I'm certainly not an expert, but I think you're missing it. If I understand correctly they're the same working principle just differently applied. i.e. stream of ions vs. one. One accelerator vs. many. Meaning, you'd simply need to scale the technology of ION engines. The present trouble we're working with is doing just that.
Well we presently know jack about the Oort cloud (50,000 AU). Be nice to learn a bit about our comet factory. Heck, it'd be nice to go explore the Kupier belt (~40AU) as a warm up exercise.
With that notion you'd also never purchase a new computer. A year after you built the state-of-the-art PC it makes the old look stupid.
Did Earth hold off on the NX-01 just because the NCC-1701D could travel more than 14.5 times faster? Of course not! We had Warp 5 dammit and we took it. If you would have told Cochran to not bother with the Phoenix he'd have popped you in the nose! There's so much learning that can only take place in actually putting something into practice. At some point you have to get out of the classroom and get your hands dirty. Think of it as a comparison between the Waterfall model and the Iterative practices of software development. You don't know what you don't know until you apply what you do.
Actually, I bet you could go the "American" route through private (read non-Military Industrial Complex) companies. SpaceX for instance is making remarkable progress from a very minimal sponsorship. IIRC $120 million got them to the point of a viable launch system. They had their first commercial launch inside of 7 years.
Don't be a douche, Obama was simply calling a spade a spade. The Ares heavy lifter was absolutely nothing more than congressional pork meant to prop up the companies that manufactured the SRBs, and other obsolete shuttle technology. The design was far more dangerous than the shuttle. In many ways it was a step backwards not forwards. When you start having a large portion of their own engineers decide to spend their off hours designing an alternative you really got to ask yourself why. Is it frustrating to throw so much time and money into projects only to have them killed? You bet. For once however, a president had the sense to stop it before any more money was obligated to such a project. Fortunately, it seems that the Orion capsule is going to be able to be stuck atop alternative lifters.
The 25+ years of NASA have been plagued by mismanagement and misappropriations. Not so much by their heads but by Congress, and the Presidents of past. Every new election cycle NASA has the rug pulled out from under them. Projects are not designed or managed by scientists and engineers but by politicians. Any hint of a budget overrun, failure, etc. results in NASA losing funding. It is extraordinarily difficult to function in this sort of environment. It would be great if the NASA administration could figure out how to effectively work in such an environment but they haven't and shouldn't need to. One of the main reasons for NASA's existence is to take on far reaching projects not easily within grasp of the commercial industry, to tackle our nation's dreams of scientific and engineering possibilities. You can't do that inside of the span of an election cycle.
Not everyone can perceive the stereoscopic 2D correctly since everyone has slightly misaligned eyes and some more than others. The worst are for people that have actual diagnosed strabismus (cross-eyed).
Personally I can do without the use of virtual pies flying at my face for the sake of compensating for a poor plot and/or poor acting. This I suspect is the majority complaint here on/.
There's a difference between what a particular distro offers and what distros are offered. There are distros that provide intimate control and flexibility over an installation and some that provide a highly practical set of default choices as well as distros that are everywhere in between. There's nothing however that can eliminate the choice of what OS, or in the case of Linux what distro within that broader choice. Sure you can pick a particular OEM and what they install on their machines but you're still choosing. It's no different than going out to buy a car. The customer needs to do a bit of upfront work. If the car seems overly complicated with electronic gadgetry to them, they move on to something else, they don't demand the manufacturer rip out these gadgets that other people appreciate being there. That defeats the whole point of why Linux has the plethora of distros it does. The potential Linux user needs to ask a few questions of someone in the know just like you'd ask a car guy about a good car for you.
Actually I had no intention of being condescending. I recognize that there are different users with different goals, personalities, and abilities and was attempting--perhaps poorly--to communicate that.
