I am wondering why they don't say : "Yeah, we did it. Here is the rest of what Snowden has as information. So what are you going to do now?" Most likely if they do that, nothing will happen. No heads will roll and they will have the ability to take it to the next level.
The speedometer has one function: to report the vehicle's speed. What requirement is satisfied by allowing this to change? Why would you even need to upgrade it?
If^hWhen the US finally adapts to the metric system. Obviously.
In a classic car, if I put it in neutral, the gears disengage, especially if it is a stick.
This. When I see somebody drive through another shop, they are almost always automatic cars. That said, it would be interesting to see stats on accidents and automatic vs stick. (I am biased as I live in Europe where the majority drives stick)
But what if the proper cost of that pill actually is $100? (Or, for that matter, $1,000,000) Are you and I, by sole virtue of being citizens entitled to that life saving pill, regardless of the cost?
I am going to imagine you need to take one pill per day for the rest of your life. 100USD? Yes, absolutely. This is what the insurance is for. You must not look at the individual cost, but at the average cost. e.g. if you have a 100USD pill and only one in 1.000 people needs to take it, the cost of being healthy is 0.10USD. 10 cents.
OTOH the 1.000.000 one. That would be a no with a group of 1.000 as then the cost would be too high to sustain a running economy. 1.000USD is not a reasonable amount to be asking and it will hurt other individuals more.
The moral dilemma is where you put the price on a human life. And it becomes more difficult if the pill not just means life or death. (Don't take the pill one day the person dies.) but when it is about life quality. e.g. live in pain or not in pain.
But as long as you focus on those who need it, you are looking in the right direction. Then you will find a way to pay for it. Might be like the rest of the world does it. Might be something completely new, but if you really want to, it is possible.
The extra problem with healthcare is that you are in not a very good position to argue when you need it. "Hello, I am having a heart attack. What is the best price you can offer? How much? No thanks, I will go and look somewhere else."
India? People come to Belgium and other European countries because it is cheaper.
And it is regulated in Europe as well. The difference with the regulations is where it is pointing to. In Europe they try to point it towards the people. e.g. generic drugs should be used as much as possible to reduce costs. Obviously as long as they are as effective as the patented one.
The question is how you use the regulations. Do you use it to protect the companies or do you use it to protect the people. (The second one is socialism, so watch out what you think is best.)
A fine is intended like a slap on the hand. You notice it, but you will not die from it. If they do it again, I am sure they will pay a LOT more.
Also next to a fine there may be other payments they must do. How it works in Belgium is that you A) need to pay back the money you made of of it and B) pay a fine.
If the 30MM is all they had to pay, then it is not a fine but a settlement.
Why don't they charge $100 for a shirt and keep the difference? It is not government oversight that drives prices down but competition.
Not sure about the USofA, but in Europe doing this is illegal. And with illegal, I mean there is not only government oversight but also sanctions when companies do this.
The most relevant in Belgium is that there have to be three cell phone operators. When one bought a competitor (due to buying the European company) they were forced to sell the Belgian part.
Another relevant part is that there is a law of the maximum price of roaming. And I can assure you those prices were not higher that what you were charged.
In most countries the cables must be accessible for all competition. Unfortunately not enough do this.
The only special thing about the telco's (and ISPs) is that they do not need to follow the same regulations.
Regulation can be used for the good as well as for the bad. And what Europeans look at is mostly that if it is good for the people, it should be implemented. Companies will (with competition) work out how to make money. Might not be the same companies. Might not be in the same way, but somebody will make money of from it.
Don't you get it? If they say it often enough, people will start believing it. All they need is enough people who believe it. It works for companies with advertising. It will work for them as well.
This is your new and improved Freedom. Better then the old one.
I can hardly believe that the President of the USofA will know all. Could be that it is in his line of command to know. But I would not be surprised if it was just a general 'we can spy on whomever we want' kind of thing.
And spying on some Afghan village leader is just as bad in my book. Just because he is an Afghan does not mean he is a terrorist or has anything to do with terrorism.
