I'm sure those who died because of the bombs would be delighted to hear it.
They were Japanese people. Japan started the war. Japan declined to surrender. Boom. Then, boom again.
Fuck 'em. I don't give a shit what they might or might not have been delighted to hear. The survivors should count themselves lucky we chose to help them rebuild rather than sow their fields with salt and leave no two stones atop one another.
When you pick a fight and lose, you don't get to complain about the manner by which you got your ass kicked. I don't know why this is such a difficult concept for so many people.
This post is so wrong, in so many ways, I hardly know where to begin. Pardon me for skipping most of it.
Excuse me? Excuse me? Terrorists aren't interested in peace? You make the mistake of equating terrorists with serial killers. Many are extremely educated, family men, and are fighting for a cause.
No, they're interested in influencing the political will of other people through the application of violence in shocking and unpredictable ways. Peace is the last thing they want. Are they educated? Some are. The average suicide bomber certainly isn't.
This is about 2 different cultures that have been unable to co-exist because of imperialism on the part of the Americans.
No. It's about evil men who manipulate Islamic extremists to retain or expand their own personal power and privilege.
They want their holy lands to be left untainted by Western militia (or militia of any kind), cultures respected, and then for their people (and by extension people elsewhere) to live in peace.
No. They want us out of their lands so they can continue to oppress and take advantage of their people. If you think the Taliban only wanted peace, you're an ignorant fool. They lived lives of luxury built off the frightened toil of their subjects.
Their cultures are different to Western cultures [...]
You're absolutely right - their theocratic authoritarian culture is inferior to western secular democracy.
[...] whatever, I don't know enough about it to comment [...]
Clearly.
[...] but the point is it's nobody's business but their own. Respect that, and leave them the hell alone. They don't go over to the US insisting American women cover themselves up, nor complain about divorce.
The hell they don't! Have you actually listened to anything Bin Laden's been saying about the US? He's been attacking our decadent, blasphemous culture since day one.
I believe there exist moral absolutes [...]
Yet in the previous breath you're arguing that their culture is just 'different' and that we should mind our own business.
Do not continue to disrespect their cultures [...]
But I don't respect their culture. It's a black hole of oppression, where dissenting thought is crushed, where female human beings are treated like property, where savage tribal feuds take the place of law.
The culture of fundamentalist Muslims is inferior to the free, open, secular democracy I live in. I won't pretend otherwise, and neither should you.
[...] [it's the UN's job] [...] [fix the UN] [...]
The UN declined to do anything about Saddam. Empty promises and empty threats make an empty organization. Fix the UN? Sure, good idea. Trust it or count on it today? No.
Fifth, teach your children about world cultures, tolerance, and how to respect cultures you do not understand.
Better yet, teach your children that respect for other cultures should not extend to politically-correct "respect" that condones the behavior or beliefs of these people. I'll put it in bold one more time: theocratic totalitarianism is inferior to western secular democracy. There's no culture there worth respecting, or negotiating with. We must not tolerate their dishonest, corrupt, hypocritical fundamentalism especially in light of their apparent determination to kill all infidels. I don't believe we can change them - just kill the extremists while we extend a hand to the moderates.
If you can't figure out the alternate fuel source thing, call up Canada--I hear they have heaps.
What are you talking about? Are you psychotic? I don't know what you think you're hearing, but Canada doesn't have any bottomless pit of utopia-green energy that they're not sharing.
I [...] believe nothing is worth killing for. But this is not about retaliation, revenge, or retribution
Anyway, the UN has done some good. Look at the WHO
I agree, and the WHO is a good example.
However, the fundamental problem I and many others have with the UN is that there seems to be this growing crowd of people who think the UN is, or should be, some kind of democracy of nations. This is neither a practical nor a desirable goal.
Inefficiencies aside, I don't want my nation's actions to be subject to veto by China or impassioned speeches from the UN Commission on Human Rights chair Libya.
When did America stand up to fix a broken part of the world?
WWI, WWII, Korea, Vietnam, Iraq/Kuwait 1991 for starters.
Oh, wait, you meant to write, "what have you done lately"...
No, really? Don't say Iraq. That was for oil and nothing else and you know it. Deep down, you know it.
Iraq. Oil? Right. Bush has done a stupendously inexcusable job of articulating why we invaded Iraq, but that doesn't mean he did it for the oil. Iraq was invaded because it is of immense strategic importance and had an unstable, corrupt, historically dangerous regime. Oil is one reason why Iraq is strategically important. To imply that oil is the only reason Iraq is important is almost childish in its naivete.
Why aren't we helping the areas that are even MORE broken than Iraq but would cost less to fix?
Because the United States, while rich and powerful, is not omnipotent. We have to carefully consider where our blood and economic/military resources are best spent. The fact that Iraq has oil and occupies a strategic piece of land are two factors that made it intervention there viable.
Oh, right, oil.
This oft-chanted answer is a moral and intellectual cop-out. It's so obviously wrong, on so many levels.
Rational, intelligent people can debate whether or not invading Iraq was necessary or wise, or whether Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld/etc have made mistakes managing post-invasion Iraq... but the people who are still stuck in oil-chanting mode are not among them.
Why don't you apply this logic to Iraq, and let the UN do its job there?
I'd rather not digress into a discussion of the UN's endless resolutions condemning Saddam's actions, its endless promises of action, and its ultimate failure to do anything at all over the course of a decade.
When the UN doesn't do its job in one area (in your opinion) we should invade and "fix" it ourselves
When we a) have the capability, b) feel our national interests are at stake, and c) the UN declines to help... yes. Absolutely. That's why we have the US Army, the US Navy, the US Air Force, and the US Marine Corps... and not the US-contingent-of-the-UN Army, US-contingent-of-the-UN navy, etc.
but when it doesn't do its job in another area we should just stick our thumbs up our nether regions and wait for someone else to fix it?
As noted above, our resources are not infinite. Intervening in Sudan, and other places, would be nice - but Iraq and Afghanistan were felt to be more important places to focus our efforts.
Perhaps I should remind you the US has specific battle plans for an invasion of Holland.
That means nothing. The US probably has battle plans for invading Antarctica. This is what military planners do when they're not otherwise occupied: sit around making plans for everything.
Perhaps you underestimate the global benefit of the UK siding with the US in Iraq.