It would seem reasonable that one should conclude that given a distro--such as Debian--having such an impersonal feel and a list of bloody near every publicly distributed piece of Linux software that the assumption is that the person doing the installation should have some idea of what they're wanting/doing. If this is not true then Debian is not the distro for them. Why punish people that know what they want, what they're doing and more importantly appreciate that ability of choice by forcing them to hunt down the source and go build it themselves? Have you done that often? Even if you know what you're doing that's a tedious PITA. Even with the utilities provided in the distro I use, Gentoo, it can be challenging. It would be a disservice to such a user. Wouldn't it be better to leave the poweruser alone with their distro and provide the less knowledgeable user with something simpler? There was a reason why Ubuntu was created. Its installation is usually simpler than a typical Windows install and comes with a default selection of apps for common tasks. There's a guide that provides explanations and descriptions of everything should they wish to customize.
I understand the point of the linked blog article but at the same time, the Linux community has addressed this notion by providing simplified distros. Not everyone however wants a simplified, even dare I say, dumbed down system. This goes back to what I was talking about with regards to a distro for every range on the spectrum of users. Personally I think OS X is a great operating system, it's rock solid, and highly accessible. But I'd also never use it. It makes certain assumptions about its users that does not fit my personality. Specifically I can't stand things that assume I'm incapable of deciding for myself. Would I recommend it to a non-technical person? Absolutely. Likewise I certainly cannot imagine anyone advising a neophyte, and especially not a non-technical person to go try Debian, Slackware, Gentoo, Fedora, etc.. Frankly I can't imagine they'd direct a non-technical person to install an OS on their own regardless of what it was. Direct them as to what they should have someone else install sure, but certainly not on their own. In the case of a moderately knowledgeable though new to Linux person, they'd direct them to Ubuntu or some similar distro tailored for out of the box simplicity.
The short comings of Linux on the Desktop aren't in what the community has provided. It's the lack of computer OEMs offering a simplified Linux distro as the preinstalled OS. Most people don't know how or care to bother with installing an OS themselves. That's why Dell slaps Windows on every one of their boxes, and why Apple, OS X. They don't just toss a disc into the box and tell them to install it themselves. It doesn't matter how simple you make the process these folks aren't going to do it themselves.
I'm also not sure how purposefully lacking support for a given piece of software, thus forcing the user to go get source code and build it themselves isn't telling them to "get stuffed". In the open-source and more specifically *nix community, traditionally the author of a piece of software isn't also in the business of providing support for specific OS flavors. This responsibility falls on distro authors to take the source and create a package out of it that works for their distro. To do it any other way would be logistically impractical. Providing statically linked binaries has technical impracticalities and would be besieged with incompatibilities anyway.
I don't think you understand what you're saying. Distributions of Linux are quite the opposite. They don't try to be all things. Linux isn't Windows or OS X, you're not stuck with a very limited range of experience. Each distro has a rather specific personality and you pick the one that fits best with who you are. Window managers/desktops--KDE, Gnome, Xfce, Fluxbox, Emacs (if you're that sort of person), etc. are better thought of as applications in their own right, not a part that constitutes the OS. They're yet another option to tailor your system to your personality. Some distros let you pick which to use, some are specifically built around a particular one. There are distros for every range of user ability and personality.
Being able to run any manner of app that was written for Linux isn't trying to be all things to all people. It's called supporting the user's ability do what they want to do. What kind of user would want to run an OS where if they tried to install X application and was told by the OS that it had no knowledge of X application so go get stuffed (in spite the software being written for the OS)?
If you are the type that is put off by choices, and want capricious, arbitrary restrictions then perhaps Linux isn't for your personality in general. Go grab a Mac, it has security and stability rivaling Linux and has a very narrowly defined range of options. That said, I'd encourage you to not be put off by a bit of upfront research work regarding the options Linux distros offer. There are plenty of resources explaining these choices and many distros offer what are known as "live CDs" that enable you to preview the OS's experience without committing to actually installing it. Most people wouldn't think of accepting the one-size fits all option for shoes why should you your operating system? The pleasure of wearing the perfect fit make the effort worth it in the end.