The problem is that nobody can become competition, unless you have enough money already. Competition is always explained with a 19th century business model in mind where you talk about many bakeries in a city that will keep prices down.
This is true if there are several parameters true. 1) There is competition to start with and/or it is easy to start a new competitor. e.g. I can start making bread myself and start selling it. Reinheitsgebot in Germany was a law to prevent competition, not just high quality beer. 2) You talk about only a minority of items. So not the whole chain from beginning till end and no crossover products. 4) You need to have a big enough sample of competitions to prevent price fixing between competitors. When you have only a few competitors, they will devide the market into shares without any real incentive to rock the boat, thus no need of lowering the prices anymore.
When your customer base a a few hundred or a few thousand people in a city, you can easily say that having say 10 or 100 bakeries for bread is enough to keep the competition going.
When your customer base is 1.000.000.000+ people, having 10 companies means in reality not having real competition.
I agree that it is not their fault (other than trying to be a monopoly is almost naturally for a company.) that does not make it right nor should it stop people from preventing this from happening.
That however needs government rules and the people who pay the government are not willing to let that happen.
One of the advantages of being a monopoly is that during the race towards the moment that they are a monopoly, you pay less. The moment it becomes a monopoly, not only will they be able to dictate the price (and that still might be low) they also dictate the product. So perhaps YOU are interested in price, I might be interested in other things.
Look at the ISPs that are unwilling to invest in faster Internet for over a long period of time. Google will take over, because what they are interested in is selling your data and the more data you give them, the more they can sell.
Having not enough competition will slow down innovation. And when I think of competition on a global scale, I imagine hundreds if not thousands of companies that I should be able to choose from.
If that comes at a slightly higher price overall, I am gladly willing to pay for that.
EVERYBODY says they are a good driver and better then others. So why would Google do otherwise?
I also like the bit at the end: The data will set you free.
Also : yes, you need eye witnesses. Or at least external experts. I would not trust a company saying they are innocent in an accident and back it up by THEIR data. "We promise there was no software error in ANY of the cars. All people need to do is sit on the left cheek and hold the doorknob with the right hand. People just are using it wrong. They also signed a waiver when they opened the door. Look it up. It is in the Company-Is-Always-Right law that was passed last week."
In case of an emergency, a 3D printer might be a good thing. If you only need one. I also think that an umbilical cord clamps is the WORST example possible. Boil a clothing pin and you are done. Boil a piece of string and you are done.
With a disaster you will have different priorities. A bnit like "Hello, do you need a tracheal valves? I am sorry you will die, but Imma gonna save these 5.000 other people first."
I hate it when people mix up emergency and disaster almost as much as people mixing up heroic and courageous.
If you go 4K, why go foer the 39 inch one? I would go for the 50" one.
I have a 1920x1200HD at the footend of my bed. That means the screen is about 2 meters (say 80 inch or 6.5 feet) from my eyes. It is a 49 inch screen. I already do not see the difference between FullHD and 720 movies. That is unless I pay serious attention on the differences and even then not all the time. Also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optimum_HDTV_viewing_distance
So a 4K screen should be at least 100 inch to be a serious difference. And that on a distance of 2 meters.
Buying a 30 or even 50 inch screen as 4K s like buying gold plated USB cables. There will be three people. Those who bought them and will thus defend them till they die. Those who can't afford them and defend them till they die and those who are reasonable and will buy the screen with the right size for the right distance.
The new part is they are having three groups instead of just two. Those who can't fly, those who are low risk, and everyone else.
You assume wrong. There are three groups indeed. Those who are on the no fly list. Those who gave up their freedom willingly. Those who have their freedom taken.
It has nothing to do with risk. What they should have is a list of 'Arrest on sight with force if needed'. Not a 'No fly list.' To me it is clear that the No-Fly-List is just to annoy people, not because those people are dangerous, because if they are dangerous, YOU ARREST THEM.