Not at all - Britain is the only European power with the ability to project any force. And I'm grateful for their help.
Perhaps the use of space-borne weapons of mass destruction in a future conflict will scare the shit out of the rest of the world. They place full trade sanctions on the US - including oil. The US invade Saudi Arabia. Europe stands together and says, "No.", the Commonwealth join in with the UK pulling India on board, and China are issued with a 'for us or against us' ultimatum by one side or the other.
Perhaps the aliens will attack first.
It's more likely than global nuclear holocaust, and lets face it, plenty of people worried about that for a few decades.
A nuclear exchange between the US and USSR was at least plausible. After all, we were enemies, and periodically Soviet leaders would say things like "We will bury you."
But this notion of our allies (a bunch of other western secular democracies who have so much in common with us) imposing economic sanctions upon us because the world's most powerful military just got an ounce heavier? Please.
Just takes China + Europe + India to decide to gang up and basically, it's all over for you.
Right, or a vast armada of alien starships with purple antimatter rays, mind-control weapons, and a taste for grilled humans.
The fact that you have to resort to absurd scenarios only illustrates my point.
If the US starts deploying space born weapons operationally, expect large numbers of nations to start going very very anti-US.
As opposed to the world right now?
Do you truly believe France would ever attack the US, or the US attack France? Despite our differences and spat over Iraq, we're both western, secular democracies who have been close allies over a couple of centuries and several wars, including our own revolutionary war.
Do you truly believe China doesn't need/want an American friend and trade partner more than a fight over Taiwan or an arms race (that last time around, bankrupted and brought down a superpower far more powerful than they are)?
Do you truly believe that nations like Syria or extremist elements in Egypt or Saudi Arabia are going to hate us more if we put some satellite in orbit, or less if we don't?
[...] There are 'good' and 'bad' things about the US, just like every other country.
Fair enough. I agree, though I must admit a personal bias toward the good.:-)
Having said that, I really do believe that the US is becoming (relatively) less powerful internationally, and that quoting expenditure on R&D is a red-herring. Of course research is more expensive in the US - labour costs are much higher.
They're not appreciably higher than wages in other first-world nations that might be able to compete with us in an R&D sense. And, at that level, the well-educated and highly skilled researchers aren't going to be working for the 9 cents/hour the exploitees in the Nike factory down the street are getting. A non-trivial piece of state-of-the-art equipment isn't going to be had at a discount either.
I'm not convinced that you can really get a non-trivial, modern military R&D industrial complex going on the cheap anywhere.
You really should have a look at that book I mentioned - it's written by a quite famous prof in politics and international relations, and is really interesting (it was quite contreversial). It's definitely *not* anti-US, or anti-West.
I didn't see a book mentioned in your original post...
Re nukes: "immediately and completely destroyed" - I think there are nations out there for whom 'mutual assured destruction' would not be a deterrent. (obviously, this is not a good thing!)
I think you're right, when referring the so-called rogue nations and any religious extremist who's got a button to press. But for those potential adversaries who can conceivably compete with us in a conventional sense - namely China - MAD could be expected to as powerful a deterrent as it was with the USSR. Neither North Korea nor Iran can ever hope to approach the strength of our economy or military. They're too small, and too far behind.
If we're talking about arms in space, what's to stop [insert nuclear-capable country here] from declaring that their airspace extends above geostationary orbit levels, and that any transgression thereof will result in terrestrial nuclear retaliation?
The fact that US strategic doctrine has been consistent and unchanged for 6 decades: any nation that uses WMD against us will be immediately and completely destroyed by our own nuclear weapons. No "measured response"... no surgical strikes... no economic sanctions... no speeches at the UN... just immediate and total annihilation.
The US is waning as a global superpower. Get over it.
No. Take a close look at our defense budget, and compare it to every other nation in the world. Then take a closer look at how much of that budget is R&D and compare that to every other nation's R&D. If anything, the gap between the US and every other nation in the world is widening.
Yes, we have issues with a huge budget deficit and growing national debt - but on the whole, our debt is manageable, our economy is strong, and our military is unparalleled. The term 'hyperpower' was coined for a reason.
Copyright infringement is a criminal offense punishable by up to 10 years in prison.
Well, IANAL, and I suppose you could be right, but this appears to suggest that downloading a TV show for personal use, even if it was not fair use, isn't a criminal act because it (1) isn't being done for commercial advantage or private financial gain, and (2) doesn't have a retail value in excess of $1000.
Get this through your thick fucking skull, will you? DOWNLOADING SHOWS OFF PIRATE SITES IS NOT FAIR USE.
The courts have yet to rule on the scenario we're discussing (or rather, that I'm discussing, and you're foaming about hysterically). I believe there is a compelling argument to support my assertion that cable/satellite TV subscribers have a right to keep a copy of a cable/satellite program for personal use.
I own literally hundreds of DVDs, all purchased retail. I have never downloaded a single film off the internet; having not paid for that content, I don't have the right to. I don't subscribe to HBO, so I never had the right to make a copy of the Sopranos. I do subscribe to the SciFi channel, and I do have a right to keep a copy of any show on that channel for my own personal use.
In any case, I've lost my patience for debating you about the semantics of using TiVo vs BitTorrent for timeshifting programming I've paid for. I'm done.
Find me the piece of paper where it says you paid for the right to download illegal copies off the Internet.
First of all, the worst argument you could make is that it's copyright infringement, which has never been a criminal offense. Your use of the word "illegal" is disingenuous. It is the jurisdiction of various police agencies to prosecute individuals for "illegal" activities. What's happening is that the MPAA is pursuing civil action against people whom they believe to be infringing upon their copyright.
I, and many others, believe that it is neither copyright infringement nor theft.
Sending money to Direct TV gets you one thing and one thing only: their content on your television.
For the record, it's not their content either. They've paid the content owner a fee for a license to resell the content to me. After I've paid them, and they've broadcast the show, it is my absolute right to watch it at a time and place of my choosing.
If I record the DirecTV SciFi broadcast of "33" on a TiVo, and then watch that digital copy on my computer, that's perfectly legal - and obviously so.
I'm totally disinterested in and unconvinced by an argument that says a set of bits on my computer are "OK" if I get them from DirecTV, and "not OK" if I get them off the internet via a DirecWAY internet connection. The same money has changed hands; the same bits end up on my hard drive. The manner in which the bits get to my hard drive is irrelevant.
