In the US all hospitals are required by Federal and state laws to treat anyone without discrimination. You do not have to prove you have insurance or can pay prior to treatment. In the event a patient can't pay, most hospitals have a social worker on staff who administer indigent cases. In such cases, the hospital has no way to recover the money due other than to write it off on their taxes. So, US taxpayers are already subsidizing medical care. This policy - a perfectly justifiable one IMO - is one of the major causes of medical costs being out of control. Just ask any medical practitioner in California or Arizona, states that are overwhelmed by an illegal immigrant problem.
The state of health in the homeless population is due mostly to the fact that many are drug addicts, or have had other problems for which they have not sought treatment. Many "homeless" won't agree to be housed, let alone go to the hospital for extended treatment. That's the facts, regardless of what others here may shout with great indignity that the wealthiest country has neighborhoods full of sick and dying people we hide from view.
The credit reporting system in the US is in need of a major overhaul, but beating the banking lobby is tough. Seems it really doesn't matter what party is in charge. A recent attempt to rein in the credit card industry was very watered down when all of the lobbyists put the hammer to the party of hope and change, the Democrats. I believe in free markets but the financial sector needs tight regulation, primarily because they are the engine that keeps the US economy moving and everything they do should be as transparent as possible.
With all of our electronic communication these days, I wonder if we've lost the ability to just talk to each other, face to face and with real emotion, not some goofy emoticon.
First thing - get rid of the books about marriage. Most are useless, authored by people who have had real problems and think they can now solve the world's problems. Spend a lot of time with each other and talk - honestly and openly. Your lady may be a literary geek, but she's still a woman, and women respond to verbal communication far better than us knuckle-draggin' males.
It may seem uncomfortable to be that open, but if both of you practice this, you'll not only gain a good marriage partner, you have a new best friend.
Jeezuz, I hope HTML 5 has an effin' tag so asshats like you don't have to get your panties all in a knot.
You wanted an argument? It's Slashdot fer cryin' out loud. And to the 14 year old who modded me TROLL - many thanks. When I get my 15 points watch out!!
To survive in this world, one must be a victim so the (insert Western government name here) government can take care of you - with monthly checks, no doubt.
Moreover, the customers are individuals or small businesses, meaning there is practically nothing to fear in the form of loss of business due to dissatisfied customer base or defamation. It's not like they have too many other choices.
You'd get my mod points for this statement alone, if I had any....
You can exist without a credit card, but having one does make things easier, especially when you travel. But if you slip up on the rules, cc issuers will nail you. Few businesses would ever stand for that kind of thing but without significant legal protection, the cc issuers can do anything they please.
Stupidity is raised to a new level at cc banks. Several years ago, I thought I had paid off a card, only to receive a statement with a.33 balance on it. It cost at that time, about.35 to mail the damn statement, and who knows how much the processing costs were, and they paid for the call on the toll free number I made to ask if they really thought I was going to write a check for that absurd amount. The CSR removed the charge, but wouldn't it have made more sense for their systems to NOT produce a statement and automatically delete the charge?
I don't like a lot of government regulation, but when an industry is as stupid as the cc industry, clearly they need a lot of oversight.
The basic approach to being declared unstable was to simply obsess on any given concept - it didn't need to be anything particularly grisly or perverted. Butterflies would do just fine.
I think new drivers need time before the ability to navigate kicks in. Yes, you may have been on certain roads many times before you drove, but when you're behind the wheel, the perspective changes and you truly are multi-tasking. In your brain, the navigation thread gets a lower priority to the driving thread - staying out of an accident is more demanding.
I started using a GPS two years ago when I received one as a present. As with many "old guys", I didn't inherently trust the female voice, figuring it couldn't know all of the details I know of Boston area streets. To my surprise, it is usually spot-on accurate and now routinely saves me lots of time when I am in an area I'm not familiar with.
The GPS is a useful tool and one of those inventions that will eventually become commonplace. I'd hate to see map reading go the way of how to read an analog clock or learning cursive handwriting. One could argue that if we're expected to do less driving to reduce our "carbon footprint" then when we drive, we need to do it more efficiently and a GPS will help do that.
When this happens in this day and age the CIO should be fired! And if the CIO recommended a redundant D.C. but the CEO, CFO or Board rejected it as "too expensive"????
If that's the case, then the aformentioned officers should give up their pay to the thousands of merchants who lost their day's pay due to this problem. Yeah, like that'll happen.
Phone lines occasionally go out and that might affect local merchants, but when it's a data center that handles the livelihoods of thousands of merchants, there needs to be much greater redundancy. The businesses that are affected by this are not all huge e-tailers either. Many are just small operators trying to make a living on the web. As it stands now, a merchant can't have multiple card processors unless he's willing to pay the monthly fees for two processors. I've never heard of that being done and doubt it would be feasible.