But that would prematurely end his suffering... He must suffer death by a thousand paper cuts while listening to a montage of Windows start up sounds on an endless loop!
Because then they'd have to build a more robust system with fault tolerance capabilities. That costs money. If they could get away with extracting the same exorbitant fees they'd have us all back on Motorola DynaTAC 8000Xs.
The trouble is he's suggesting that they apply the MAD principle to this problem. That certainly doesn't sound like a simple kill the zombie node thing.
Regardless, this is a patent holder that is looking to squeeze the last drop of money that this patent is worth. I suspect the guy can milk this for a fair bit more going after past infringement.
The problem as far as I understand it has to do with proper alignment of the image projected to the eyes. The Sega (and any of the other 20th century, god I feel old) was that the image must be bloody near perfectly aligned to the pair of eyes it's projected to. The early head sets were trying to be made on the cheap so that consumers could afford them. Cheap and quality didn't coincide.
With this latest greatest attempt at stereoscopically projected 2D video the issue still remains. To further complicate matters, every person has a slight mis-alignment of their eyes. For those that have a more pronounced alignment problem--bear in mind I'm not talking about people with strabismus, or what is commonly referred to as being "cross-eyed"--watching these so called "3D" movies even on the expensive movie theater equipment are producing headaches. The only way this gimmick has a chance at wide spread adoption is if each viewer were capable of having--with minimal effort on their part--their own projection that is calibrated with a high degree of accuracy and precision to the requirements of their own eyes. Realistically though, I can't see this as anything more than a passing burp on the time line. I think people are going to tire of having virtual 2D pies thrown in their face pretty quickly.
use two different technologies in the first place. Cellular technology is obviously the clear winner with respect to mobile data communications when you can't be tied down to a WiFi base station. It isn't the technology that's the problem, it's the business model. Since it's obvious Verizon and kin are running the wrong direction on this maybe it's time to look at ways to compel them to operate differently.
Lawyers are the grease that make the Rube Goldberg mechanics of our society function. They aren't the cause of society's problems, that's our own bloody fault.
Given some of the code I have to deal with in my job I find myself wondering why I'm not compensated in proportion to a corporate lawyer when I figure out how to make it work they way it's desire instead of the way it's written. It's not the lawyers fault that they're paid so much relative to me, it's my peers. They're willing to perform similar feats with out being compensated like a corporate lawyer so I likewise must or they'll do it for me.
err.. I feel silly. I didn't catch the "en" of encoding. The earliest one of those I'm aware of is the Rage 128 Pro which if memory serves is late 1999. Either way still well before 2004.
ATI Rage 3D which was introduced in 1995 supported MPEG-1 acceleration, Rage II added MPEG-2. Either there's something a bit more nuanced about the patent or the patent examiner really screwed up.
First of I applaud you for actually having thought out your position. I don't generally find that to be the case. There are certain matters that are obviously a difference of opinion. Though I think there are also a few mistakes in some of your assumptions.
To the point of your belief that private insurance can solve things. A business operates under the sole guiding principle of profit maximization. This is ensured to be the case regardless of the moral convictions of present management by shareholders which expect maximum share values. With this in mind, I am very much in disbelief that any long-term contract for care regardless of future ability to pay premiums would ever come to light. I am unaware of any type of insurance that offers such a thing. If it would have surfaced anywhere I would have figured life insurance--which doesn't have the same government "meddling" as health insurance--yet to my knowledge there's no such thing. Catastrophic coverage is available for purchase BTW. Their premiums hang out around $100/month for a healthy individual, $250 or so for a family. But they also have rather low per incident limits say $500,000 and lifetime maximums of $1 - 5 million. Were it not for Obamacare they also be able to exclude you for preexisting conditions. If you're chronic you're screwed.
It's great that you can surround yourself with caring family and friends but unless they all "summer in the Hampton's" and cruise around in daddy's yacht. The won't be able to do much beyond contribute their labor. Certainly no bill paying.