I'm paying a fee, every month, for the SciFi channel's programming. I'm going to continue to enjoy that programming, in the manner I choose, at a time I choose, in the format I choose, because I paid for it. There is a difference between a cable TV subscriber downloading a cable TV show and watching it, and a person downloading a movie because they don't want to buy/rent the DVD. Simply put, one is fair use, the other is not.
This "I PAID FOR IT" stuff is just a rationalization. You should be fucking ashamed of yourself.
Not at all. If the MPAA wants to sue me for what is obviously fair use, they are welcome to. I believe they will lose.
Why people like you get so worked up over this is beyond me.
Taking something you don't have permission to take, whether it's a real thing or a copy, is stealing.
I pay for DirecTV every month, and the SciFi channel is part of the package that I pay for.
Downloading a TV show that airs on the SciFi channel is not stealing. I've paid for the right to watch the show; by downloading it off the internet, I am asserting my right to do so at a time that is more convenient for me. The courts have upheld, again and again, my right to timeshift programming and create my own personal library of shows.
The Bible says thou shalt not steal.
The Bible says thou shalt not kill, too. Both Commandments are equally irrelevant to the discussion at hand. Downloading a broadcast TV show off the internet is not morally wrong; it is not theft; it is not even copyright infringement.
When someone says that the cost to go to space is too expensive, I have to emphasize where the money goes to build the spacecraft. It's not like we take millions of dollar bills, smelt them into vehicles or stuff bills in the fuel tanks and set them afire. That money goes to WORKERS who build the space vehicles and COMPANIES that make jobs. That's economically a Good Thing.
So when a $10 million project goes over budget and balloons to $50 million, that must be a good thing too, right?
Familiar with the concept of opportunity cost?
Your argument is a terrible justification, because it could be applied to such absurd projects as a 300 ton, hand-carved, gold-plated statue of a cow that get polished daily and re-plated every third Tuesday.
Note I'm not arguing against space exploration, or cow statues for that matter, just your logic.
Sounds similar to the jetgun the military use to use. Does anyone know the difference?
Well, they're promising "far less pain" with this device.
Once upon a time, I had the misfortune to receive a yellow fever vaccination with one of the military's needleless injectors. It felt like some steroid-pumped baseball player had swung a bat at my shoulder. Nearly as bad as the pain was the gathering anticipation of the pain, as I watched the 200-odd people in line ahead of me get their shots.
Computer security these days is becoming more and more related to national security.
We need a simple bill (preferably a UN decision that countries agree to abide by and enforce among their citizens).
Wow, if you're a troll, you're good. My hat's off.
If you're serious, you're a moron. Getting governments and lawyers involved is a recipe for disaster. It's bad enough that they already legislate their incompetence and corrruption into every other aspect of our lives, but it's a necessary evil. The price of civilization, if you will.
As for the UN... the less that barely-relevant, totally ineffective, archaic organization is allowed to do, the better.
I've got an older Thinkpad I could see carving up to experiment a little - anybody know how the LCD interfaces work [...] is the signalling just VGA, or is some proprietary thing?
It's some proprietary thing. But you can try this if you're really motivated.
And (maybe) encourage your neighbors to do the same.
Antennas get their gain by boosting the signal in one direction at the expense of signal in other directions. Your typical 8 dBi "omnidirectional" antenna sends very little of its signal up or down, while greatly increasing the signal it sends in the horizontal plane. Result: less interference for your upstairs & downstairs neighbors, and a much stronger signal on your level.
Or get a 14 dBi panel antenna (which focuses its signal in about a 60 degree arc IIRC) and stick it in a corner of your apartment.
The solution isn't adding more power or screwing with the neighbors' access points - it's
using external antennas to send the signal where you want it to go
figuring out which neighbor's AP is interfering with your signal the most and nicely asking him to choose another channel
care to link to _ANY_ case which really acts as the heatsink apart from the zalman offering (which has heatpipes to transfer the heat from the parts to the sides of the case)?
My thoughts exactly, but...
I've seen a couple linked over at avsforum.com. The only one I could find with a quick forum search there (aluminum AND case) were these monstrosities. Their entry-level case seems to be around $400 though.
I'd guess there are some others, but only a moron would blow $400+ for a beautifully finished custom-machined aluminum case and then stick it under a bench in a workshop.
First used their XJ100 on their VoiceLine service a few months ago. Worked great. Battery life was pretty good too - a couple hours of talking before it had to be recharged.
Well, one could argue that a quantum computer isn't brute-forcing anything, since it's not sequentially trying each key, but your point is taken.
I also half-remember reading that while quantum computers have great promise for factoring numbers and messing up our favorite asymmetric public key system, they're not quite as easily applicable to symmetric algorithms. But I don't recall where I read that.
Of course, in the end, the method of choice for recovering a 256-bit key will probably be a pair of pliers and some lemon juice.:-)
I can't count how many times I have read "...will take longer than the age of the Universe itself to brute force this/insert encryption scheme of choice here/..." when reading about some new fangled encryption scheme. Naturally, that claim is based on computational power at the time, but doesn't this exactly dispute his claim?
No. Physics gets involved... From Schneier's Applied Cryptography page 157:
One of the consequences of the second law of thermodynamics is that a certain amount of energy is necessary to represent information. To record a single bit by changing the state of a system requires an amount of energy no less than k
T, where T is the absolute temperature of the system and k is the Boltzman constant. (Stick with me; the physics lesson is almost over.)
Given that k = 1.38*10^-16 erg/deg Kelvin, and that the ambient temperature of the universe is 3.2 deg Kelvin, an ideal computer running at 3.2 deg Kelvin would consume 4.4*10^-16 ergs every time it set or cleared a bit. To run a computer colder thant the cosmic background radiation would require extra energy to run a heat pump.
Now the annual energy output of our sun is about 1.21*10^41 ergs. This is enough to power about 2.7*10^56 single bit changes in our ideal computer; enough state changes to put a 187-bit counter through all its values. If we built a Dyson sphere around the sun and captured all its energy for 32 years, without any loss, we could power a computer to count up to 2^192. Of course, it wouldn't have the energy left over to perform any useful calculations with this computer.
