matter how many people raise their voices in halleluiah chorus. Religion is not a science, either. They both have their place, and stepping on each other's toes is not one of them.
Most posts seem to bash special creationism, not Christianity. Last I checked, they were different things. Or did I miss the memo?
As many, many posts have stated, faith and science are complementary, not congruent. One describes the workings of the universe; the other gives reason to our existence within the universe.
Science is merely an epistomology, a method of discovering truths. We are not perfect at it, as we are human and completely fallable. We often think one thing is true, only to learn later that we were wrong. And unfortunately, some cling to disproved beliefs in the face of contrary evidence.
But... See, that's where science is strongest. It is possible to gather contrary evidence and disprove an hypothesis. Sometimes even theories are disproved or addended, such as Newton's Laws (which was superceded by relativity and quantum mechanics in the extremely small cases of size, or very great speed).
The problem with faith when used to interpret the mechanics of the universe is simple: you cannot disprove anything, since all assertions are taken on... faith.
Yes, I am aware of Micheal Behe and his ilk. They have the uncanny knack of ignoring all contrary evidence. They seem to cherry-pick only the evidence they desire, like actors on a stage, and frame their hypothesis on a stage with a single spotlight. And like the actors in a play, the script is worked out beforehand.
Their arguments, although they wear the trappings of science, lack science's primary strength: they are not disprovable. There is no way to disprove that some Divine Hand is not directing the play. And so, when they make assertions that God has created us (ignore those pesky bones in the earth), they are presenting not science, but faith in a play about fake science.
That is why so many here are strongly vocal against those that would subvert true knowledge for a faith-based political agenda. We speak out not against the faith, but against those that would promote willful ignorance under the banner of faith.
Why is using MS update any different than downloading this new linux fix?
First and foremost, the terms to which you must agree before you download and install. The MS downloads and patches often come with "interesting" end-user license agreements. Meanwhile, with the Linux kernel download, you can do whatever you like, including (*gasp*) fix it yourself, if you have the ability.
Secondly, when you use Microsoft update, you don't know what is getting installed. With many things, like XP service pack 2, you get a lot of cruft that is useless.
As far as popularity being the #1 indicator for available exploits: if that were true, Apache would be the most-exploited web server, since it has 65%+ of the market. Unfortunately, that's not true. IIS has many more published exploits, in spite of the fact that the code for Apache is available for inspection by the black-hats.
There *is* a such thing as "being more secure." Yes, we can't be perfect. (In fact, I don't believe there is a such thing as perfection.) But that doesn't mean that one OS can't be objectively better than another.
I'm sure if Think Secret were selling the information to the highest bidder it would definately be a breach of trade secrets laws, but really when there only telling the world about what theve found out...
There's little difference between these two scenarios. According to the stuff I've read, Think Secret had signed a non-disclosure agreement (NDA). That means that they are not supposed to... well... disclose information.
Trade secrets can only remain secret if they are protected by NDAs. If I stumble upon a document covering the trade secret in their dumpster, and I have not signed an NDA, their trade secret is no longer secret.
If they breached an NDA in writing their public article, they opened themselves up to a legitimate lawsuit, and Apple has every right to sue.
It's a bad business move, since they speculation and hype will most likely help initial sales of the product and a lawsuit is rarely good for customer relations, but they are within their rights.
Microsoft wants profit, not monopoly. Predictions and wish-fulfillment fantasies premised on the notion that the goal of of MS is, first and foremost, to preserve its effective OS monopoly, are wrong.
I agree 100% with the rest of your analysis.
Microsoft works very, very hard to maintain the monopoly, so much so that they have sacrificed profit to maintain the monopoly (think IE, XBox, MSN, comments about willingness to "knife the baby," etc). In so many ways, their profit is tied directly to their monopoly-- if the monopoly dies, their profit dies. The Microsoft administration must realize this.
Effectively, Microsoft's best way to maintain profits is to maintain the monopoly. It allows them to cut back development dollars (on IE, for instance) while still making a lot of money. They have only to plan for a 3-year upgrade cycle, and their profits are assured.
I judge and predict Microsoft's actions based on the idea they are trying to maintain a monopoly. So far, they have not let me down. The monopoly-oriented management model is useful, even if it isn't correct.
