The insurance market is laughably non-free. You are simply subjected to corporate rationing instead of government rationing, which is no better.
I believe most of the "corporate rationing" you allude to is actually due to existing government regulation. The insurance market, as it stands, is not very free. But it's hardly the fault of "evil corporations".
I don't think my family falls into that camp either. But we do listen to all sides of the debate, and make our own decisions involving our family's health, trying to be as well-informed as we can.
As a result, we don't have our kids vaccinated as infants. There's a lot of concern about thimerosol in vaccines. Is the mercury harmful? Is it not? Does anybody know for sure? Has anybody done studies on those massive quantities of foreign substances (that much mercury would be above acceptable exposure for an adult) being pumped into a 10 pound body? And why do my children even need vaccination against diseases primarily transmitted by sexual activity? In my opinion, that's what's nutty. Some of this stuff is not going to kill anybody with a healthy immune system. Why vaccinate? (I mean, really - chicken pox? A couple inconvenient days of itchy bumps?) Vaccination has become, in some people's eyes, a panacea for every ill. And while I agree that vaccines have saved a lot of people and that I wouldn't want to live in a pre-vaccination world, I think we can apply some common sense in making decisions for ourselves as individuals and not just blindly following the herd.
So we decided by the time #2 came along that we were going to hold all further vaccination until age 5. And I know it's not scientific, but #2 and #3 have had a lot fewer colds and run-of-the-mill illnesses than #1 - who received a good portion of the vaccinations young - did. Our pediatrician looks at us askance at every visit, but we believe, as informed and responsible parents, that we are following the best course for our kids.
I'd love to get all my compensation in cash, so I could make my own choices. But health insurance is given as an untaxed benefit - an equivalent amount of cash would result in me getting less insurance because I'd be taxed. So we need to get rid of income tax, so we can be compensated in cash, so I can buy my own insurance. More freedom all-around!
Don't principals accept "mom notes" by email yet? Kids will have to be able to forge email addresses and SMTP headers. Debate the merits of handwriting all you want, but I'm sure we can all agree that learning SMTP is a valuable life skill.
I'd be happy if the U.S. pulled it's military out of other countries, and let them supply their own military defense. There's no reason one country should try to protect half the world. If the U.S. were to do that, you can bet military spending would drop to be more in line with other nations.
I'd say one of the problems is that modern popular culture regards science as evil.
I'd say another problem is that modern government regards science as evil. You can't even buy yourself a decent home chemistry set like those popular 50 years ago. You might be "a terrorist". I'm sure it was bad enough when a nation full of overprotective mothers were worried that Johnny was going to blow himself up with that. Now we've got an overprotective nanny state worried that Johnny might blow up others with that.
Freedom encourages inquiry and discovery, and thereby encourages science. Is it any small wonder that limiting freedom limits scientific curiousity as well?
Non-religious people are just as much "persecuted" by religious people.
However, you don't see multitudes of fundamentalists jumping out to bash every atheist/humanist-slanted post made on Slashdot. From the religious posters here, I almost universally see tolerance. The venomous posts are almost universally made by anti-religionists.
UI for this has been around for quite some time, at least in a few browsers. Unfortunately, the best implementation for Firefox that I've seen, the cmSiteNavigation extension, no longer works with 3.x. Anyone want to update it?
I was thinking that just the other day. I'd like to see the serif, sans-serif, monospace, cursive, and fantasy expanded to something like serif-oldstyle, serif-transitional, serif-modern, and serif-slab (that all default to generic serif if there are none available); sans-serif-grotesque, sans-serif-transitional, sans-serif-humanist, and sans-serif-geometric (again, all defaulting to generic sans-serif); monospace-serif and monospace-sans-serif (ditto); cursive-formal, cursive-casual, and cursive-blackletter (yadda yadda); and fantasy (of which there are too many possibilities to really split out).
Personally, I like the idea of downloadable fonts. How's it any different than downloading images or other media to display in a web page? Except that the text of the page is still usable even if the font can't download, or it's read offline, or viewed in Lynx, or whatever. To me it seems to be a definite improvement.
Since the thing slipped in there in part due to pressure differences, why not overpressurize the crew compartment? Or take the orbiter up on the 747 while pressurized? Maybe combined with dry-icing the knob, it will come out.
Low cost??? I have to scrounge to get the $15 or $20 for the used 40 or 80 GB drives I see on Craigslist. Else I'm stuck with the 2-5 GB drives that came with the second- and third-hand computers that are all I have to educate myself with. Once the OS is installed, they're already almost full. My only USB drive is a 16 MB (yes, MB) freebie I got as a Google promo about 5 years ago.
If anyone has hardware you're basically chucking out the door, please consider posting it to your local LUG mailing list, then to Craigslist. Many of us would see your trash as a significant upgrade. I can't thank enough the guys that provided my old SGI and Sun boxes for free. They were virtually obsolete, but still useful to me to get a first exposure to IRIX and Solaris.
Funny...I read the story and was going to ask on this thread, "Where could I get an ARM-based laptop to run Linux on?" All day on a battery would be fantastic.
I'm a couple years younger than you, and lived in a rural area where this wasn't so easy. But even in the early 80s it was worthwhile to stop the car to pick up cans you might see in a ditch. Gas was much cheaper, and not as many people recycled, so it worked.
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So Mensans would make good real-life wizards, but not very good clerics. I thought geeks would have known this for about 30 years now.
I believe most of the "corporate rationing" you allude to is actually due to existing government regulation. The insurance market, as it stands, is not very free. But it's hardly the fault of "evil corporations".