But that's just one star, and a measly one at that. A typical supernova releases something like 10^51 ergs. If all of this energy could be channeled into a single orgy of computation, a 219-bit counter could be cycled through all of its states.
These numbers have nothing to do with the technology of the devices; they are the maximums that thermodynamics will allow. And they strongly imply that brute-force attacks against 256-bit keys will be infeasible until computers are built from something other than matter and occupy something other than space.
What's to stop someone blabbing about deployments or positions?
Professionalism. Communication between deployed servicemembers and friends/family back home is already unmonitored and uncensored.
Seriously, we trust these guys to carry guns, fly helicopters, review intelligence, guard stuff, make breakfast...
... either you can trust Private Bob not to tell Mom about tomorrow's raid, or you can't. If you can't, that is a failure of Private Bob and his leaders, not the communications infrastructure.
In Orson Wells' War Of the Worlds, why do the Martian invaders die of our everyday diseases, but humans don't die of theirs?
Presumably for the same reason that European settlers didn't die from everyday diseases endemic to North America. Native Americans didn't have herds of domesticated animals or crowded cities.
You're missing the point, which is that the actual cost of health care has gone up in the last few decades, in part because of a CYA mentality that results in excessive referrals to specialists.
You yourself said that "perception is all" - and the perception, justified or not, among many primary care doctors is that it is necessary to refer a patient that their equivalently-trained predecessors would have seen themselves. IOW, the scope of practice for a typical primary care doctor is much more narrow than it used to be.
Now, there's no doubt that, on average, referring everyone to a specialist results in a higher level of care being delivered. The problem is that doing so costs too much - it's unsustainable.
While you're right about one thing (the direct costs associated with lost/settled malpractice suits aren't extraordinarily high) you've completely overlooked the indirect effects they have had upon the way doctors practice medicine, and then chosen to condescendingly ignore those effects when I pointed it out.
Sorry to hear about your toe. That sucks.
Here's the national health care plan I want, as a US doctor:
State/tax funded preventive & primary care, with a push for training more physician assistants and nurse practicitioners. 90% of the people who go to see a doctor in a primary care setting don't need to see an MD or DO. Free immunizations, prenatal care, pediatric checkups, regular adult health maintenance appointments - all done by relatively inexpensive non-doctors. Surgery for conditions that are not life-threatening or life-extending wouldn't be covered (so an ORIF for a broken arm isn't covered, but cardiac bypass would be).
Private/employer insurance to provide a higher level of coverage, to include "quality-of-life" surgeries like the previously mentioned ORIF.
Yes, this may mean that a person with a broken toe and no private insurance might not get seen by a radiologist and orthopedic surgeon, and may end up with a worse outcome.
It may mean that the 60 year old with no private insurance won't get that knee replacement, and instead will just take some more Motrin and walk less.
It may have meant that years ago, when I broke my radius & ulna, I might have had to live with a cast and a less-perfect outcome than I was able to get with a $12,000 surgery and some screws & plates. But you know what? While I was grateful that my parents' insurance covered the surgery, I never once felt entitled to a life without risk or disability.
Such a sense of entitlement is the root of most pushes for universally available, essentially unlimited healthcare at "no cost" - and I think it's wrong. Nowhere in the Constitution is it written that every citizen is entitled to a life free from injury, disability, or the effects of aging. World class medical care is not an inalienable right.
But, well, that's the theme of absolute capitalism, right? Those with the gold make the rules.
Bah. We don't have "absolute capitalism" in the United States - there's a long list of tax-funded citizen benefits. And even in the Evil USA no one can be denied emergency health care. As well criticize "absolute socialism" where the people without the gold make the rules, forcibly redistribute the wealth, and then nobody has enough gold to buy anything or manufacture something worth buying. Surely there's a happy medium somewhere? (Albeit a "medium" that I'd prefer be slanted toward the capitalist side.)
If you try to give everybody an open door to any specialist, any treatment, any surgery, the results are spiraling costs and waiting lists.
If you're OK with that, move to Canada or head over to Sweden and their 60%+ tax brackets.
I prefer a system with a very, very basic minimum level of health care for everyone, and then a more capitalist system for non life-threatening/life-extending treatments.
That's not what we have in the US, but I hope to see it one day.
The problem is that being able to choose between a Maserati and a Porsche, in a real world sense, means as little to me as it does to the other 95% of the other folks in the U.S.
Your point is well taken, but I think a larger problem is that when it comes to health care, everybody thinks they deserve a Maserati or Porsche.
Everybody deserves to have their arthritis evaluated by a rheumatologist instead of a PA or LPN.
Everybody deserves to extend their lives 72 hours in an insanely expensive ICU bed.
Everybody deserves to spend 50 years getting obese on ice cream and Twinkies and then get get their 3rd or 4th knee replacement.
Everybody deserves Celebrex instead of ibuprofen.
Everybody deserves to blow $25,000 on cigarettes, smoking a pack a day for 30 years, and then bitch about the $20 prescription co-pay for their emphysema treatment.
Everybody in this fucking country is so goddamn deserving of the absolute best health care money can buy. The sense of entitlement makes me nauseous.
Personally, I'm OK with a system where a few people get Maseratis, most people get Fords, and the rest get nothing. I'm not delighted, not satisfied, but I'm OK with it. It's better than bankrupting the nation trying to make everyone look like a rich Italian.
Surely there's a happy medium? State/tax funded preventive and primary care for everyone (MD not necessary 90% of the time!), with private/employer insurance providing a higher level of coverage?
But no, everybody deserves the best that money can buy, especially if the money isn't even theirs in the first place.
malpractice insurance costs are a significant but relatively small portion of the increase in healthcare costs in this country over the last couple decades
Malpractice has had an indirect effect upon the cost of healthcare in the US: it has raised the standard of care, at times to ridiculous levels.
Practicing defensive medicine, in order to reduce the risk of getting sued, results in many referrals that aren't strictly necessary. Trivial example:
30 years ago: Kid breaks arm, primary care doctor sees him ($), reads xray himself, puts a cast on, done.
Today: Kid breaks arm, primary care doctor sees him ($), refers to orthopedic surgeon ($$$), who orders xrays, which are read by a radiologist ($$$ for the consult), puts a cast on, done.
