Even the 'War on Terr'r' is a nonsense. Face it: car drivers in America kill fourteen times as many Americans [driveandstayalive.com] every year as Al Quaeda have ever killed. Do you have a 'War on Cars'?
I have heard this one many times here on/. Let me suggest that you return to high school math and study derivatives (you know, trends). In the 70s terrorism killed small numbers of people (think Munich). In the 80s terrorism killed hundreds (think Lockerbie). In 2001 terrorism killed thousands. This is called exponential growth. Car accidents, on the other hand, are killing fewer per capita now than they did 40 years ago because cars are now safer. Somewhere around 45,000 people die in car accidents in the US last year - and that number is not changing much year to year. Based on the geometric increase in terrorism deaths one can easily and comfortably project a crossover where terrorism kills more than cars in 10 years. Heck all it will take is one small nuke or chemical attack in a large city to kill hundreds of thousands. No, we are correct to declare war on terrorism. I have an idea... maybe we should give terrorists cars hoping they will die in an auto accident.
Many people complain that phone service didn't get any cheaper, and customer service didn't get any better after the breakup of AT&T but there were some good things that happened also.
That may be true, but per my assertion, the vast majority of US phones are now made abroad. Back when AT&T had a monopoly every phone was US-made. Of course that was because it wasn't possible to attach any other phones to Ma Bell's network, but it certainly made for favorable conditions as regards the trade deficit.
I would bet that the good points of the AT&T breakup outweighed the bad by a significant margin
I agree that the US consumer benefited overall from the AT&T breakup. However, so did foreign companies who could suddenly participate in the huge US telecom market.
A breakup of Microsoft would be one of the best things that we could do to preserve the ability of the US software industry to compete in the long run.
That is debatable. Why would the US software industry suddenly be better able to compete sans Microsoft, but foreign companies would not? I think if you remove MS from the equation it would be a free-for-all, with a much larger share of the pie going overseas. For starters, if Microsoft were to be dismantled, there would be a massive $20+ billion dollar per year dent in US tech exports that would have to be made up by other US companies. Much of that business would no doubt go to other US companies, but a healthy chunk would also go abroad... contributing further to the tech trade deficit.
My original comment was specifically addressing what I perceive to be one significant factor in today's tech trade deficit. It is a completely different discussion as what affects these tech trade deficits have on the country. FWIW, I happen to think they don't matter much in the grand scheme of things.
Tell me another country whose government routinely punishes their most successful companies (AT&T, IBM, Microsoft) while at the same time spending billions to prop up failing companies (Chrysler). This is backwards behavior that naturally leads to trade deficits. What surprises me is how the US government does not smarten up and notice everyone else laughing at us.
So why is there talk about trading liberty for security?
The examples you cited (gun accidents, "sock-wearing" accidents) are a) accidents and b) not a growing problem. Terrorism, on the other hand, is a deliberate act (and so there MAY be some way for us to dissuade or eliminate those who might choose it) and it is a *dramatically growing* phenomenon (and so while less serious in absolute numbers today, the trend is frightening).
I for one am always much more concerned with trends than I am with current conditions. And there is no denying that the trend for terrorism is sharply (exponentially) on the increase. In the 70s, individual terrorist acts caused fewer than 10 deaths (Munich). In the 80s the ante was upped to hundreds (Lockerbie). In the 90s we are dealing with terrorist acts that kill thousands. And if some terrorist succeeds in getting ahold of and setting off a nucleur device, biological weapon, or dirty bomb, we may be looking at 10s of thousands, or even 100s of thousands of deaths. At that point I submit most reasonable people would admit that terrorism was a more serious problem that gun accidents, car accidents, or most any other accidental death scenario you can name. It's funny, from what I have seen around/., the same crowd that is willing/eager to extrapolate a ~1 degree rise in the ocean temperatures over a 50 year period into a global catastrophe is not able or willing to also extrapolate the geometric growth rate of terrorism, and acknowledge that it, too, is a serious problem worthy of our attention.
