.... where they're redefining what a demo means. In my world - and everyone's world that I can think of - a demo is a short version of a full game that gives you an idea of controls, atmosphere, design and game type (with notable exception Brutal Legend, that completely failed to indicate its RTS nature). 4 hours of a game - let's say, RE5 - is about 1, maybe 2 levels in a full game. So I get to pay $10 for a game that completely fails to show me the full range of capabilities of a character, a satisfying story arc, and which might not even be finished??
Fuck you, EA. I'm not going to be suckered into paying for what sounds suspiciously like a beta program.
And it doesn't say whether they have pre-existing conditions - you know, one of the biggest reasons that people stay off of health care. Not to mention that well-off depends on the region. In Fargo, you're positively rich. In San Francisco, you're getting by.
I also didn't have health insurance at some point when I was under 34. Sadly, it was because I couldn't afford one on a 20K salary, and I hadn't worked out which government service would be able to help.
So I'm still waiting for some data about exactly how many people just did a cost-benefit analysis and concluded that they didn't really want health insurance.
As it is, they have such a muddled version of #s 1&2 that I can't see how anyone will come out ahead in the long run.
Sadly, very true. I'm hoping that at some point the rhetoric used will calm down, and it will be possible to have a rational discussion about this. We'll see.
The gp said that contributions were split evenly among democrats and republicans. You called him a liar and pointed to opensecrets.org. Opensecrets actually supports the gp's assertion that contributions were split evenly among everybody.
So yes, your point that the gp lied was not only shown to be invalid, but complete and utter flamebait with absolutely no substance whatsoever.
Your second point now that the insurance lobby paid for this legislation and gave to the party in power is closer to the truth - but neglects to mention that it gives to the party in power because it gives to everybody. Consequently, if everyone switched parties tomorrow, the insurance lobby would still have given and still continue to give to the party in power without changing anything.
That's because it's a god-given duty for every American to defend the entirety of your paycheck against commie take overs like the one you described. Or at least, that's what I get from listening to republicans.
For what it's worth, I agree with you. I grew up in France, where I got a house call when I got sick. When was the last time you got a house call from a doctor in the US? Yes, the hospital food was a joke, yes you wait in a tiny room with people coughing all over you... but you got a fricking house call. And for people wanting the latest medical gizmos to treat their ailments, there is always private insurance.
Here's what I want to see: a government supplied basic health care plan, funded by mandatory contributions out of everyone's paycheck. It covers preventative care, emergency care, and standard, well-tested methodologies and equipment where manufacturing is almost at a mass scale. For everything else, there's private insurance. It doesn't solve the problem that health care is still an expensive undertaking (and never will), but people are covered, and if you're rich, you can still get the luxury care you can afford.
Of course, this works great for healthy people. It absolutely sucks ass for people with chronic conditions. That's the problem with a health insurance that isn't mandatory: someone will game the system, regardless of the rules. Either healthy people make out like bandits, or insurance companies make out like bandits. The only solution to this is health care where everyone pays.
The choices are really rather simple: * allow healthy people to save money by letting them sign up for insurance only when they need it. * allow companies to guarantee profits by allowing them to cover only people who are profitable to them on a quarter-by-quarter basis. * drop the notion that a society can function without common sacrifices and make everyone pay into a pot, all the time.
You do, however, live in a society and profit off of the work of others. At its most basic, you profit off of someone else enlisting in the army for you. You profit off of someone else spending 30 years in school to become a doctor. You profit off of someone else being on call for 48 hours straight in a firehouse. All of these examples - and there are a million more if you want to hear them - require that you pay for someone else to perform a service that you may or may not need. But the mere existence of the service vastly improves your quality of life. In short, you're paying into a pool of money so that your quality of life gets raised along with everyone else's.
Same with health insurance. It can only work if everyone pays a certain amount of their income into a general pool at all time. Otherwise, the amount of gaming that the system allows for is atrocious.
Lastly, you mention lifestyle having a big impact on health. Let me clue you in on something else: an active lifestyle leads to a ton of injuries as well. Spraining an ankle can happen easily during any activity involving walking. Breaking a bone is easily done when falling for whatever reason. That means that there is nothing that you can do to guarantee an injury and disease-free lifestyle. You can merely change the odds in your favor. But if shit happens, you still have to pay. And shit will happen to somebody. Are you willing to abandon somebody just because they got unlucky?
Really? Then what's the gap? And, since you're so much better than Pelosi, you'll have some official government statistics to back up your claim, right? Or are you just making assumptions and talking out of your ass?