These days, if the primary care doctor takes care of it all himself, and the outcome is less than perfect, he'll get sued, and he'll lose because he didn't refer the patient. My point is just that American medicine has overused specialty consults for so long that it's become the standard of care, and now anyone who doesn't make the costly, unnecessary CYA consult risks getting crucified by a lawsuit. The obscene state of malpractice laws in this country have created enormous hidden costs in these uneccessary referrals.
Of course, everbody wants their sprained ankles seen by an orthopedic surgeon because, as you pointed out:
Once they hit their deductible they don't care what it costs at all.
This is just one more reason why socialized medicine is a bad idea. The absolute last thing the US needs is another layer of insulation between patients and the real cost of health care.
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I'm sure those who died because of the bombs would be delighted to hear it.
They were Japanese people. Japan started the war. Japan declined to surrender. Boom. Then, boom again.
Fuck 'em. I don't give a shit what they might or might not have been delighted to hear. The survivors should count themselves lucky we chose to help them rebuild rather than sow their fields with salt and leave no two stones atop one another.
When you pick a fight and lose, you don't get to complain about the manner by which you got your ass kicked. I don't know why this is such a difficult concept for so many people.
This post is so wrong, in so many ways, I hardly know where to begin. Pardon me for skipping most of it.
Excuse me? Excuse me? Terrorists aren't interested in peace? You make the mistake of equating terrorists with serial killers. Many are extremely educated, family men, and are fighting for a cause.
No, they're interested in influencing the political will of other people through the application of violence in shocking and unpredictable ways. Peace is the last thing they want. Are they educated? Some are. The average suicide bomber certainly isn't.
This is about 2 different cultures that have been unable to co-exist because of imperialism on the part of the Americans.
No. It's about evil men who manipulate Islamic extremists to retain or expand their own personal power and privilege.
They want their holy lands to be left untainted by Western militia (or militia of any kind), cultures respected, and then for their people (and by extension people elsewhere) to live in peace.
No. They want us out of their lands so they can continue to oppress and take advantage of their people. If you think the Taliban only wanted peace, you're an ignorant fool. They lived lives of luxury built off the frightened toil of their subjects.
Their cultures are different to Western cultures [...]
You're absolutely right - their theocratic authoritarian culture is inferior to western secular democracy.
[...] whatever, I don't know enough about it to comment [...]
Clearly.
[...] but the point is it's nobody's business but their own. Respect that, and leave them the hell alone. They don't go over to the US insisting American women cover themselves up, nor complain about divorce.
The hell they don't! Have you actually listened to anything Bin Laden's been saying about the US? He's been attacking our decadent, blasphemous culture since day one.
I believe there exist moral absolutes [...]
Yet in the previous breath you're arguing that their culture is just 'different' and that we should mind our own business.
Do not continue to disrespect their cultures [...]
But I don't respect their culture. It's a black hole of oppression, where dissenting thought is crushed, where female human beings are treated like property, where savage tribal feuds take the place of law.
The culture of fundamentalist Muslims is inferior to the free, open, secular democracy I live in. I won't pretend otherwise, and neither should you.
[...] [it's the UN's job] [...] [fix the UN] [...]
The UN declined to do anything about Saddam. Empty promises and empty threats make an empty organization. Fix the UN? Sure, good idea. Trust it or count on it today? No.
Fifth, teach your children about world cultures, tolerance, and how to respect cultures you do not understand.
Better yet, teach your children that respect for other cultures should not extend to politically-correct "respect" that condones the behavior or beliefs of these people. I'll put it in bold one more time: theocratic totalitarianism is inferior to western secular democracy. There's no culture there worth respecting, or negotiating with. We must not tolerate their dishonest, corrupt, hypocritical fundamentalism especially in light of their apparent determination to kill all infidels. I don't believe we can change them - just kill the extremists while we extend a hand to the moderates.
If you can't figure out the alternate fuel source thing, call up Canada--I hear they have heaps.
What are you talking about? Are you psychotic? I don't know what you think you're hearing, but Canada doesn't have any bottomless pit of utopia-green energy that they're not sharing.
I [...] believe nothing is worth killing for. But this is not about retaliation, revenge, or retribution
Anyway, the UN has done some good. Look at the WHO
...
... but the people who are still stuck in oil-chanting mode are not among them.
... yes. Absolutely. That's why we have the US Army, the US Navy, the US Air Force, and the US Marine Corps ... and not the US-contingent-of-the-UN Army, US-contingent-of-the-UN navy, etc.
I agree, and the WHO is a good example.
However, the fundamental problem I and many others have with the UN is that there seems to be this growing crowd of people who think the UN is, or should be, some kind of democracy of nations. This is neither a practical nor a desirable goal.
Inefficiencies aside, I don't want my nation's actions to be subject to veto by China or impassioned speeches from the UN Commission on Human Rights chair Libya.
When did America stand up to fix a broken part of the world?
WWI, WWII, Korea, Vietnam, Iraq/Kuwait 1991 for starters.
Oh, wait, you meant to write, "what have you done lately"
No, really? Don't say Iraq. That was for oil and nothing else and you know it. Deep down, you know it.
Iraq. Oil? Right. Bush has done a stupendously inexcusable job of articulating why we invaded Iraq, but that doesn't mean he did it for the oil. Iraq was invaded because it is of immense strategic importance and had an unstable, corrupt, historically dangerous regime. Oil is one reason why Iraq is strategically important. To imply that oil is the only reason Iraq is important is almost childish in its naivete.
Why aren't we helping the areas that are even MORE broken than Iraq but would cost less to fix?
Because the United States, while rich and powerful, is not omnipotent. We have to carefully consider where our blood and economic/military resources are best spent. The fact that Iraq has oil and occupies a strategic piece of land are two factors that made it intervention there viable.
Oh, right, oil.
This oft-chanted answer is a moral and intellectual cop-out. It's so obviously wrong, on so many levels.
Rational, intelligent people can debate whether or not invading Iraq was necessary or wise, or whether Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld/etc have made mistakes managing post-invasion Iraq
Why don't you apply this logic to Iraq, and let the UN do its job there?
I'd rather not digress into a discussion of the UN's endless resolutions condemning Saddam's actions, its endless promises of action, and its ultimate failure to do anything at all over the course of a decade.