If you compress a gas, the temperature of the gas increases, When you expand a gas, the temperature of the gas decreases (which is why those compressed air cans get cold when you use them). Quite a bit of the heat generated by a meteor is caused by the compression of the atmosphere as the meteor enters the atmosphere. As the atmosphere re-expands behind the meteor, it cools back down; but the meteor is in a constant hot-spot.
Friction does play a part. Heat is created as the potential energy of the meteor is converted to kinetic energy (due to acceleration as it loses speed with respect to the atmosphere).
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Well, of they can. This move by MS won't stop that. They didn't buy perpetual upgrades, though, and MS didn't agree to provide perpetual upgrades at no cost to anyone.
Perhaps not; but by allowing one class of license owners to upgrade for free (those with MS-Windows licenses) and another to *not* upgrade for free (Wine users), MS is *clearly* tieing one product (MS-Office) to another (MS-Windows). This is prohibited *by law*, as it has been determined that MS-Windows is a monopoly in the realm of desktop operating systems.
Plus, it's underhanded. This is just like the case in which Microsoft had a beta of MS-Windows 3.1 detect for the presence of DR-DOS, and bail out with a generic message indicated that DOS had failed, and not MS-Windows. The bit of code that did the detecting and bailing was the only bit of encrypted code in that beta release.
This just shows that Microsoft is neither kinder nor gentler.
Ah, yes. The defense of the school-yard bully. "I'm bigger than him, so I should be able to beat him up if I want, the little pansy."
Nothing wrong with that at all. No-siree. Nothing wrong. In fact, it is so *right*, I am in awe of its rightness.
Terrorism is a real threat.
You still stand a greater chance of dieing in a car crash or being shot by someone you know than getting killed in a terrorist attack.
Terrorism does *NOT* justify the abridgement of civil rights. *NOTHING* justifies the abridgement of civil rights.
And on a related note...this is why teenagers shouldn't vote. There are the very few extremely intelligent ones that do understand the ramifications, but most need a little bit of maturity first.
Dude, by that criteria, most *adults* shouldn't vote.
Darwinism is a theory.
The theory of gravity is only a theory. Should we distrust it?
Science is meant to be objective is it not?
Science is an epistomology, a method of learning the workings of the natural world. This method is marked by the gathering of information, the formulation of an hypothesis, the phrasing of that hypothesis such that the hypothesis may be disproved , the devising of an experiment to test the antithesis, followed by either more testing or the formulation of a new hypothesis.
Should we look at all relevant theories on a subject or should we just scoff at those that don't fit our agenda?
If by "don't fit our agenda" you mean, "don't follow the scientific method," then yes, we should scoff at them.
Intelligent design is another theory.
No. Intelligent design is a deopolitical agenda. As it is not disprovable, it is not scientific, and cannot claim the title of scientific theory.
This is the part of the whole equation that irks those of us who have studied the philosophy of science, even in the littlest bit. The ID crowd has proposed a solution to a problem that may or may not exist. Its as if we observed the revolution of the planets about the sun before formulating the concept of gravity, and we decided that the planets must be attached to big fuck-off strings, and the sun is spinning them around like bolos.
"After all," we might claim, "that is the only possible explanation! There is nothing left in nature to explain it."
The critics bash it because it takes into account that there might be a God and that things have happened due to design and not just accident.
There are many things wrong with this statement. I will cover two.
First, we bash it not because it takes into account that there might be a God, but that it requires God. You must first presuppose the existence of God before ID works, just like you must presuppose the existence of big fuck-off strings for the Bolo Theory of planetary movement.
The biggest problem with ID is that there is no way to disprove the existence of God. There is no test we could devise that would prove that God isn't there, playing dice with the Universe as the stake. With the Bolo Theory, we could concievably leave the atmosphere and travel around the moon and see that there was no big fuck-off string attaching the moon to the earth.
The second problem with your statement is simple. Science does not claim that our being here is just an accident. Just like the formation of a beautiful crystal or a stunning sunset is no accident, the evolution of life on earth follows distinct principles of physics. The expression of those principles is complex, and we simplify that into the study of biology and chemistry, but the outcome is no accident.
It just isn't designed, either. There is no "guiding force," or intelligence behind it. Things happen because the laws of the universe provide the means.
You have to believe, when you get down to it, that something comes from nothing - a contradiction to the known laws of physics.