I think the word I used was ubiquitous, not "serious". The fact that millions of machines from scores of hardware vendors could run my applications, and I didn't have to test on each and every variant, is what I meant by ubiquitous. People bring up CPM, and Unix, and others, but only Windows achieved broad-based support across many different vendors' hardware. Sure, any of the others *might* have been better, or *could* have been the winner, but the simple fact remains that Windows won the race, and people like me reaped many benefits because of that.
And yes, as proof of my graybeard credentials, I remember the silly Open Software Foundation (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Software_Founda tion) when the old guard hardware/Unix vendors tried desperately to remain relevant by allying with each other. In fact I was called to an all-hands meeting to witness (live via video) the various CEOs commit their respective companies to this new alliance. But nothing ever came of it because the horse was out of the barn already. FWIW, I also remember snickering, as an early PC adopter who could readily read the writing on the wall.
Huh? As a graybeard I remember those horrible days where we got our OS from our hardware vendor, along with the "opportunity" to buy their crappy, proprietary, $10,000/seat applications. Further, as an application developer, I remember those dark, pre-Windows days when I had to test my software on reams of different hardware; it was not a good use of my time, but without a ubiquitous layer between my application and the hardware (any vendor's hardware), I had no choice. Counter to your assertion, I think Microsoft has played a major role in improving the life of people like me. Admittedly, they have gotten rich in the process; they weren't doing it out of altruism. But I do not begrudge them their profits. I gladly pay the "Microsoft tax", which is a pittance in the grand scheme of things, in return for the many benefits their efforts have afforded me.
Actually, theft is not defined that way at all. There is no mention of intent or permanance (at least in dictionary.com). Stealing is merely defined as "the taking the property of others without permission". Downloading certainly meets this definition. The real issue is that we have a language and a set of laws which evolved when things of value were physical and not easily/perfectly copied. The reality is, as currently defined by the law, downloading copyrighted material without the copyright holder's permission is theft. It seems to me that we need to change the laws to adapt them to the new realities, not just blatantly disobey them because we think they are wrong, unfair or inconvenient. "Fair Use" was one attempt at this, but that law pre-dated the internet, which made it orders of magnitude easier to "share". DMCA also addresses the issue, but I think most around here would agree that it is a poor attempt. Clearly there is much more work to be done - and of course it is a moving target as technology marches on.
XP sales will thrive until businesses switch over, which will take some time. And the more saavy businesses will wait for service pack one before switching. This is not surprising - we saw a similar phenomena back when XP came out. Here is an article from as recent as 2005 talking about the slow switchover from 98/2000 to XP http://www.betanews.com/article/Windows_XP_Adoptio n_Rates_Slow/1118943913
I am in the process of learning Vista right now. My first impressions are that there are some things to like (lots of problem diagnosis tools, configuration history tracking, network mapping, etc) and some things that make you scratch your head (I have yet to figure out how to coerce Vista to allow my backup service to start each time I boot - I always have to "give permission". I know I can turn off User Access Control entirely, but that seems a bit draconian and not really "in the spirit" of Vista).
Who is more likely to do a good job--someone who is doing what they do because they *enjoy* doing it (amateurs and hobbyists) or somebody that is trying to get by at work
Interesting. It has been my experience that the "fun parts" such as designing and coding may well be better done by enthusiasts. However, the all important drudge work such as testing, fixing mundane defects, providing technical support to non-technical users, and writing documentation are not usually areas where amateurs eagerly participate. Hence the relative lack of polish and finish on most FOSS applications.
While I share your disgust with the Big Dig, there are a few factual errors in your post. The cost is more like $15 billion (not hundreds of billions, but still a sizable chunk of change). And Mass residents, actually, more specifically, turnpike users, are footing a chunk of that bill. This is actually a sore point because North Shore and South Shore residents don't have to pay, but people coming from the (politically weak) western suburbs are foced to pay higher tolls - yet all 3 groups benefit (to the degree it is a benefit) from the tunnel.