So you're a tax-cheating criminal. Let me see... what's the income tax on an income of zero? What's the tax liability on anything if you plug in as your income "0"? My guess is: "0" again. Feel free to demonstrate that I'm wrong, but I expect that your discussion will also contain the various provisions for people who can't afford to pay the mandatory health insurance.
What's with people calling others liars so quickly? Every time someone does that and I look into it, it turns out that whoever yelled liar the loudest was the one most full of shit.
Here's how it actually breaks down, starting with the Washington Post: * top three contributions are to democrats, with roughly $10.5M between them * next five contributions are to republicans, with roughly $14M between them. After that, it's a pretty even distribution.
Opensecrets shows something similar: * 2010: 58% to democrats * 2008: 54% to democrats * for the next time that the health industry spent less than roughly 60% on republicans, you have to look back to.... 1994.
Notice something there? Right - it correlates wonderfully with whoever controls the House and Senate.
In other words, the health care industry gives to whoever is in power, with the percentage distribution correlating nicely with the distribution of party affiliation.
So just for emphasis, I'll state it again: the single biggest indicator for how much contributions a party gets is how many seats that party holds. No shit, Sherlock. And just because it pisses me off, I'll repeat this point as well: whoever yells liar the loudest is generally the biggest liar.
You do realize that if insurance companies do not discriminate against pre-existing conditions, they cannot possibly stay in business.
Sort of. You still want to have coverage for unexpected stuff: it's kinda hard to buy insurance when you just got crushed by a semi in your Metro. This means that people would want to buy some insurance - generally catastrophic-style insurance.
But the crux of your point still remains: if insurance companies aren't allowed to screen for pre-existing conditions, they'll be unable to make a profit, because they'll be stuck with the sickest and most expensive people. Since the insurance companies aren't stupid, what will happen is that insurance companies will charge rates that approximate more and more the actual cost of the treatment. In essence, it'll be like having no insurance. But the reverse is also true: if they're allowed to screen for pre-existing conditions, they can pick and choose the healthiest people: those who actually don't need insurance. Which means that those who do need health care will basically have to pay out of pocket. And it will be just like the first case, where insurance companies aren't allowed to screen. In short, we're still fucked.
The only solution to this problem is that everyone pays, regardless of whether they're sick or healthy. I hope Americans realize that health insurance can only work in that way. Otherwise, it's just a question of whether you can afford to pay for your health problems.
Let's see.... based on the description, it is possible that the guy was into child-porn. However, what bugs me is that the evidence that was described to get the search warrant was this: - a web cam pointed at an area where a three-year old plays, and plugged into a vcr - a list of links in the taskbar, where it is unclear whether the technician actually followed them to identify them as adult and child porn. Or where they labeled "adult porn" and "child porn"? The article is unclear here.
And... that's about it. At no time did the technician actually see child porn on the computer. At no time did he see any abuse, or even signs that abuse has happened. So really, the warrant was based on the idea that pointing a web cam at your kid can only happen for the reason of producing child porn, and that the names of certain websites indicate the content of their images. That's bullshit. The first one is more likely due to parents wanting to have memories of their kids, and the second.... well, the odds that every girl on a pornsite that just happened to turn 18 is actually 18 are damn near zero. I'd say naming conventions for porn sites don't exactly hold up to scrutiny.
I'm assuming here that the conviction happened because the warrant actually turned up child pornography. What pisses me off though is that the warrant itself was bogus, and and now Mr kiddyporn is going free on a technicality.
However, I'd like to remind everyone that technicalities are there to protect everyone of us from idiots in power. What happened was exactly what was supposed to have happened. I just hope that the police now do it right and get him again... because he is likely to slip up again.
I have no idea where you came up with that idea. I just wish you and everyone like you would stop speaking for me and everyone like me when you say things like "America IS voting for opposition/independent." There is no unified opposition to the Health Care bill, and there certainly is no unified America. Stop pretending there is, because it just means you want to avoid a dialog.
Just like MySQL? I can't see the business case that will cause Oracle to keep MySQL around. A low-end version into the DB market? Just slap a few limitations on an actual Oracle DB, and presto - low-end version with a trivial upgrade path to "the real thing."
The first problem is "How can we provide health insurance to people that isn't the same as just paying out of pocket?" Answer: universal coverage by forcing everyone to pay a share. The second problem is: "How do we control cost of that system?" Answer: by making people participate in the cost of the treatment and biasing the participation towards prevention.