When the UN doesn't do its job in one area (in your opinion) we should invade and "fix" it ourselves
When we a) have the capability, b) feel our national interests are at stake, and c) the UN declines to help
but when it doesn't do its job in another area we should just stick our thumbs up our nether regions and wait for someone else to fix it?
As noted above, our resources are not infinite. Intervening in Sudan, and other places, would be nice - but Iraq and Afghanistan were felt to be more important places to focus our efforts.
Perhaps I should remind you the US has specific battle plans for an invasion of Holland.
That means nothing. The US probably has battle plans for invading Antarctica. This is what military planners do when they're not otherwise occupied: sit around making plans for everything.
Perhaps you underestimate the global benefit of the UK siding with the US in Iraq.
Not at all - Britain is the only European power with the ability to project any force. And I'm grateful for their help.
Perhaps the use of space-borne weapons of mass destruction in a future conflict will scare the shit out of the rest of the world. They place full trade sanctions on the US - including oil. The US invade Saudi Arabia. Europe stands together and says, "No.", the Commonwealth join in with the UK pulling India on board, and China are issued with a 'for us or against us' ultimatum by one side or the other.
Perhaps the aliens will attack first.
It's more likely than global nuclear holocaust, and lets face it, plenty of people worried about that for a few decades.
A nuclear exchange between the US and USSR was at least plausible. After all, we were enemies, and periodically Soviet leaders would say things like "We will bury you."
But this notion of our allies (a bunch of other western secular democracies who have so much in common with us) imposing economic sanctions upon us because the world's most powerful military just got an ounce heavier? Please.
Don't get too full of yourself.
Just takes China + Europe + India to decide to gang up and basically, it's all over for you.
Right, or a vast armada of alien starships with purple antimatter rays, mind-control weapons, and a taste for grilled humans.
The fact that you have to resort to absurd scenarios only illustrates my point.
If the US starts deploying space born weapons operationally, expect large numbers of nations to start going very very anti-US.
As opposed to the world right now?
Do you truly believe France would ever attack the US, or the US attack France? Despite our differences and spat over Iraq, we're both western, secular democracies who have been close allies over a couple of centuries and several wars, including our own revolutionary war.
Do you truly believe China doesn't need/want an American friend and trade partner more than a fight over Taiwan or an arms race (that last time around, bankrupted and brought down a superpower far more powerful than they are)?
Do you truly believe that nations like Syria or extremist elements in Egypt or Saudi Arabia are going to hate us more if we put some satellite in orbit, or less if we don't?
Your resentment won't make the aliens appear.
[...] There are 'good' and 'bad' things about the US, just like every other country.
:-)
...
Fair enough. I agree, though I must admit a personal bias toward the good.
Having said that, I really do believe that the US is becoming (relatively) less powerful internationally, and that quoting expenditure on R&D is a red-herring. Of course research is more expensive in the US - labour costs are much higher.
They're not appreciably higher than wages in other first-world nations that might be able to compete with us in an R&D sense. And, at that level, the well-educated and highly skilled researchers aren't going to be working for the 9 cents/hour the exploitees in the Nike factory down the street are getting. A non-trivial piece of state-of-the-art equipment isn't going to be had at a discount either.
I'm not convinced that you can really get a non-trivial, modern military R&D industrial complex going on the cheap anywhere.
You really should have a look at that book I mentioned - it's written by a quite famous prof in politics and international relations, and is really interesting (it was quite contreversial). It's definitely *not* anti-US, or anti-West.
I didn't see a book mentioned in your original post
Re nukes: "immediately and completely destroyed" - I think there are nations out there for whom 'mutual assured destruction' would not be a deterrent. (obviously, this is not a good thing!)
I think you're right, when referring the so-called rogue nations and any religious extremist who's got a button to press. But for those potential adversaries who can conceivably compete with us in a conventional sense - namely China - MAD could be expected to as powerful a deterrent as it was with the USSR. Neither North Korea nor Iran can ever hope to approach the strength of our economy or military. They're too small, and too far behind.
If we're talking about arms in space, what's to stop [insert nuclear-capable country here] from declaring that their airspace extends above geostationary orbit levels, and that any transgression thereof will result in terrestrial nuclear retaliation?
... no surgical strikes ... no economic sanctions ... no speeches at the UN ... just immediate and total annihilation.
The fact that US strategic doctrine has been consistent and unchanged for 6 decades: any nation that uses WMD against us will be immediately and completely destroyed by our own nuclear weapons. No "measured response"
The US is waning as a global superpower. Get over it.
No. Take a close look at our defense budget, and compare it to every other nation in the world. Then take a closer look at how much of that budget is R&D and compare that to every other nation's R&D. If anything, the gap between the US and every other nation in the world is widening.
Yes, we have issues with a huge budget deficit and growing national debt - but on the whole, our debt is manageable, our economy is strong, and our military is unparalleled. The term 'hyperpower' was coined for a reason.
Get over it.
Copyright infringement is a criminal offense punishable by up to 10 years in prison.
Well, IANAL, and I suppose you could be right, but this appears to suggest that downloading a TV show for personal use, even if it was not fair use, isn't a criminal act because it (1) isn't being done for commercial advantage or private financial gain, and (2) doesn't have a retail value in excess of $1000.
Get this through your thick fucking skull, will you? DOWNLOADING SHOWS OFF PIRATE SITES IS NOT FAIR USE.
The courts have yet to rule on the scenario we're discussing (or rather, that I'm discussing, and you're foaming about hysterically). I believe there is a compelling argument to support my assertion that cable/satellite TV subscribers have a right to keep a copy of a cable/satellite program for personal use.
I own literally hundreds of DVDs, all purchased retail. I have never downloaded a single film off the internet; having not paid for that content, I don't have the right to. I don't subscribe to HBO, so I never had the right to make a copy of the Sopranos. I do subscribe to the SciFi channel, and I do have a right to keep a copy of any show on that channel for my own personal use.
In any case, I've lost my patience for debating you about the semantics of using TiVo vs BitTorrent for timeshifting programming I've paid for. I'm done.
Find me the piece of paper where it says you paid for the right to download illegal copies off the Internet.
First of all, the worst argument you could make is that it's copyright infringement, which has never been a criminal offense. Your use of the word "illegal" is disingenuous. It is the jurisdiction of various police agencies to prosecute individuals for "illegal" activities. What's happening is that the MPAA is pursuing civil action against people whom they believe to be infringing upon their copyright.