The funniest (saddest) part of the whole thing is that the so-called "greenway" (which is the new land area above the tunnel that was formerly the elevated highway "eyesore") is now just an open sore construction area - sand, barrels, etc. Meanwhile all the entrenched interest groups fight over how it should be finished and how to get other people to pay for that work. Uggggh.
Yeah, because the things that cause Global Warming also have no impact on health.
You're right. For instance, sunlight... oh wait.
I'm certainly not as qualified as the Surgeon General to speculate about this, but it seems to me that clouding the atmosphere up with CO2 might possibly reduce some health hazards such as those that derive from solar exposure, like melanoma. Now, I don't know what the Surgeon General was saying about Global Warming, but I bet it wasn't about any potential health *benefits* which we may derive from it. This reminds me of the folks who go on and on about all the species that will become extinct due to Global Warming... without ever mentioning all the new species that will evolve. Climate change is exactly that -- change -- and it has been happening since earth formed. Some species and geographies win, and some lose. We may or may not be accelerating it through our actions (my opinion is human activity is contributing, but is not a major cause) but it is going to happen with or without us. Because of this, I believe our efforts should concentrate on dealing with it rather than trying to stop it.
... with regards to the Global Warming debate, is that people with no real knowledge on the subject (on both sides) persist in making declarations as if they were experts. This is further exacerbated, whether it's Hollywood loonies or right-wing religious fanatics, by their tendency to latch onto and espouse the most draconian of opinions. FWIW, in my opinion the Surgeon General has no more credibility on Global Warming than does Rush Limbaugh, and so his being asked to "stifle" does not bother me. Now, as regards stem cell research, that's a whole different ballgame.
There is no conspiracy. They are simply reacting to competitive pressures. They probably determined that Linux laptop sales would not be dramatically higher with the extra RAM promotion since they don't really have any competition for Linux laptops; they are the only game in town among the big vendors. Conversely, in the Windows world I think HP is eating their lunch (HP is heavily discounting their new Santa Rosa dvx5 series), and so they need these discounts to shore up sales.
why is the grocery store selling them for $1.50 in the evening?
ummm.... they are no longer fresh and will be inedible by the next day. Their value is diminished. How much a store or business charges for a product has almost nothing to do with what it costs -- it has everything to do with what its customers will pay. And people won't pay top dollar for stale donuts. This is not too complicated. I think it is you who needs a class in microeconomics. As to your question about whether the store will make money if it always sells donuts for $1.50 - perhaps. Sales volume will probably increase. But depending on their baking capacity they may run out of donuts routinely every day, causing some of their loyal customers to go elsewhere for their donuts, even though they are more expensive.
Thanks for substantiating my claim that Medicare pays less than private insurance. As to your assertion that if everyone was paid for by Medicare you personally would see more revenue, I can only observe that your situation is not representative of the whole health-care market. You said 30% of the people you treat have no insurance, public or private. I know from my sister-in-law, who is an ER nurse, that ERs see a significant volume of uninsured patients, but I also know that many (most?) of them are illegal aliens who would presumably not even be covered under Medicare. So if I assumed that 2/3rds of those uninsured people you treat are illegals not subject to Medicare, I would recompute your revenue to be 80% paid by Medicare at $100 each, and 20% not paid at all, leaving you with $8000. Or are you suggesting that even non-citizens would be paid for by Medicare? If so, that is a system that would surely bankrupt the nation, given our porous borders, don't you think?
It is well known that Medicare patients are being subsidized by the rest of us. That is principally why there is such a disparity in "cost". The Medicare rates are dictated by the government and they don't come close, in most cases, to covering the costs.