I don't think my family falls into that camp either. But we do listen to all sides of the debate, and make our own decisions involving our family's health, trying to be as well-informed as we can.
As a result, we don't have our kids vaccinated as infants. There's a lot of concern about thimerosol in vaccines. Is the mercury harmful? Is it not? Does anybody know for sure? Has anybody done studies on those massive quantities of foreign substances (that much mercury would be above acceptable exposure for an adult) being pumped into a 10 pound body? And why do my children even need vaccination against diseases primarily transmitted by sexual activity? In my opinion, that's what's nutty. Some of this stuff is not going to kill anybody with a healthy immune system. Why vaccinate? (I mean, really - chicken pox? A couple inconvenient days of itchy bumps?) Vaccination has become, in some people's eyes, a panacea for every ill. And while I agree that vaccines have saved a lot of people and that I wouldn't want to live in a pre-vaccination world, I think we can apply some common sense in making decisions for ourselves as individuals and not just blindly following the herd.
So we decided by the time #2 came along that we were going to hold all further vaccination until age 5. And I know it's not scientific, but #2 and #3 have had a lot fewer colds and run-of-the-mill illnesses than #1 - who received a good portion of the vaccinations young - did. Our pediatrician looks at us askance at every visit, but we believe, as informed and responsible parents, that we are following the best course for our kids.
I'd love to get all my compensation in cash, so I could make my own choices. But health insurance is given as an untaxed benefit - an equivalent amount of cash would result in me getting less insurance because I'd be taxed. So we need to get rid of income tax, so we can be compensated in cash, so I can buy my own insurance. More freedom all-around!
See www.comicbookfonts.com and www.blambot.com.
Don't principals accept "mom notes" by email yet? Kids will have to be able to forge email addresses and SMTP headers. Debate the merits of handwriting all you want, but I'm sure we can all agree that learning SMTP is a valuable life skill.
I'd be happy if the U.S. pulled it's military out of other countries, and let them supply their own military defense. There's no reason one country should try to protect half the world. If the U.S. were to do that, you can bet military spending would drop to be more in line with other nations.
No way. I even mentioned iCab in my master's thesis.
I'd say another problem is that modern government regards science as evil. You can't even buy yourself a decent home chemistry set like those popular 50 years ago. You might be "a terrorist". I'm sure it was bad enough when a nation full of overprotective mothers were worried that Johnny was going to blow himself up with that. Now we've got an overprotective nanny state worried that Johnny might blow up others with that.
Freedom encourages inquiry and discovery, and thereby encourages science. Is it any small wonder that limiting freedom limits scientific curiousity as well?
My question is, has it been released (or does it compile without problem) on a BSD yet?
However, you don't see multitudes of fundamentalists jumping out to bash every atheist/humanist-slanted post made on Slashdot. From the religious posters here, I almost universally see tolerance. The venomous posts are almost universally made by anti-religionists.
UI for this has been around for quite some time, at least in a few browsers. Unfortunately, the best implementation for Firefox that I've seen, the cmSiteNavigation extension, no longer works with 3.x. Anyone want to update it?
I was thinking that just the other day. I'd like to see the serif, sans-serif, monospace, cursive, and fantasy expanded to something like serif-oldstyle, serif-transitional, serif-modern, and serif-slab (that all default to generic serif if there are none available); sans-serif-grotesque, sans-serif-transitional, sans-serif-humanist, and sans-serif-geometric (again, all defaulting to generic sans-serif); monospace-serif and monospace-sans-serif (ditto); cursive-formal, cursive-casual, and cursive-blackletter (yadda yadda); and fantasy (of which there are too many possibilities to really split out).
Personally, I like the idea of downloadable fonts. How's it any different than downloading images or other media to display in a web page? Except that the text of the page is still usable even if the font can't download, or it's read offline, or viewed in Lynx, or whatever. To me it seems to be a definite improvement.
Anyone want to port Gecko (or WebKit, I'm not picky) to use a ncurses UI? That ought to speed it up, and be pretty useful too.
Especially sharks.
Since the thing slipped in there in part due to pressure differences, why not overpressurize the crew compartment? Or take the orbiter up on the 747 while pressurized? Maybe combined with dry-icing the knob, it will come out.
Try Constitution or Libertarian.
Since I have a Mac, I use Chalkboard instead! Huuuge improvement, I must say.
You need to change your nick to "BadPoetryGuy" now.
Or they'll spend time and money porting Solaris to POWER, or AIX to Sparc, or something.
Low cost??? I have to scrounge to get the $15 or $20 for the used 40 or 80 GB drives I see on Craigslist. Else I'm stuck with the 2-5 GB drives that came with the second- and third-hand computers that are all I have to educate myself with. Once the OS is installed, they're already almost full. My only USB drive is a 16 MB (yes, MB) freebie I got as a Google promo about 5 years ago.
If anyone has hardware you're basically chucking out the door, please consider posting it to your local LUG mailing list, then to Craigslist. Many of us would see your trash as a significant upgrade. I can't thank enough the guys that provided my old SGI and Sun boxes for free. They were virtually obsolete, but still useful to me to get a first exposure to IRIX and Solaris.
Funny...I read the story and was going to ask on this thread, "Where could I get an ARM-based laptop to run Linux on?" All day on a battery would be fantastic.
I'm a couple years younger than you, and lived in a rural area where this wasn't so easy. But even in the early 80s it was worthwhile to stop the car to pick up cans you might see in a ditch. Gas was much cheaper, and not as many people recycled, so it worked.
Deserves at least a +1 Insightful.