In Belgium there is a 'General Identifier' It is your birthday + some extra numbers as there will be more then 1 person born on the same day. This is then linked to an (obliged) ID card. The ID cards have a chip that can be read by a generic cardreader. Applications are available online, as well as the open source software. http://eid.belgium.be/en/ for more information. So you have your ID. This will then be linked to the Central Balance Sheet Office http://www.nbb.be/ where all credits are available for certain institutions (e.g. banks and credit card companies) to see if you are allowed to have a new credit.
e.g. when you already have some credit cards with a too high credit risc, they are NOT allowed to give you more credit. If the address at NBB is not identical to what is on your ID card, your credit will be declined.
Then there is the social security number that will be linked to the master ID as well. However again a separated part, http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/SIS-kaart which will be replaced by the National ID of the eID.
When you get a new job, what they will ask you is the social security number and your ID-card. Soon this will only be the eID card.
If your eID gets stolen, or it gets lost, you go to the police, who then block the card for further processing.
The system is not water or idiot proof. It is close enough, I would think. Verification of a card is valid or not is easy : https://www.checkdoc.be/CheckDoc/. So if you have any reason to verify an ID card (e.g. rental company, sales entities,....) they can easily do so. In stores easily with a card reader linked to the above.
Now imagine I am Mr. ID Theft and I steal your ID numbers. I must be very fast in doing everything and hope you did not already call in the ID as stolen. Then I must also pass other standard tests at a company.
Next to this for several things (like opening a credit) you need to get an official signature. Faxing will not work. That means you must either send a letter or go to an office and present yourself.
So all in all, I think it has several advantages (even though not 100% foolproof) 1) Open 2) Transparent 3) Easy to verify and use
e.g. while I typed this message, I regiterd on checkdoc.be and verified my card. It is valid.
send in the tape and a check for $50,000 because it's cheaper than going to court,
And if you copy that tape and share it, you pay $500.000 per distributed copy. 1) Create an oil spill 2) Something to do with copyright as explained above. 3) Profit
Slashdot Mirror
It is not clear what happened to the baby. Perhaps a dingo ate it.
I am wondering why they don't say : "Yeah, we did it. Here is the rest of what Snowden has as information. So what are you going to do now?"
Most likely if they do that, nothing will happen. No heads will roll and they will have the ability to take it to the next level.
If^hWhen the US finally adapts to the metric system. Obviously.
This. When I see somebody drive through another shop, they are almost always automatic cars.
That said, it would be interesting to see stats on accidents and automatic vs stick.
(I am biased as I live in Europe where the majority drives stick)
I am going to imagine you need to take one pill per day for the rest of your life.
100USD? Yes, absolutely. This is what the insurance is for. You must not look at the individual cost, but at the average cost. e.g. if you have a 100USD pill and only one in 1.000 people needs to take it, the cost of being healthy is 0.10USD. 10 cents.
OTOH the 1.000.000 one. That would be a no with a group of 1.000 as then the cost would be too high to sustain a running economy. 1.000USD is not a reasonable amount to be asking and it will hurt other individuals more.
The moral dilemma is where you put the price on a human life. And it becomes more difficult if the pill not just means life or death. (Don't take the pill one day the person dies.) but when it is about life quality. e.g. live in pain or not in pain.
But as long as you focus on those who need it, you are looking in the right direction. Then you will find a way to pay for it. Might be like the rest of the world does it. Might be something completely new, but if you really want to, it is possible.
The extra problem with healthcare is that you are in not a very good position to argue when you need it. "Hello, I am having a heart attack. What is the best price you can offer? How much? No thanks, I will go and look somewhere else."
India? People come to Belgium and other European countries because it is cheaper.
And it is regulated in Europe as well. The difference with the regulations is where it is pointing to. In Europe they try to point it towards the people. e.g. generic drugs should be used as much as possible to reduce costs. Obviously as long as they are as effective as the patented one.
The question is how you use the regulations. Do you use it to protect the companies or do you use it to protect the people. (The second one is socialism, so watch out what you think is best.)
A fine is intended like a slap on the hand. You notice it, but you will not die from it.