You're addressing the second point. The gp was addressing the first point.
Speak for yourself. "The people" and "we" has no place in this discussion. I'm tired of being lumped in with rabid lunatics who think that the right to not afford health care trumps the right to not get shafted by health care companies.
I found that Slashdot is a very nice cross-section of the US in general. As a matter of fact, the way debates pan out here is generally reflected in the mainstream media within a short period of time.
So no, Slashdot readers aren't "better" than any other group. They're wealthier, have access to more resources, but fundamentally just as rabid as any other segment of the population.
For what it's worth, I found your post interesting and at least worthy of debate. Shame that you won't get a reasoned response that goes beyond a flamebait mod.
Can be used as noise insulation. There might be some drawback to building walls serving as giant water tanks, but the upside is that living next to the freeway might actually have some benefits.
I think that if even Viacom can't get its act together and figure out which one of its own properties is supposed to be on Youtube, it's illogical to demand that Youtube should figure it out.
To get back to the example of the GP, the technical side of figuring out who uploaded something is entirely feasible. The problem is that that information has little to no bearing on whether that person was authorized by the copyright holder to upload the content in question.
I'm getting the impression that this is indeed nothing more that Viacom going on a legal fishing expedition. I'd love to see them slapped with a counter-suit, but am not holding my breath.
2) If you don't think 2,000 pages that nobody has read which rebuilds 17% of the US economy according to the whims of a couple hundred Democrats doesn't represent an oppressive regime, then I don't know what to tell yo
As opposed to not doing something because a couple of hundred Republicans oppose it? Every time Republicans mention that the majority of Americans oppose the Health bill, I want to ask them if they ever polled anybody other than their constituents. Because, you know, those of us who actually like the bill think we ought to be counted as Americans as well.
If you're looking for an answer from me, you should have read the next two sentences.
Honestly - I don't care. The current laws not only make criminals out of people who really didn't do anything wrong, but also terminally fuck someone for the rest of their lives just because they took a picture of themselves.
Slashdot Mirror
.... where they're redefining what a demo means. In my world - and everyone's world that I can think of - a demo is a short version of a full game that gives you an idea of controls, atmosphere, design and game type (with notable exception Brutal Legend, that completely failed to indicate its RTS nature). 4 hours of a game - let's say, RE5 - is about 1, maybe 2 levels in a full game. So I get to pay $10 for a game that completely fails to show me the full range of capabilities of a character, a satisfying story arc, and which might not even be finished??
Fuck you, EA. I'm not going to be suckered into paying for what sounds suspiciously like a beta program.
And it doesn't say whether they have pre-existing conditions - you know, one of the biggest reasons that people stay off of health care. Not to mention that well-off depends on the region. In Fargo, you're positively rich. In San Francisco, you're getting by.
I also didn't have health insurance at some point when I was under 34. Sadly, it was because I couldn't afford one on a 20K salary, and I hadn't worked out which government service would be able to help.
So I'm still waiting for some data about exactly how many people just did a cost-benefit analysis and concluded that they didn't really want health insurance.
As it is, they have such a muddled version of #s 1&2 that I can't see how anyone will come out ahead in the long run.
Sadly, very true. I'm hoping that at some point the rhetoric used will calm down, and it will be possible to have a rational discussion about this. We'll see.
The gp said that contributions were split evenly among democrats and republicans. You called him a liar and pointed to opensecrets.org. Opensecrets actually supports the gp's assertion that contributions were split evenly among everybody.
So yes, your point that the gp lied was not only shown to be invalid, but complete and utter flamebait with absolutely no substance whatsoever.
Your second point now that the insurance lobby paid for this legislation and gave to the party in power is closer to the truth - but neglects to mention that it gives to the party in power because it gives to everybody. Consequently, if everyone switched parties tomorrow, the insurance lobby would still have given and still continue to give to the party in power without changing anything.
That's because it's a god-given duty for every American to defend the entirety of your paycheck against commie take overs like the one you described. Or at least, that's what I get from listening to republicans.
For what it's worth, I agree with you. I grew up in France, where I got a house call when I got sick. When was the last time you got a house call from a doctor in the US? Yes, the hospital food was a joke, yes you wait in a tiny room with people coughing all over you... but you got a fricking house call. And for people wanting the latest medical gizmos to treat their ailments, there is always private insurance.