You don't know much about the laws of physics, do you? Current theory includes the notion of particles popping into and falling out of existence. Just like background noise, there is no net gain of matter or energy, and so the balance is maintained: imagine a particle and anti-particle pair coming into existence, interacting, and recombining to form nothing.
This is a little simplistic. For a better, more accurate description, look up the Casimir Effect on Google.
This gets more at the heart of secularism, which IMO is an extremely repressive religion in and of itself.
Nice ad-hominem / strawman combination! Very elegantly done.
Just a quick note: the absence of something is not something. The absence of religious belief is not religious belief. Just so we're clear on that litt
The comparison would be skewed. I suspect that the ratios of well-educated to not-well-educated is different between the college-bound and those that don't go to college.
I'd like the study to be done on our political representatives, all the way up to the President.
What kind of results would we get there?
But what life skills are actually learned in sporting programs? Instead of cutting sports, they cut the arts, funding for computer labs, and so-called "media offerings."
Everything I need to know I learned from sports.
I learned that the bigger you are, the more likely you are to beat the shit out of smaller people. As a smaller person, I learned the faster you are, the more likely you are to avoid a beating. As a slower person, I learned I was fucked no matter what I did.
I learned the better you were at useless activities (usually pushing a spherioid through some sort of goal) the more likely you were to get laid. Corollary: I learned how to cope with blue balls.
I learned about teamwork. It takes a team to truly humiliate the weakest player.
I learned about the political system. Important players didn't need to work to get good grades. Not-so-important players (say, those on the bench-warming team) better bust their asses.
I learned about loyalty. Admiring anything about the other team that wasn't a cheerleader leads to certain pain.
You can learn a lot about the real world from sports.
The most important thing I learned: the head of our basketball team in highschool is now the manager of a gas station. At 37.
Sorry this is so late; I don't know if you will read it or not, but I wanted to respond.
As for including the Entire H&HS budget? It's cause Medicare/Medicaid is in there (and makes up most of it) and it is what we have been talking about here. And I notice that the amount spent on Medicare/caid is still greater than the DoD budget.
No-- you specifically equated welfare with HHS. My wife works in the welfare-to-work program (she is regional director in my area), and so this is a touchy subject for me.
For a little more than half of what Americans pay in health insurance and medicare/medicaid, we could have a first-rate subsidised healthcare system. About 90% of Americans would get better care than they receive now, with less cost. Most of the rest of the 10% would receive about what they get now. A few would have to pay for their first-class doctor, but they have to pay now anyway.
Private practice would still thrive.
I *do* agree that there are problems with fraud. However, the problems are not nearly as terrible as reported. There are a few cases of jaw-dropping fraud a year, such as the ones in the links you provided; but, sensationalism aside, these are rare. This happens in many other programs, whether federally-funded or privately-funded. It's just that people get worked up because they see "welfare queens" and think that they are getting away with something. Most people who defraud the system are caught in a timely manner, and prosecuted appropriately.
There are also problems with insuarance fraud that measure in the hundreds of millions of dollars a year.
And the insurance companies do *not* have much of an incentive to make our payments lower. The cost of *our* medical expenses (that is, the patient's cost) is increasing yearly. Any amount saved by the insurance company goes into the pocket of the insurance company.
Hospitals routinely charge two rates: one rate goes to the insurance company, and the other higher rate is charged to the patient without insurance. So any lower rate negotiated by the insurance companies do not translate to cost savings for any patient.
Given the money spent on the DoD, I could employ over 4 million people at $75k/year and solve all kinds of problems. Our DoD budget is greater than all our "enemies" combined, by a long shot. Just the increase in DoD budget this year (oddly enough, just about equal to the amount we pay in individual welfare) would pay for the *entire* defense budget of the middle east.
We gave about $200B in corporate welfare last year, including direct handouts and tax breaks. Consider where that money get be spent-- say, on education (to get people the fuck off the dole-- I don't like them there, either, no matter how bleeding-heart I sound), public transportation, research (get that oil monkey off our back), or even give it back to the corporations as contracts for services.
It's a tough debate, with no clear answer. But we can't turn our backs on those who need it, just because some people are fuckers and take advantage of the handout. There are *many* people who need help.