I, and many others, believe that it is neither copyright infringement nor theft.
Sending money to Direct TV gets you one thing and one thing only: their content on your television.
For the record, it's not their content either. They've paid the content owner a fee for a license to resell the content to me. After I've paid them, and they've broadcast the show, it is my absolute right to watch it at a time and place of my choosing.
If I record the DirecTV SciFi broadcast of "33" on a TiVo, and then watch that digital copy on my computer, that's perfectly legal - and obviously so.
I'm totally disinterested in and unconvinced by an argument that says a set of bits on my computer are "OK" if I get them from DirecTV, and "not OK" if I get them off the internet via a DirecWAY internet connection. The same money has changed hands; the same bits end up on my hard drive. The manner in which the bits get to my hard drive is irrelevant.
I'm paying a fee, every month, for the SciFi channel's programming. I'm going to continue to enjoy that programming, in the manner I choose, at a time I choose, in the format I choose, because I paid for it. There is a difference between a cable TV subscriber downloading a cable TV show and watching it, and a person downloading a movie because they don't want to buy/rent the DVD. Simply put, one is fair use, the other is not.
This "I PAID FOR IT" stuff is just a rationalization. You should be fucking ashamed of yourself.
Not at all. If the MPAA wants to sue me for what is obviously fair use, they are welcome to. I believe they will lose.
Why people like you get so worked up over this is beyond me.
Taking something you don't have permission to take, whether it's a real thing or a copy, is stealing.
I pay for DirecTV every month, and the SciFi channel is part of the package that I pay for.
Downloading a TV show that airs on the SciFi channel is not stealing. I've paid for the right to watch the show; by downloading it off the internet, I am asserting my right to do so at a time that is more convenient for me. The courts have upheld, again and again, my right to timeshift programming and create my own personal library of shows.
The Bible says thou shalt not steal.
The Bible says thou shalt not kill, too. Both Commandments are equally irrelevant to the discussion at hand. Downloading a broadcast TV show off the internet is not morally wrong; it is not theft; it is not even copyright infringement.
When someone says that the cost to go to space is too expensive, I have to emphasize where the money goes to build the spacecraft. It's not like we take millions of dollar bills, smelt them into vehicles or stuff bills in the fuel tanks and set them afire. That money goes to WORKERS who build the space vehicles and COMPANIES that make jobs. That's economically a Good Thing.
So when a $10 million project goes over budget and balloons to $50 million, that must be a good thing too, right?
Familiar with the concept of opportunity cost?
Your argument is a terrible justification, because it could be applied to such absurd projects as a 300 ton, hand-carved, gold-plated statue of a cow that get polished daily and re-plated every third Tuesday.
Note I'm not arguing against space exploration, or cow statues for that matter, just your logic.
Sounds similar to the jetgun the military use to use. Does anyone know the difference?
Well, they're promising "far less pain" with this device.
Once upon a time, I had the misfortune to receive a yellow fever vaccination with one of the military's needleless injectors. It felt like some steroid-pumped baseball player had swung a bat at my shoulder. Nearly as bad as the pain was the gathering anticipation of the pain, as I watched the 200-odd people in line ahead of me get their shots.
Computer security these days is becoming more and more related to national security. We need a simple bill (preferably a UN decision that countries agree to abide by and enforce among their citizens).
... the less that barely-relevant, totally ineffective, archaic organization is allowed to do, the better.
Wow, if you're a troll, you're good. My hat's off.
If you're serious, you're a moron. Getting governments and lawyers involved is a recipe for disaster. It's bad enough that they already legislate their incompetence and corrruption into every other aspect of our lives, but it's a necessary evil. The price of civilization, if you will.
As for the UN
I've got an older Thinkpad I could see carving up to experiment a little - anybody know how the LCD interfaces work [...] is the signalling just VGA, or is some proprietary thing?
It's some proprietary thing. But you can try this if you're really motivated.
Antennas get their gain by boosting the signal in one direction at the expense of signal in other directions. Your typical 8 dBi "omnidirectional" antenna sends very little of its signal up or down, while greatly increasing the signal it sends in the horizontal plane. Result: less interference for your upstairs & downstairs neighbors, and a much stronger signal on your level.
Or get a 14 dBi panel antenna (which focuses its signal in about a 60 degree arc IIRC) and stick it in a corner of your apartment.
The solution isn't adding more power or screwing with the neighbors' access points - it's
using external antennas to send the signal where you want it to go
figuring out which neighbor's AP is interfering with your signal the most and nicely asking him to choose another channel
care to link to _ANY_ case which really acts as the heatsink apart from the zalman offering (which has heatpipes to transfer the heat from the parts to the sides of the case)?
...
I've seen a couple linked over at avsforum.com. The only one I could find with a quick forum search there (aluminum AND case) were these monstrosities. Their entry-level case seems to be around $400 though.
My thoughts exactly, but
I'd guess there are some others, but only a moron would blow $400+ for a beautifully finished custom-machined aluminum case and then stick it under a bench in a workshop.
First used their XJ100 on their VoiceLine service a few months ago. Worked great. Battery life was pretty good too - a couple hours of talking before it had to be recharged.
... 802.11b only. No WPA.
Only disadvantage
Well, one could argue that a quantum computer isn't brute-forcing anything, since it's not sequentially trying each key, but your point is taken.
:-)
I also half-remember reading that while quantum computers have great promise for factoring numbers and messing up our favorite asymmetric public key system, they're not quite as easily applicable to symmetric algorithms. But I don't recall where I read that.
Of course, in the end, the method of choice for recovering a 256-bit key will probably be a pair of pliers and some lemon juice.
IOW, you can't brute-force a 256-bit key.
What's to stop someone blabbing about deployments or positions?
...
... either you can trust Private Bob not to tell Mom about tomorrow's raid, or you can't. If you can't, that is a failure of Private Bob and his leaders, not the communications infrastructure.
Professionalism. Communication between deployed servicemembers and friends/family back home is already unmonitored and uncensored.
Seriously, we trust these guys to carry guns, fly helicopters, review intelligence, guard stuff, make breakfast
This is a non-issue.