Charitable institutions have historically had a pretty spotty history when it comes to accountability and ensuring money goes where it was intended rather than exorbitant administrative salaries and other misappropriations. I really don't consider them any better than government. They have to potential to be far worse.
With respect to the competence of government workers I would concede that there are merits to your claim. The citizenry has failed to hold government to account in this regard. I am not convinced that charitable organizations would prove more effective however given that there are even fewer options for accountability.
One of the primary points to governments is to organize the resources of disparate smaller groups and individuals into a larger pool to derive a greater collective ability. While I would most definitely say that it has grown far too big for its britches. No single place can this be more obviously seen than in the military might of the United States. Us "collectivists" see a potential that is being unrealized in so many areas simply because people wish to selfishly hoard their personal resources. I am not advocating that the citizenry be subjugated by the government without representation. I am suggesting that the citizenry stop avoiding their government, stop branding it as evil and start treating it as "of the people, by the people, for the people." The citizens should support and take care of its fellow citizens through its government not on the assumed good intentions of for profit businesses.
Lose your job due to an illness--and by extension your ability to maintain your private health insurance coverage. People feel like being charitable and helping you out. They host one of those charitable benefit diners. They usually net what, $5000. Good thing you have cancer and it's costing you $20,000/month. BTW: didn't you have a house payment, a wife and two little kids you were providing for?
Now propose to me how you will address your health care.
For kicks and giggles lets make pretend (then again maybe we don't need to pretend) everyone thinks you're an a****** and don't feel much like being charitable.
Before you or anyone else gets on their soap box and preaches a la carte government, self-determining citizenry, etc. go have a look see at how such a system actually works in practice. What can someone expect to happen should they lose their ability to pay? What happens when all of the support structures now taken for granted are kicked out from underneath them?
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I'm certainly not an expert, but I think you're missing it. If I understand correctly they're the same working principle just differently applied. i.e. stream of ions vs. one. One accelerator vs. many. Meaning, you'd simply need to scale the technology of ION engines. The present trouble we're working with is doing just that.
Well we presently know jack about the Oort cloud (50,000 AU). Be nice to learn a bit about our comet factory. Heck, it'd be nice to go explore the Kupier belt (~40AU) as a warm up exercise.
With that notion you'd also never purchase a new computer. A year after you built the state-of-the-art PC it makes the old look stupid.
Did Earth hold off on the NX-01 just because the NCC-1701D could travel more than 14.5 times faster? Of course not! We had Warp 5 dammit and we took it. If you would have told Cochran to not bother with the Phoenix he'd have popped you in the nose! There's so much learning that can only take place in actually putting something into practice. At some point you have to get out of the classroom and get your hands dirty. Think of it as a comparison between the Waterfall model and the Iterative practices of software development. You don't know what you don't know until you apply what you do.
Actually, I bet you could go the "American" route through private (read non-Military Industrial Complex) companies. SpaceX for instance is making remarkable progress from a very minimal sponsorship. IIRC $120 million got them to the point of a viable launch system. They had their first commercial launch inside of 7 years.
err. "The [past] 25+ years of NASA..."
Don't be a douche, Obama was simply calling a spade a spade. The Ares heavy lifter was absolutely nothing more than congressional pork meant to prop up the companies that manufactured the SRBs, and other obsolete shuttle technology. The design was far more dangerous than the shuttle. In many ways it was a step backwards not forwards. When you start having a large portion of their own engineers decide to spend their off hours designing an alternative you really got to ask yourself why. Is it frustrating to throw so much time and money into projects only to have them killed? You bet. For once however, a president had the sense to stop it before any more money was obligated to such a project. Fortunately, it seems that the Orion capsule is going to be able to be stuck atop alternative lifters.