Here's what I want to see: a government supplied basic health care plan, funded by mandatory contributions out of everyone's paycheck. It covers preventative care, emergency care, and standard, well-tested methodologies and equipment where manufacturing is almost at a mass scale. For everything else, there's private insurance. It doesn't solve the problem that health care is still an expensive undertaking (and never will), but people are covered, and if you're rich, you can still get the luxury care you can afford.
Everything else is just insanity.
I'm pretty sure it's about the same proportion as those who left the US under Bush: a couple of people per million who made that threat.
Of course, this works great for healthy people. It absolutely sucks ass for people with chronic conditions. That's the problem with a health insurance that isn't mandatory: someone will game the system, regardless of the rules. Either healthy people make out like bandits, or insurance companies make out like bandits. The only solution to this is health care where everyone pays.
The choices are really rather simple:
* allow healthy people to save money by letting them sign up for insurance only when they need it.
* allow companies to guarantee profits by allowing them to cover only people who are profitable to them on a quarter-by-quarter basis.
* drop the notion that a society can function without common sacrifices and make everyone pay into a pot, all the time.
You do, however, live in a society and profit off of the work of others. At its most basic, you profit off of someone else enlisting in the army for you. You profit off of someone else spending 30 years in school to become a doctor. You profit off of someone else being on call for 48 hours straight in a firehouse. All of these examples - and there are a million more if you want to hear them - require that you pay for someone else to perform a service that you may or may not need. But the mere existence of the service vastly improves your quality of life. In short, you're paying into a pool of money so that your quality of life gets raised along with everyone else's.
Same with health insurance. It can only work if everyone pays a certain amount of their income into a general pool at all time. Otherwise, the amount of gaming that the system allows for is atrocious.
Lastly, you mention lifestyle having a big impact on health. Let me clue you in on something else: an active lifestyle leads to a ton of injuries as well. Spraining an ankle can happen easily during any activity involving walking. Breaking a bone is easily done when falling for whatever reason. That means that there is nothing that you can do to guarantee an injury and disease-free lifestyle. You can merely change the odds in your favor. But if shit happens, you still have to pay. And shit will happen to somebody. Are you willing to abandon somebody just because they got unlucky?
Really? Then what's the gap? And, since you're so much better than Pelosi, you'll have some official government statistics to back up your claim, right? Or are you just making assumptions and talking out of your ass?
So you're a tax-cheating criminal. Let me see... what's the income tax on an income of zero? What's the tax liability on anything if you plug in as your income "0"? My guess is: "0" again. Feel free to demonstrate that I'm wrong, but I expect that your discussion will also contain the various provisions for people who can't afford to pay the mandatory health insurance.
What's with people calling others liars so quickly? Every time someone does that and I look into it, it turns out that whoever yelled liar the loudest was the one most full of shit.
Here's how it actually breaks down, starting with the Washington Post:
* top three contributions are to democrats, with roughly $10.5M between them
* next five contributions are to republicans, with roughly $14M between them.
After that, it's a pretty even distribution.
Opensecrets shows something similar:
* 2010: 58% to democrats
* 2008: 54% to democrats
* for the next time that the health industry spent less than roughly 60% on republicans, you have to look back to.... 1994.
Notice something there? Right - it correlates wonderfully with whoever controls the House and Senate.
In other words, the health care industry gives to whoever is in power, with the percentage distribution correlating nicely with the distribution of party affiliation.
So just for emphasis, I'll state it again: the single biggest indicator for how much contributions a party gets is how many seats that party holds. No shit, Sherlock. And just because it pisses me off, I'll repeat this point as well: whoever yells liar the loudest is generally the biggest liar.
You do realize that if insurance companies do not discriminate against pre-existing conditions, they cannot possibly stay in business.
Sort of. You still want to have coverage for unexpected stuff: it's kinda hard to buy insurance when you just got crushed by a semi in your Metro. This means that people would want to buy some insurance - generally catastrophic-style insurance.
But the crux of your point still remains: if insurance companies aren't allowed to screen for pre-existing conditions, they'll be unable to make a profit, because they'll be stuck with the sickest and most expensive people. Since the insurance companies aren't stupid, what will happen is that insurance companies will charge rates that approximate more and more the actual cost of the treatment. In essence, it'll be like having no insurance. But the reverse is also true: if they're allowed to screen for pre-existing conditions, they can pick and choose the healthiest people: those who actually don't need insurance. Which means that those who do need health care will basically have to pay out of pocket. And it will be just like the first case, where insurance companies aren't allowed to screen. In short, we're still fucked.