And so the medical community passes the shortfall on to the rest of their customers. Ask any doctor about Medicare reimbursements and she will tell you the same thing. They are much lower than they should be. So, you say, have the government dictate reimbursements for everyone (ie socialized care) and that solves the problem. Inevitably that inevitably leads to poorer care, since capping income drives the best/smartest people into other, more lucrative fields than medicine. Just what we need, more lawyers, venture capitalists and professional politicians! I for one would much rather that the smartest among us become physicians, nurses, etc., and I am more than willing to make/keep them the highest paid people in our society. Besides, any time government runs things, all you get is unresponsive, bureacratic, bloated mediocrity -- see US Post Office, public schools, FDA, Department of Motor Vehicles, IRS, DHS, FEMA... the list is long.
including profits, of course)
A telling parenthetical quote... much of those nasty profits get plowed back into the hospital in the form of new equipment, the funding of clinical research, and raises for their employees. Profit is not evil. Rather, it is a) indicative of a sustainable, well-managed entity and b) it enables investment and improvement.
Very well said. It is refreshing, for a change, to read a comment that is thoughtful and lucid, rather than the much more typical rants saturated with hate and motivated by envy.
That's not to say that I can entirely fault the insurance companies here, either, though - the only reason they raise rates for people independently purchasing health insurance is that their statistics have shown that people who buy it independently are much more likely to actually use it than those that get it through their employer.
And here you have nailed the crux of the problem. The Boston Globe interviewed a bunch of young people this past week, asking them about the mandatory insurance. Virtually every one of them said "I may have to leave the state because I don't want to pay for health insurance when I don't need it". The only way health insurance can be affordable is if everyone has to pay something. The healthy and the young *must* subsidize the sick and the old or costs to the sick and old spiral out of reach. This to me is the strongest argument for socialized healthcare.
As an aside, many people don't know how we ended up with this bizarre system whereby people get their health insurance through their employers. This in fact is another contributor to runaway costs because, since the consumer is not paying the insurer there is no incentive to "shop around" for more affordable insurance. Back during WWII, FDR instituted wage freezes in an attempt to control inflation. Companies, still desperate for workers, began offering health insurance as a way to work around the wage freezes. So here we are today with this screwed up system which is largely due to unintended consequences of a government "fix" to a different problem. As you can clearly see from my sig, I am *very wary* of any government solution. Government is an extremely blunt instrument which cannot be used, if you'll pardon the pun, in a surgical fashion to address societal issues. Now perhaps socialized healthcare is a broad enough problem, but then there are many people in the US who are very happy with the status quo.
It will be interesting to see how the Massachusetts system plays out.
Slashdot Mirror
I agree that the US consumer benefited overall from the AT&T breakup. However, so did foreign companies who could suddenly participate in the huge US telecom market.
That is debatable. Why would the US software industry suddenly be better able to compete sans Microsoft, but foreign companies would not? I think if you remove MS from the equation it would be a free-for-all, with a much larger share of the pie going overseas. For starters, if Microsoft were to be dismantled, there would be a massive $20+ billion dollar per year dent in US tech exports that would have to be made up by other US companies. Much of that business would no doubt go to other US companies, but a healthy chunk would also go abroad
My original comment was specifically addressing what I perceive to be one significant factor in today's tech trade deficit. It is a completely different discussion as what affects these tech trade deficits have on the country. FWIW, I happen to think they don't matter much in the grand scheme of things.
Tell me another country whose government routinely punishes their most successful companies (AT&T, IBM, Microsoft) while at the same time spending billions to prop up failing companies (Chrysler). This is backwards behavior that naturally leads to trade deficits. What surprises me is how the US government does not smarten up and notice everyone else laughing at us.
I for one am always much more concerned with trends than I am with current conditions. And there is no denying that the trend for terrorism is sharply (exponentially) on the increase. In the 70s, individual terrorist acts caused fewer than 10 deaths (Munich). In the 80s the ante was upped to hundreds (Lockerbie). In the 90s we are dealing with terrorist acts that kill thousands. And if some terrorist succeeds in getting ahold of and setting off a nucleur device, biological weapon, or dirty bomb, we may be looking at 10s of thousands, or even 100s of thousands of deaths. At that point I submit most reasonable people would admit that terrorism was a more serious problem that gun accidents, car accidents, or most any other accidental death scenario you can name. It's funny, from what I have seen around
I think the word I used was ubiquitous, not "serious". The fact that millions of machines from scores of hardware vendors could run my applications, and I didn't have to test on each and every variant, is what I meant by ubiquitous. People bring up CPM, and Unix, and others, but only Windows achieved broad-based support across many different vendors' hardware. Sure, any of the others *might* have been better, or *could* have been the winner, but the simple fact remains that Windows won the race, and people like me reaped many benefits because of that.