The 25+ years of NASA have been plagued by mismanagement and misappropriations. Not so much by their heads but by Congress, and the Presidents of past. Every new election cycle NASA has the rug pulled out from under them. Projects are not designed or managed by scientists and engineers but by politicians. Any hint of a budget overrun, failure, etc. results in NASA losing funding. It is extraordinarily difficult to function in this sort of environment. It would be great if the NASA administration could figure out how to effectively work in such an environment but they haven't and shouldn't need to. One of the main reasons for NASA's existence is to take on far reaching projects not easily within grasp of the commercial industry, to tackle our nation's dreams of scientific and engineering possibilities. You can't do that inside of the span of an election cycle.
Not everyone can perceive the stereoscopic 2D correctly since everyone has slightly misaligned eyes and some more than others. The worst are for people that have actual diagnosed strabismus (cross-eyed).
Personally I can do without the use of virtual pies flying at my face for the sake of compensating for a poor plot and/or poor acting. This I suspect is the majority complaint here on /.
There's a difference between what a particular distro offers and what distros are offered. There are distros that provide intimate control and flexibility over an installation and some that provide a highly practical set of default choices as well as distros that are everywhere in between. There's nothing however that can eliminate the choice of what OS, or in the case of Linux what distro within that broader choice. Sure you can pick a particular OEM and what they install on their machines but you're still choosing. It's no different than going out to buy a car. The customer needs to do a bit of upfront work. If the car seems overly complicated with electronic gadgetry to them, they move on to something else, they don't demand the manufacturer rip out these gadgets that other people appreciate being there. That defeats the whole point of why Linux has the plethora of distros it does. The potential Linux user needs to ask a few questions of someone in the know just like you'd ask a car guy about a good car for you.
Actually I had no intention of being condescending. I recognize that there are different users with different goals, personalities, and abilities and was attempting--perhaps poorly--to communicate that.
It would seem reasonable that one should conclude that given a distro--such as Debian--having such an impersonal feel and a list of bloody near every publicly distributed piece of Linux software that the assumption is that the person doing the installation should have some idea of what they're wanting/doing. If this is not true then Debian is not the distro for them. Why punish people that know what they want, what they're doing and more importantly appreciate that ability of choice by forcing them to hunt down the source and go build it themselves? Have you done that often? Even if you know what you're doing that's a tedious PITA. Even with the utilities provided in the distro I use, Gentoo, it can be challenging. It would be a disservice to such a user. Wouldn't it be better to leave the poweruser alone with their distro and provide the less knowledgeable user with something simpler? There was a reason why Ubuntu was created. Its installation is usually simpler than a typical Windows install and comes with a default selection of apps for common tasks. There's a guide that provides explanations and descriptions of everything should they wish to customize.
I understand the point of the linked blog article but at the same time, the Linux community has addressed this notion by providing simplified distros. Not everyone however wants a simplified, even dare I say, dumbed down system. This goes back to what I was talking about with regards to a distro for every range on the spectrum of users. Personally I think OS X is a great operating system, it's rock solid, and highly accessible. But I'd also never use it. It makes certain assumptions about its users that does not fit my personality. Specifically I can't stand things that assume I'm incapable of deciding for myself. Would I recommend it to a non-technical person? Absolutely. Likewise I certainly cannot imagine anyone advising a neophyte, and especially not a non-technical person to go try Debian, Slackware, Gentoo, Fedora, etc.. Frankly I can't imagine they'd direct a non-technical person to install an OS on their own regardless of what it was. Direct them as to what they should have someone else install sure, but certainly not on their own. In the case of a moderately knowledgeable though new to Linux person, they'd direct them to Ubuntu or some similar distro tailored for out of the box simplicity.
The short comings of Linux on the Desktop aren't in what the community has provided. It's the lack of computer OEMs offering a simplified Linux distro as the preinstalled OS. Most people don't know how or care to bother with installing an OS themselves. That's why Dell slaps Windows on every one of their boxes, and why Apple, OS X. They don't just toss a disc into the box and tell them to install it themselves. It doesn't matter how simple you make the process these folks aren't going to do it themselves.