One last thing:
Given the money spent on welfare I could employ over 1.6 Million people at $30K/year and cut the unemployment rate significantly. As is, we are paying them to not work and stay unemployed.
As it stands now, welfare recipients are required to perform work activities. This may include volunteer work, education that will lead to work opportunities, or subsidised work activities (in which the welfare office helps pay wages during on-the-job training). Also, an individual is limited to 60 months total lifetime benefits. While receiving benefits, your home is subject to inspection, as are many other aspects of your personal life, such as your finances.
The welfare system is designed to get people back on their feet during a rough time. The work requirements promote a return to work, and discourages using the welfare system as a free ride. If you have to work anyway, you might as well work in a paying position.
Most forms of government have little reason to make things more efficient and much incentive to maintain the status quo.
Insurance companies get their pound of flesh. They have no reason to change the status quo, either.
Take a look at all the problems with the wellfare department (now Health and Human Services) and you will see why. H&HS now takes up about %25 of the US annual budget and recieves more in funding than the DoD.
Uhm... what problems with the welfare department? Please don't recite rhetoric, provide examples.
I'm not sure if you realize this, but H&HS is much more than welfare. In fact, welfare accounts for only $49B of the H&HS budget. (Source.) That is significantly less than the $390B that is going to the military.
H&HS covers NIH, the CDC, IHS, Medicare and Medicaid (which account for $453B of the H&HS budget), etc.
Imagine you are in public relations. Now imagine you tell nothing but lies. But I repeat myself.
In the wonderful world of "News" releases, up is down, SCO is a Linux company, our government is here to help us, and massive restrictions lead to innovation.
If you repeat a lie often enough, people forget the truth; eventually, the lie becomes Common Knowledge. Right now, the market seems rife with "Common Knowledge"-- like, the market will adjust itself because it's a "fair market", helping the rich get richer helps the poor get richer, and restrictions lead to freedom.
Ah, well. Such is life. As bad as it is, it still is pretty damned good. I mean, as long as you don't live in Afghanistan, Iraq, Bosnia, Rwanda, Uzbekistan...
The problem with monopolies is that they control the environment in which others compete. *They* set the rules of the game, and the rules will always favor them.
In the case of Microsoft, they were able to control distribution channels, making it impossible for a competitor to even get installed on a new PC. This happened with the OS itself, office suites, and then the web browser. Now it is also happening with media players.
"Customer choice" only works when the customer *has* a choice. Yes, a technically-savvy user can download and install Firefox. But, if they have Internet Explorer (which will always be "good enough"), why should they bother?
In the case of office suites, I remember when a full-fledged office suite was only about $250, new retail. Now it's more like $400. And, when you compare that with the price of a new computer, it's gone from 10% the cost of a new computer to 50% the cost of the new computer.
Since software benefits greatly from economy of scale, it doesn't make sense that the relative cost should go up as computer sales have gone up.
Anyway, the point is this: in certain areas, the monopolist has a distinct advantage over competitors. In the case of Microsoft, that advantage allows Microsoft to provide more regulation of the industry than any government.
Does that seem right to you?
The first version of Windows NT was released in 1993, and called "Windows NT 3.1" (3.1 was used for marketing reasons, since that was the latest version of DOS/Windows at the time).
It would have made more sense to distinguish NT from regular MS-Windows by using a new version number (such as MS-Windows NT 4.0), rather than confuse the issue with the *same* version number.
There was another reason for the "Windows 3.1" moniker-- Microsoft had a license agreement with Novell, in which Microsoft was able to include Netware drivers in all 3.x versions of MS-Windows. By labelling the shipping product as a 3.x version of MS-Windows, Microsoft was able to avoid re-negotiating a license.
Since MS-Windows NT was aimed squarely at Novell and Netware, the dominant PC-based networking product at the time, Novell would not have negotiated such favorable terms.
Microsoft maintained the 3.x versioning of MS-Windows NT until Netware was no longer dominant.
...it can be a dangerous tool for privacy in the wrong hands...
Which hands would be the *right* hands?
It certainly seems premature to throw out a very successful theory on the basis of this evidence.
What evidence? ID proponents present irreducible complexity as if it were evidence, but it is not. IC is merely an example of a structure that we don't yet understand how it evolved.
That's not evidence. Just because we can't explain why gravity works doesn't mean it's powered by a creator.