a tion) when the old guard hardware/Unix vendors tried desperately to remain relevant by allying with each other. In fact I was called to an all-hands meeting to witness (live via video) the various CEOs commit their respective companies to this new alliance. But nothing ever came of it because the horse was out of the barn already. FWIW, I also remember snickering, as an early PC adopter who could readily read the writing on the wall.
And yes, as proof of my graybeard credentials, I remember the silly Open Software Foundation (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Software_Found
Huh? As a graybeard I remember those horrible days where we got our OS from our hardware vendor, along with the "opportunity" to buy their crappy, proprietary, $10,000/seat applications. Further, as an application developer, I remember those dark, pre-Windows days when I had to test my software on reams of different hardware; it was not a good use of my time, but without a ubiquitous layer between my application and the hardware (any vendor's hardware), I had no choice. Counter to your assertion, I think Microsoft has played a major role in improving the life of people like me. Admittedly, they have gotten rich in the process; they weren't doing it out of altruism. But I do not begrudge them their profits. I gladly pay the "Microsoft tax", which is a pittance in the grand scheme of things, in return for the many benefits their efforts have afforded me.
So if your math is right, these Anonymous types have 50% more time in a day than the rest of us? No wonder everyone is worried about them.
That probably explains Al Gore's gargantuan electricity bill then.
Actually, theft is not defined that way at all. There is no mention of intent or permanance (at least in dictionary.com). Stealing is merely defined as "the taking the property of others without permission". Downloading certainly meets this definition. The real issue is that we have a language and a set of laws which evolved when things of value were physical and not easily/perfectly copied. The reality is, as currently defined by the law, downloading copyrighted material without the copyright holder's permission is theft. It seems to me that we need to change the laws to adapt them to the new realities, not just blatantly disobey them because we think they are wrong, unfair or inconvenient. "Fair Use" was one attempt at this, but that law pre-dated the internet, which made it orders of magnitude easier to "share". DMCA also addresses the issue, but I think most around here would agree that it is a poor attempt. Clearly there is much more work to be done - and of course it is a moving target as technology marches on.
XP sales will thrive until businesses switch over, which will take some time. And the more saavy businesses will wait for service pack one before switching. This is not surprising - we saw a similar phenomena back when XP came out. Here is an article from as recent as 2005 talking about the slow switchover from 98/2000 to XP http://www.betanews.com/article/Windows_XP_Adoptio n_Rates_Slow/1118943913
I am in the process of learning Vista right now. My first impressions are that there are some things to like (lots of problem diagnosis tools, configuration history tracking, network mapping, etc) and some things that make you scratch your head (I have yet to figure out how to coerce Vista to allow my backup service to start each time I boot - I always have to "give permission". I know I can turn off User Access Control entirely, but that seems a bit draconian and not really "in the spirit" of Vista).
While I share your disgust with the Big Dig, there are a few factual errors in your post. The cost is more like $15 billion (not hundreds of billions, but still a sizable chunk of change). And Mass residents, actually, more specifically, turnpike users, are footing a chunk of that bill. This is actually a sore point because North Shore and South Shore residents don't have to pay, but people coming from the (politically weak) western suburbs are foced to pay higher tolls - yet all 3 groups benefit (to the degree it is a benefit) from the tunnel.
The funniest (saddest) part of the whole thing is that the so-called "greenway" (which is the new land area above the tunnel that was formerly the elevated highway "eyesore") is now just an open sore construction area - sand, barrels, etc. Meanwhile all the entrenched interest groups fight over how it should be finished and how to get other people to pay for that work. Uggggh.
Coward.
...