If they do it again, I am sure they will pay a LOT more.
Also next to a fine there may be other payments they must do. How it works in Belgium is that you A) need to pay back the money you made of of it and B) pay a fine.
If the 30MM is all they had to pay, then it is not a fine but a settlement.
I have another solution: let the market work it out. It is not as if they are forbidding Americans take those jobs.
Not sure about the USofA, but in Europe doing this is illegal. And with illegal, I mean there is not only government oversight but also sanctions when companies do this.
The most relevant in Belgium is that there have to be three cell phone operators. When one bought a competitor (due to buying the European company) they were forced to sell the Belgian part.
Another relevant part is that there is a law of the maximum price of roaming. And I can assure you those prices were not higher that what you were charged.
In most countries the cables must be accessible for all competition. Unfortunately not enough do this.
The only special thing about the telco's (and ISPs) is that they do not need to follow the same regulations.
Regulation can be used for the good as well as for the bad. And what Europeans look at is mostly that if it is good for the people, it should be implemented. Companies will (with competition) work out how to make money. Might not be the same companies. Might not be in the same way, but somebody will make money of from it.
Awww. So cute. You still think that first elections are relevant and second that politicians keep their word after the election.
That might be true if you have a REAL choice. You can select between damned if you do and damned if you don't.
Mod this up to +6 Insightful.
Don't you get it? If they say it often enough, people will start believing it. All they need is enough people who believe it.
It works for companies with advertising. It will work for them as well.
This is your new and improved Freedom. Better then the old one.
I can hardly believe that the President of the USofA will know all. Could be that it is in his line of command to know. But I would not be surprised if it was just a general 'we can spy on whomever we want' kind of thing.
And spying on some Afghan village leader is just as bad in my book. Just because he is an Afghan does not mean he is a terrorist or has anything to do with terrorism.
The problem is that nobody can become competition, unless you have enough money already.
Competition is always explained with a 19th century business model in mind where you talk about many bakeries in a city that will keep prices down.
This is true if there are several parameters true.
1) There is competition to start with and/or it is easy to start a new competitor. e.g. I can start making bread myself and start selling it.
Reinheitsgebot in Germany was a law to prevent competition, not just high quality beer.
2) You talk about only a minority of items. So not the whole chain from beginning till end and no crossover products.
4) You need to have a big enough sample of competitions to prevent price fixing between competitors. When you have only a few competitors, they will devide the market into shares without any real incentive to rock the boat, thus no need of lowering the prices anymore.
When your customer base a a few hundred or a few thousand people in a city, you can easily say that having say 10 or 100 bakeries for bread is enough to keep the competition going.
When your customer base is 1.000.000.000+ people, having 10 companies means in reality not having real competition.
I agree that it is not their fault (other than trying to be a monopoly is almost naturally for a company.) that does not make it right nor should it stop people from preventing this from happening.
That however needs government rules and the people who pay the government are not willing to let that happen.
One of the advantages of being a monopoly is that during the race towards the moment that they are a monopoly, you pay less. The moment it becomes a monopoly, not only will they be able to dictate the price (and that still might be low) they also dictate the product. So perhaps YOU are interested in price, I might be interested in other things.
Look at the ISPs that are unwilling to invest in faster Internet for over a long period of time. Google will take over, because what they are interested in is selling your data and the more data you give them, the more they can sell.
Having not enough competition will slow down innovation. And when I think of competition on a global scale, I imagine hundreds if not thousands of companies that I should be able to choose from.
If that comes at a slightly higher price overall, I am gladly willing to pay for that.
EVERYBODY says they are a good driver and better then others. So why would Google do otherwise?
I also like the bit at the end: The data will set you free.
Also : yes, you need eye witnesses. Or at least external experts.
I would not trust a company saying they are innocent in an accident and back it up by THEIR data. "We promise there was no software error in ANY of the cars. All people need to do is sit on the left cheek and hold the doorknob with the right hand. People just are using it wrong. They also signed a waiver when they opened the door. Look it up. It is in the Company-Is-Always-Right law that was passed last week."