The eye is a perfect example. We have a great evolutionary path set up for the eye, from light-sensitive spots on the backs of certain single-cell organisms (great for detecting sudden changes in ambient light, such as the shadow of a predator), to the pinhole camera of the nautilus, to the human eye, to octopus eyes (thanks, other poster in this thread).
We didn't understand them once, and creationists used them to "prove" (as "irreducibly complex") the existence of God.
To sum up, I will state once again: Our ignorance does not prove the existence of God! There. Was that loud enough? 'cause I can make it all caps if you like.
Now, when the ID folks start spouting Micheal Behe at you, you can refute them with vigor and glee.
If you examine the creationists arguments, they mostly come down to NOT WANTING TO BE RELATED TO MONKEYS.
Good Lord. So you've met my family?
Sorry about that.
ID fails to address specifics, but what it does point out is that the complexity of certain biological systems cannot always reasonably be explained by evoluation, as evoluation should choose the _simplest_ mechanisms to accomplish a goal.
Uhm... there is no choice. Per the theory, natural selection works on the phenotypes that are available. Within a given population, there is divergence of phenotypes. This divergence is the raw materials which power the engine of evolution. There is no "choice," nor is evolution directed. We are not evolving toward some goal. We are not getting better. We are merely changing, as our environment pushes the phenotypes one direction or another.
How the divergence occurs is up for debate; the "classical" view of mutation is almost certianly a fringe case at the most, and genetic combination is limited to sexual reproduction or transcription errors (SEE mutations). There is a promising line of investigation into the role of viruses and bacteria in genetic recombination. It could be that we are all built of Legos, and we are merely the playground of microscopic creatures.
Intelligent Design fails the basic scientific requirement: it is not falsifiable. And, it fails the basic test of logic: it's not even necessary. It adds an element that must be taken on faith-- the "intelligence."
That, in and of itself, makes it a much more complex and unbelievable "theory" than evolution.
This is science class, after all, so why don't we teach scientific theories? There are well-defined criteria for scientific theories.
Then, we can teach religious theories in... oh, say, religion class. Or church.
Religion is an organized set of believes (sic). Science falls into this category.
This shows your ignorance of the scientific method.
There are really two things meant by "science."
The common meaning of "science" is the body of knowledge gained by observation, logic, and experimentation as required by the scientific method.
The most fundamental meaning refers to the scientific method itself, which is an epistomology used to learn about the workings of the universe. This epistomology is based on two human abilities: the ability to observe, and the ability to organize observed information logically.
The absolute most important aspect of the scientific method is simply this: an hypothesis must be disprovable. It's as simple as that. When I make a statement of hypothesis, people must have the ability to make further observations that may disprove that statement. So, I can say things like, "If the theory of evolution by natural selection is correct, we should see a remarkable amount of speciation after a long-term cataclysmic event such as an ice age." This is one of the many ways that the theory of evolution by natural selection could be disproved.
And that is the key.
There is no way to say, "If the theory of God is correct, the believers should lead longer, healthier lives than non-believers, because God favors them." Oh, I could say it all right, but if it turns out to not be the case (which it isn't), does it disprove the Theory of God? In fact, I claim that there is no such statement of prediction that can be made against any religious belief.
That's why it's called "faith."
Further, I claim that every single scientific hypothesis and theory can be disproved. I'm not saying that they will be disproved; many are correct, and so no evidence exists contrary to the statements of prediction made by those hypothesis and theories. But, for every one, you can design a test that will discover (or not discover, if the theory is wrong) new information predicted by the theory or hypothesis.
Science is not a religion, no matter how many people raise their voices in halleluiah chorus. Religion is not a science, either. They both have their place, and stepping on each other's toes is not one of them.
Most posts seem to bash special creationism, not Christianity. Last I checked, they were different things. Or did I miss the memo?
As many, many posts have stated, faith and science are complementary, not congruent. One describes the workings of the universe; the other gives reason to our existence within the universe.
Science is merely an epistomology, a method of discovering truths. We are not perfect at it, as we are human and completely fallable. We often think one thing is true, only to learn later that we were wrong. And unfortunately, some cling to disproved beliefs in the face of contrary evidence.