Why should I care what a coward "thinks"
I'm certainly not as qualified as the Surgeon General to speculate about this, but it seems to me that clouding the atmosphere up with CO2 might possibly reduce some health hazards such as those that derive from solar exposure, like melanoma. Now, I don't know what the Surgeon General was saying about Global Warming, but I bet it wasn't about any potential health *benefits* which we may derive from it. This reminds me of the folks who go on and on about all the species that will become extinct due to Global Warming
... with regards to the Global Warming debate, is that people with no real knowledge on the subject (on both sides) persist in making declarations as if they were experts. This is further exacerbated, whether it's Hollywood loonies or right-wing religious fanatics, by their tendency to latch onto and espouse the most draconian of opinions. FWIW, in my opinion the Surgeon General has no more credibility on Global Warming than does Rush Limbaugh, and so his being asked to "stifle" does not bother me. Now, as regards stem cell research, that's a whole different ballgame.
There is no conspiracy. They are simply reacting to competitive pressures. They probably determined that Linux laptop sales would not be dramatically higher with the extra RAM promotion since they don't really have any competition for Linux laptops; they are the only game in town among the big vendors. Conversely, in the Windows world I think HP is eating their lunch (HP is heavily discounting their new Santa Rosa dvx5 series), and so they need these discounts to shore up sales.
Wow! Only 9 posts till Bush is dragged into this thread.
Thanks for substantiating my claim that Medicare pays less than private insurance. As to your assertion that if everyone was paid for by Medicare you personally would see more revenue, I can only observe that your situation is not representative of the whole health-care market. You said 30% of the people you treat have no insurance, public or private. I know from my sister-in-law, who is an ER nurse, that ERs see a significant volume of uninsured patients, but I also know that many (most?) of them are illegal aliens who would presumably not even be covered under Medicare. So if I assumed that 2/3rds of those uninsured people you treat are illegals not subject to Medicare, I would recompute your revenue to be 80% paid by Medicare at $100 each, and 20% not paid at all, leaving you with $8000. Or are you suggesting that even non-citizens would be paid for by Medicare? If so, that is a system that would surely bankrupt the nation, given our porous borders, don't you think?
http://www.everettclinic.com/About_Us/Legislative
http://action.lls.org/site/c.lkL1J8MLKrH/b.143475
http://www.ama-assn.org/amednews/site/free/gvl102
And so the medical community passes the shortfall on to the rest of their customers. Ask any doctor about Medicare reimbursements and she will tell you the same thing. They are much lower than they should be. So, you say, have the government dictate reimbursements for everyone (ie socialized care) and that solves the problem. Inevitably that inevitably leads to poorer care, since capping income drives the best/smartest people into other, more lucrative fields than medicine. Just what we need, more lawyers, venture capitalists and professional politicians! I for one would much rather that the smartest among us become physicians, nurses, etc., and I am more than willing to make/keep them the highest paid people in our society. Besides, any time government runs things, all you get is unresponsive, bureacratic, bloated mediocrity -- see US Post Office, public schools, FDA, Department of Motor Vehicles, IRS, DHS, FEMA
Very well said. It is refreshing, for a change, to read a comment that is thoughtful and lucid, rather than the much more typical rants saturated with hate and motivated by envy.
As an aside, many people don't know how we ended up with this bizarre system whereby people get their health insurance through their employers. This in fact is another contributor to runaway costs because, since the consumer is not paying the insurer there is no incentive to "shop around" for more affordable insurance. Back during WWII, FDR instituted wage freezes in an attempt to control inflation. Companies, still desperate for workers, began offering health insurance as a way to work around the wage freezes. So here we are today with this screwed up system which is largely due to unintended consequences of a government "fix" to a different problem. As you can clearly see from my sig, I am *very wary* of any government solution. Government is an extremely blunt instrument which cannot be used, if you'll pardon the pun, in a surgical fashion to address societal issues. Now perhaps socialized healthcare is a broad enough problem, but then there are many people in the US who are very happy with the status quo.
It will be interesting to see how the Massachusetts system plays out.