I'm also not sure how purposefully lacking support for a given piece of software, thus forcing the user to go get source code and build it themselves isn't telling them to "get stuffed". In the open-source and more specifically *nix community, traditionally the author of a piece of software isn't also in the business of providing support for specific OS flavors. This responsibility falls on distro authors to take the source and create a package out of it that works for their distro. To do it any other way would be logistically impractical. Providing statically linked binaries has technical impracticalities and would be besieged with incompatibilities anyway.
I don't think you understand what you're saying. Distributions of Linux are quite the opposite. They don't try to be all things. Linux isn't Windows or OS X, you're not stuck with a very limited range of experience. Each distro has a rather specific personality and you pick the one that fits best with who you are. Window managers/desktops--KDE, Gnome, Xfce, Fluxbox, Emacs (if you're that sort of person), etc. are better thought of as applications in their own right, not a part that constitutes the OS. They're yet another option to tailor your system to your personality. Some distros let you pick which to use, some are specifically built around a particular one. There are distros for every range of user ability and personality.
Being able to run any manner of app that was written for Linux isn't trying to be all things to all people. It's called supporting the user's ability do what they want to do. What kind of user would want to run an OS where if they tried to install X application and was told by the OS that it had no knowledge of X application so go get stuffed (in spite the software being written for the OS)?
If you are the type that is put off by choices, and want capricious, arbitrary restrictions then perhaps Linux isn't for your personality in general. Go grab a Mac, it has security and stability rivaling Linux and has a very narrowly defined range of options. That said, I'd encourage you to not be put off by a bit of upfront research work regarding the options Linux distros offer. There are plenty of resources explaining these choices and many distros offer what are known as "live CDs" that enable you to preview the OS's experience without committing to actually installing it. Most people wouldn't think of accepting the one-size fits all option for shoes why should you your operating system? The pleasure of wearing the perfect fit make the effort worth it in the end.
But that would prematurely end his suffering... He must suffer death by a thousand paper cuts while listening to a montage of Windows start up sounds on an endless loop!
Wheels? Wheels are for roads and where we're going, we don't need roads.
I'm confused are you talking about Linux or OS X?
Because then they'd have to build a more robust system with fault tolerance capabilities. That costs money. If they could get away with extracting the same exorbitant fees they'd have us all back on Motorola DynaTAC 8000Xs.
The trouble is he's suggesting that they apply the MAD principle to this problem. That certainly doesn't sound like a simple kill the zombie node thing.
Regardless, this is a patent holder that is looking to squeeze the last drop of money that this patent is worth. I suspect the guy can milk this for a fair bit more going after past infringement.
Then maybe they'll start using nuclear silo systems to attack other of our interests. Two birds with one stone eh?
The problem as far as I understand it has to do with proper alignment of the image projected to the eyes. The Sega (and any of the other 20th century, god I feel old) was that the image must be bloody near perfectly aligned to the pair of eyes it's projected to. The early head sets were trying to be made on the cheap so that consumers could afford them. Cheap and quality didn't coincide.
With this latest greatest attempt at stereoscopically projected 2D video the issue still remains. To further complicate matters, every person has a slight mis-alignment of their eyes. For those that have a more pronounced alignment problem--bear in mind I'm not talking about people with strabismus, or what is commonly referred to as being "cross-eyed"--watching these so called "3D" movies even on the expensive movie theater equipment are producing headaches. The only way this gimmick has a chance at wide spread adoption is if each viewer were capable of having--with minimal effort on their part--their own projection that is calibrated with a high degree of accuracy and precision to the requirements of their own eyes. Realistically though, I can't see this as anything more than a passing burp on the time line. I think people are going to tire of having virtual 2D pies thrown in their face pretty quickly.
use two different technologies in the first place. Cellular technology is obviously the clear winner with respect to mobile data communications when you can't be tied down to a WiFi base station. It isn't the technology that's the problem, it's the business model. Since it's obvious Verizon and kin are running the wrong direction on this maybe it's time to look at ways to compel them to operate differently.