But... See, that's where science is strongest. It is possible to gather contrary evidence and disprove an hypothesis. Sometimes even theories are disproved or addended, such as Newton's Laws
(which was superceded by relativity and quantum mechanics in the extremely small cases of size, or very great speed).
The problem with faith when used to interpret the mechanics of the universe is simple: you cannot disprove anything, since all assertions are taken on... faith.
Yes, I am aware of Micheal Behe and his ilk. They have the uncanny knack of ignoring all contrary evidence. They seem to cherry-pick only the evidence they desire, like actors on a stage, and frame their hypothesis on a stage with a single spotlight. And like the actors in a play, the script is worked out beforehand.
Their arguments, although they wear the trappings of science, lack science's primary strength: they are not disprovable. There is no way to disprove that some Divine Hand is not directing the play. And so, when they make assertions that God has created us (ignore those pesky bones in the earth), they are presenting not science, but faith in a play about fake science.
That is why so many here are strongly vocal against those that would subvert true knowledge for a faith-based political agenda. We speak out not against the faith, but against those that would promote willful ignorance under the banner of faith.
Why is using MS update any different than downloading this new linux fix?
First and foremost, the terms to which you must agree before you download and install. The MS downloads and patches often come with "interesting" end-user license agreements. Meanwhile, with the Linux kernel download, you can do whatever you like, including (*gasp*) fix it yourself, if you have the ability.
Secondly, when you use Microsoft update, you don't know what is getting installed. With many things, like XP service pack 2, you get a lot of cruft that is useless.
As far as popularity being the #1 indicator for available exploits: if that were true, Apache would be the most-exploited web server, since it has 65%+ of the market. Unfortunately, that's not true. IIS has many more published exploits, in spite of the fact that the code for Apache is available for inspection by the black-hats.
There *is* a such thing as "being more secure." Yes, we can't be perfect. (In fact, I don't believe there is a such thing as perfection.) But that doesn't mean that one OS can't be objectively better than another.
I'm sure if Think Secret were selling the information to the highest bidder it would definately be a breach of trade secrets laws, but really when there only telling the world about what theve found out...
There's little difference between these two scenarios. According to the stuff I've read, Think Secret had signed a non-disclosure agreement (NDA). That means that they are not supposed to... well... disclose information.
Trade secrets can only remain secret if they are protected by NDAs. If I stumble upon a document covering the trade secret in their dumpster, and I have not signed an NDA, their trade secret is no longer secret.
If they breached an NDA in writing their public article, they opened themselves up to a legitimate lawsuit, and Apple has every right to sue.
It's a bad business move, since they speculation and hype will most likely help initial sales of the product and a lawsuit is rarely good for customer relations, but they are within their rights.
Microsoft wants profit, not monopoly. Predictions and wish-fulfillment fantasies premised on the notion that the goal of of MS is, first and foremost, to preserve its effective OS monopoly, are wrong.
I agree 100% with the rest of your analysis.
Microsoft works very, very hard to maintain the monopoly, so much so that they have sacrificed profit to maintain the monopoly (think IE, XBox, MSN, comments about willingness to "knife the baby," etc). In so many ways, their profit is tied directly to their monopoly-- if the monopoly dies, their profit dies. The Microsoft administration must realize this.
Effectively, Microsoft's best way to maintain profits is to maintain the monopoly. It allows them to cut back development dollars (on IE, for instance) while still making a lot of money. They have only to plan for a 3-year upgrade cycle, and their profits are assured.
I judge and predict Microsoft's actions based on the idea they are trying to maintain a monopoly. So far, they have not let me down. The monopoly-oriented management model is useful, even if it isn't correct.
Bah. Use MUMPS, like the US Veterans Administration. It has all the power of BASIC with the transparency of INTERCAL. Who could ask for more?
If you compress a gas, the temperature of the gas increases, When you expand a gas, the temperature of the gas decreases (which is why those compressed air cans get cold when you use them). Quite a bit of the heat generated by a meteor is caused by the compression of the atmosphere as the meteor enters the atmosphere. As the atmosphere re-expands behind the meteor, it cools back down; but the meteor is in a constant hot-spot.
Friction does play a part. Heat is created as the potential energy of the meteor is converted to kinetic energy (due to acceleration as it loses speed with respect to the atmosphere).
Yeah, that's kind of what I was thinking. A news aggregate like /., only for real news.
Thanks for the link.