The only solution to this problem is that everyone pays, regardless of whether they're sick or healthy. I hope Americans realize that health insurance can only work in that way. Otherwise, it's just a question of whether you can afford to pay for your health problems.
Let's see.... based on the description, it is possible that the guy was into child-porn. However, what bugs me is that the evidence that was described to get the search warrant was this:
- a web cam pointed at an area where a three-year old plays, and plugged into a vcr
- a list of links in the taskbar, where it is unclear whether the technician actually followed them to identify them as adult and child porn. Or where they labeled "adult porn" and "child porn"? The article is unclear here.
And... that's about it. At no time did the technician actually see child porn on the computer. At no time did he see any abuse, or even signs that abuse has happened. So really, the warrant was based on the idea that pointing a web cam at your kid can only happen for the reason of producing child porn, and that the names of certain websites indicate the content of their images. That's bullshit. The first one is more likely due to parents wanting to have memories of their kids, and the second.... well, the odds that every girl on a pornsite that just happened to turn 18 is actually 18 are damn near zero. I'd say naming conventions for porn sites don't exactly hold up to scrutiny.
I'm assuming here that the conviction happened because the warrant actually turned up child pornography. What pisses me off though is that the warrant itself was bogus, and and now Mr kiddyporn is going free on a technicality.
However, I'd like to remind everyone that technicalities are there to protect everyone of us from idiots in power. What happened was exactly what was supposed to have happened. I just hope that the police now do it right and get him again... because he is likely to slip up again.
I have no idea where you came up with that idea. I just wish you and everyone like you would stop speaking for me and everyone like me when you say things like "America IS voting for opposition/independent." There is no unified opposition to the Health Care bill, and there certainly is no unified America. Stop pretending there is, because it just means you want to avoid a dialog.
Just like MySQL? I can't see the business case that will cause Oracle to keep MySQL around. A low-end version into the DB market? Just slap a few limitations on an actual Oracle DB, and presto - low-end version with a trivial upgrade path to "the real thing."
The first problem is "How can we provide health insurance to people that isn't the same as just paying out of pocket?" Answer: universal coverage by forcing everyone to pay a share. The second problem is: "How do we control cost of that system?" Answer: by making people participate in the cost of the treatment and biasing the participation towards prevention.
You're addressing the second point. The gp was addressing the first point.
I guess I was wrong indeed. I clearly should have said "That word doesn't mean what you think it means."
Speak for yourself. "The people" and "we" has no place in this discussion. I'm tired of being lumped in with rabid lunatics who think that the right to not afford health care trumps the right to not get shafted by health care companies.
I found that Slashdot is a very nice cross-section of the US in general. As a matter of fact, the way debates pan out here is generally reflected in the mainstream media within a short period of time.
So no, Slashdot readers aren't "better" than any other group. They're wealthier, have access to more resources, but fundamentally just as rabid as any other segment of the population.
For what it's worth, I found your post interesting and at least worthy of debate. Shame that you won't get a reasoned response that goes beyond a flamebait mod.
lying
I don't think that word means what you think it means.
Can be used as noise insulation. There might be some drawback to building walls serving as giant water tanks, but the upside is that living next to the freeway might actually have some benefits.
Wow. I don't think I've ever met a person so in love with the sound of their own voice.
I think that if even Viacom can't get its act together and figure out which one of its own properties is supposed to be on Youtube, it's illogical to demand that Youtube should figure it out.
To get back to the example of the GP, the technical side of figuring out who uploaded something is entirely feasible. The problem is that that information has little to no bearing on whether that person was authorized by the copyright holder to upload the content in question.
I'm getting the impression that this is indeed nothing more that Viacom going on a legal fishing expedition. I'd love to see them slapped with a counter-suit, but am not holding my breath.
2) If you don't think 2,000 pages that nobody has read which rebuilds 17% of the US economy according to the whims of a couple hundred Democrats doesn't represent an oppressive regime, then I don't know what to tell yo
As opposed to not doing something because a couple of hundred Republicans oppose it? Every time Republicans mention that the majority of Americans oppose the Health bill, I want to ask them if they ever polled anybody other than their constituents. Because, you know, those of us who actually like the bill think we ought to be counted as Americans as well.
If you're looking for an answer from me, you should have read the next two sentences.
Honestly - I don't care. The current laws not only make criminals out of people who really didn't do anything wrong, but also terminally fuck someone for the rest of their lives just because they took a picture of themselves.