Lawyers are the grease that make the Rube Goldberg mechanics of our society function. They aren't the cause of society's problems, that's our own bloody fault.
Given some of the code I have to deal with in my job I find myself wondering why I'm not compensated in proportion to a corporate lawyer when I figure out how to make it work they way it's desire instead of the way it's written. It's not the lawyers fault that they're paid so much relative to me, it's my peers. They're willing to perform similar feats with out being compensated like a corporate lawyer so I likewise must or they'll do it for me.
err.. I feel silly. I didn't catch the "en" of encoding. The earliest one of those I'm aware of is the Rage 128 Pro which if memory serves is late 1999. Either way still well before 2004.
ATI Rage 3D which was introduced in 1995 supported MPEG-1 acceleration, Rage II added MPEG-2. Either there's something a bit more nuanced about the patent or the patent examiner really screwed up.
First of I applaud you for actually having thought out your position. I don't generally find that to be the case. There are certain matters that are obviously a difference of opinion. Though I think there are also a few mistakes in some of your assumptions.
To the point of your belief that private insurance can solve things. A business operates under the sole guiding principle of profit maximization. This is ensured to be the case regardless of the moral convictions of present management by shareholders which expect maximum share values. With this in mind, I am very much in disbelief that any long-term contract for care regardless of future ability to pay premiums would ever come to light. I am unaware of any type of insurance that offers such a thing. If it would have surfaced anywhere I would have figured life insurance--which doesn't have the same government "meddling" as health insurance--yet to my knowledge there's no such thing. Catastrophic coverage is available for purchase BTW. Their premiums hang out around $100/month for a healthy individual, $250 or so for a family. But they also have rather low per incident limits say $500,000 and lifetime maximums of $1 - 5 million. Were it not for Obamacare they also be able to exclude you for preexisting conditions. If you're chronic you're screwed.
It's great that you can surround yourself with caring family and friends but unless they all "summer in the Hampton's" and cruise around in daddy's yacht. The won't be able to do much beyond contribute their labor. Certainly no bill paying.
Charitable institutions have historically had a pretty spotty history when it comes to accountability and ensuring money goes where it was intended rather than exorbitant administrative salaries and other misappropriations. I really don't consider them any better than government. They have to potential to be far worse.
With respect to the competence of government workers I would concede that there are merits to your claim. The citizenry has failed to hold government to account in this regard. I am not convinced that charitable organizations would prove more effective however given that there are even fewer options for accountability.
One of the primary points to governments is to organize the resources of disparate smaller groups and individuals into a larger pool to derive a greater collective ability. While I would most definitely say that it has grown far too big for its britches. No single place can this be more obviously seen than in the military might of the United States. Us "collectivists" see a potential that is being unrealized in so many areas simply because people wish to selfishly hoard their personal resources. I am not advocating that the citizenry be subjugated by the government without representation. I am suggesting that the citizenry stop avoiding their government, stop branding it as evil and start treating it as "of the people, by the people, for the people." The citizens should support and take care of its fellow citizens through its government not on the assumed good intentions of for profit businesses.
Lose your job due to an illness--and by extension your ability to maintain your private health insurance coverage. People feel like being charitable and helping you out. They host one of those charitable benefit diners. They usually net what, $5000. Good thing you have cancer and it's costing you $20,000/month. BTW: didn't you have a house payment, a wife and two little kids you were providing for?
Now propose to me how you will address your health care.
For kicks and giggles lets make pretend (then again maybe we don't need to pretend) everyone thinks you're an a****** and don't feel much like being charitable.
Before you or anyone else gets on their soap box and preaches a la carte government, self-determining citizenry, etc. go have a look see at how such a system actually works in practice. What can someone expect to happen should they lose their ability to pay? What happens when all of the support structures now taken for granted are kicked out from underneath them?