In case of an emergency, a 3D printer might be a good thing. If you only need one. I also think that an umbilical cord clamps is the WORST example possible. Boil a clothing pin and you are done. Boil a piece of string and you are done.
With a disaster you will have different priorities. A bnit like "Hello, do you need a tracheal valves? I am sorry you will die, but Imma gonna save these 5.000 other people first."
I hate it when people mix up emergency and disaster almost as much as people mixing up heroic and courageous.
When that process starts, their first line of defense will be "We were just following orders."
So how do you know that?
Well, she is not on the phone right now. Hold on, she's getting a call
If you go 4K, why go foer the 39 inch one? I would go for the 50" one.
I have a 1920x1200HD at the footend of my bed. That means the screen is about 2 meters (say 80 inch or 6.5 feet) from my eyes. It is a 49 inch screen. I already do not see the difference between FullHD and 720 movies. That is unless I pay serious attention on the differences and even then not all the time.
Also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optimum_HDTV_viewing_distance
So a 4K screen should be at least 100 inch to be a serious difference. And that on a distance of 2 meters.
Buying a 30 or even 50 inch screen as 4K s like buying gold plated USB cables. There will be three people. Those who bought them and will thus defend them till they die. Those who can't afford them and defend them till they die and those who are reasonable and will buy the screen with the right size for the right distance.
Perhaps the /. editors can help out. They aren't doing anything, so time can't be an issue.
You assume wrong. There are three groups indeed.
Those who are on the no fly list.
Those who gave up their freedom willingly.
Those who have their freedom taken.
It has nothing to do with risk. What they should have is a list of 'Arrest on sight with force if needed'. Not a 'No fly list.' To me it is clear that the No-Fly-List is just to annoy people, not because those people are dangerous, because if they are dangerous, YOU ARREST THEM.
A pity many others don't and therefore don't measure in Celsius.
And your problem is? Just because something is illegal, unconstitutional, immoral or unwanted does not mean the government can't do it.
In Belgium there is a 'General Identifier' It is your birthday + some extra numbers as there will be more then 1 person born on the same day.
This is then linked to an (obliged) ID card.
The ID cards have a chip that can be read by a generic cardreader. Applications are available online, as well as the open source software. http://eid.belgium.be/en/ for more information.
So you have your ID. This will then be linked to the Central Balance Sheet Office http://www.nbb.be/ where all credits are available for certain institutions (e.g. banks and credit card companies) to see if you are allowed to have a new credit.
e.g. when you already have some credit cards with a too high credit risc, they are NOT allowed to give you more credit. If the address at NBB is not identical to what is on your ID card, your credit will be declined.
Then there is the social security number that will be linked to the master ID as well. However again a separated part, http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/SIS-kaart which will be replaced by the National ID of the eID.
When you get a new job, what they will ask you is the social security number and your ID-card. Soon this will only be the eID card.
If your eID gets stolen, or it gets lost, you go to the police, who then block the card for further processing.
The system is not water or idiot proof. It is close enough, I would think. Verification of a card is valid or not is easy : https://www.checkdoc.be/CheckDoc/. So if you have any reason to verify an ID card (e.g. rental company, sales entities, ....) they can easily do so. In stores easily with a card reader linked to the above.
Now imagine I am Mr. ID Theft and I steal your ID numbers. I must be very fast in doing everything and hope you did not already call in the ID as stolen. Then I must also pass other standard tests at a company.
Next to this for several things (like opening a credit) you need to get an official signature. Faxing will not work. That means you must either send a letter or go to an office and present yourself.
So all in all, I think it has several advantages (even though not 100% foolproof)
1) Open
2) Transparent
3) Easy to verify and use
e.g. while I typed this message, I regiterd on checkdoc.be and verified my card. It is valid.
And if you copy that tape and share it, you pay $500.000 per distributed copy.
1) Create an oil spill
2) Something to do with copyright as explained above.
3) Profit