In Orson Wells' War Of the Worlds, why do the Martian invaders die of our everyday diseases, but humans don't die of theirs?
Presumably for the same reason that European settlers didn't die from everyday diseases endemic to North America. Native Americans didn't have herds of domesticated animals or crowded cities.
There's an interesting look at this issue in the book Guns, Germs, and Steel.
It's possible, but the available wireless VOIP handsets are 11b only and don't support WPA (both are showstoppers for me).
Net2Phone XJ100 802.11g Phone
802.11g but doesn't say anything about WPA. Might be proprietary and only work with their VoiceLine service though. I don't know.
You yourself said that "perception is all" - and the perception, justified or not, among many primary care doctors is that it is necessary to refer a patient that their equivalently-trained predecessors would have seen themselves. IOW, the scope of practice for a typical primary care doctor is much more narrow than it used to be.
Now, there's no doubt that, on average, referring everyone to a specialist results in a higher level of care being delivered. The problem is that doing so costs too much - it's unsustainable.
While you're right about one thing (the direct costs associated with lost/settled malpractice suits aren't extraordinarily high) you've completely overlooked the indirect effects they have had upon the way doctors practice medicine, and then chosen to condescendingly ignore those effects when I pointed it out.
Sorry to hear about your toe. That sucks.
Here's the national health care plan I want, as a US doctor:
State/tax funded preventive & primary care, with a push for training more physician assistants and nurse practicitioners. 90% of the people who go to see a doctor in a primary care setting don't need to see an MD or DO. Free immunizations, prenatal care, pediatric checkups, regular adult health maintenance appointments - all done by relatively inexpensive non-doctors. Surgery for conditions that are not life-threatening or life-extending wouldn't be covered (so an ORIF for a broken arm isn't covered, but cardiac bypass would be).
Private/employer insurance to provide a higher level of coverage, to include "quality-of-life" surgeries like the previously mentioned ORIF.
Yes, this may mean that a person with a broken toe and no private insurance might not get seen by a radiologist and orthopedic surgeon, and may end up with a worse outcome.
It may mean that the 60 year old with no private insurance won't get that knee replacement, and instead will just take some more Motrin and walk less.
It may have meant that years ago, when I broke my radius & ulna, I might have had to live with a cast and a less-perfect outcome than I was able to get with a $12,000 surgery and some screws & plates. But you know what? While I was grateful that my parents' insurance covered the surgery, I never once felt entitled to a life without risk or disability.
Such a sense of entitlement is the root of most pushes for universally available, essentially unlimited healthcare at "no cost" - and I think it's wrong. Nowhere in the Constitution is it written that every citizen is entitled to a life free from injury, disability, or the effects of aging. World class medical care is not an inalienable right.
But, well, that's the theme of absolute capitalism, right? Those with the gold make the rules.
Bah. We don't have "absolute capitalism" in the United States - there's a long list of tax-funded citizen benefits. And even in the Evil USA no one can be denied emergency health care. As well criticize "absolute socialism" where the people without the gold make the rules, forcibly redistribute the wealth, and then nobody has enough gold to buy anything or manufacture something worth buying. Surely there's a happy medium somewhere? (Albeit a "medium" that I'd prefer be slanted toward the capitalist side.)
If you try to give everybody an open door to any specialist, any treatment, any surgery, the results are spiraling costs and waiting lists.
If you're OK with that, move to Canada or head over to Sweden and their 60%+ tax brackets.
I prefer a system with a very, very basic minimum level of health care for everyone, and then a more capitalist system for non life-threatening/life-extending treatments.
That's not what we have in the US, but I hope to see it one day.
The problem is that being able to choose between a Maserati and a Porsche, in a real world sense, means as little to me as it does to the other 95% of the other folks in the U.S.
Your point is well taken, but I think a larger problem is that when it comes to health care, everybody thinks they deserve a Maserati or Porsche.
Everybody deserves to have their arthritis evaluated by a rheumatologist instead of a PA or LPN.
Everybody deserves to extend their lives 72 hours in an insanely expensive ICU bed.
Everybody deserves to spend 50 years getting obese on ice cream and Twinkies and then get get their 3rd or 4th knee replacement.
Everybody deserves Celebrex instead of ibuprofen.
Everybody deserves to blow $25,000 on cigarettes, smoking a pack a day for 30 years, and then bitch about the $20 prescription co-pay for their emphysema treatment.
Everybody in this fucking country is so goddamn deserving of the absolute best health care money can buy. The sense of entitlement makes me nauseous.
Personally, I'm OK with a system where a few people get Maseratis, most people get Fords, and the rest get nothing. I'm not delighted, not satisfied, but I'm OK with it. It's better than bankrupting the nation trying to make everyone look like a rich Italian.
Surely there's a happy medium? State/tax funded preventive and primary care for everyone (MD not necessary 90% of the time!), with private/employer insurance providing a higher level of coverage?
But no, everybody deserves the best that money can buy, especially if the money isn't even theirs in the first place.
malpractice insurance costs are a significant but relatively small portion of the increase in healthcare costs in this country over the last couple decades
Malpractice has had an indirect effect upon the cost of healthcare in the US: it has raised the standard of care, at times to ridiculous levels.
Practicing defensive medicine, in order to reduce the risk of getting sued, results in many referrals that aren't strictly necessary. Trivial example:
30 years ago: Kid breaks arm, primary care doctor sees him ($), reads xray himself, puts a cast on, done.
Today: Kid breaks arm, primary care doctor sees him ($), refers to orthopedic surgeon ($$$), who orders xrays, which are read by a radiologist ($$$ for the consult), puts a cast on, done.
These days, if the primary care doctor takes care of it all himself, and the outcome is less than perfect, he'll get sued, and he'll lose because he didn't refer the patient. My point is just that American medicine has overused specialty consults for so long that it's become the standard of care, and now anyone who doesn't make the costly, unnecessary CYA consult risks getting crucified by a lawsuit. The obscene state of malpractice laws in this country have created enormous hidden costs in these uneccessary referrals.
Of course, everbody wants their sprained ankles seen by an orthopedic surgeon because, as you pointed out:
Once they hit their deductible they don't care what it costs at all.
This is just one more reason why socialized medicine is a bad idea. The absolute last thing the US needs is another layer of insulation between patients and the real cost of health care.