Merchants affected by this will just have to suck it up, but for those who are not involved in e-commerce, this is a shining example of how doing business with credit card processors is dancing with the devil. They screw you on all of the charges, they screw you on chargebacks, and now they've screwed a lot of small business people by denying them income, probably because it wasn't cost effective to have a first class backup plan.
Chick: Mum, do chickens come from humans?
Hen: No, Chickens come from eggs.
Chick: Mum, do eggs come from humans?
Hen: No, eggs are laid.
Chick: Mum, are humans laid?
Hen: Some are, but others are slashdot geeks!
I remember hearing about an aircraft canopy design being tested against bird strike by having dead chickens fired at it via an air cannon. It was the best emulation they could come up with.
They couldn't find any volunteers. They were all chicken.
Not only the costs, but the loss of trust. Email users (that's pretty much all of us), especially the non-tech types, have been told over and over to not respond to email. Some understand the instruction, many do not, but there are many who now think any email they don't like or want is spam.
I operate a web site for an author who sells his own books. We keep in touch with his internet customer base via email, using Constant Contact, a very good and ethical bulk email service. Inevitably, after we've sent an email campaign, I see several who have marked the email as spam. They didn't just unsubscribe, they went the extra steps to report our email as spam, which it isn't because they opted-in. One fellow even sent an email to the author accusing him of sending spam. Ironically, the guy has a web based business and on his web site guess what he has - an email sign-up field!
For small businesses, email should be a godsend - no paper is used, no postage is purchased and the cost is small. Thanks to turds like Ralsky, emailing one's customers has become problematic and is close to being a waste of time. People have been so pounded by all the crap, legitimate communications are categorized with the sh*t he and his ilk have produced.
I don't think capital punishment is appropriate, but six years isn't enough. More like 25 in a Supermax would be about right.
I don't think anyone outside of Iran knows the truth.
Iranians living in the US know the truth. Seek out what they have to say on Google.
By the way, you may think the US government is FOS, but take note of the language used on many of the protester's signs. They're in English, and I don't think they are necessarily looking for attention from the Brits.
Having worked with a former Iranian several years ago, I can tell you only what he told me - there can be terrible consequences if someone speaks out against the ruling mullahs. I, for one, would like to see this upheaval undermine the bastards that are ruling that otherwise magnificent country, populated by smart hard working people.
that everyone has a social security number. There is no requirement to have one. I love the stunned looks I get when I reply "I don't have one". I actually have one, but they don't need to know that either.
You're correct that an SSN is not required, but assuming you are employed, your employer IS required to file taxes in your name and that requires an SSN.
If you are employed, file taxes and wish to take a deduction for your child, the child must have an SSN. Hospitals now routinely fill out and transmit the SSN paper work before your infant even leaves the hospital.
The Exalted One's administration (Obama) recently filed for legislation to "overhaul" the credit card industry, but AFAIK, never touched the SSN requirement. Why? Because the banking lobby is one of the most powerful in Washington.
On the front of your SSN card it says "Not For Identification", yet businesses have routinely done so for decades. It's time to put a stop to this abuse and require business to establish a secure option to the SSN. Losing control of your SSN is handing over the keys to the castle. If businesses can't manage to secure CC numbers, how can we trust them to secure this most important number?
Would you agree that despite the security paradigm of Linux-based OSes, that the overriding security problem is social engineering?
You know - your (insert non-tech relative name here) would open an attachment, download a free app, visit a malicious website - something that some clever criminal would use to lure them to defeat the security. Or worse, with a prevalence of *nix OSes in use, actually break the system.
An old cliche might be applicable here - why do we climb mountains? Because they're there. Hackers, spammers and malware writers seem to live by that creed too. *nix OSes are just another mountain to be conquered.
Slashdot Mirror
In the US all hospitals are required by Federal and state laws to treat anyone without discrimination. You do not have to prove you have insurance or can pay prior to treatment. In the event a patient can't pay, most hospitals have a social worker on staff who administer indigent cases. In such cases, the hospital has no way to recover the money due other than to write it off on their taxes. So, US taxpayers are already subsidizing medical care. This policy - a perfectly justifiable one IMO - is one of the major causes of medical costs being out of control. Just ask any medical practitioner in California or Arizona, states that are overwhelmed by an illegal immigrant problem.
The state of health in the homeless population is due mostly to the fact that many are drug addicts, or have had other problems for which they have not sought treatment. Many "homeless" won't agree to be housed, let alone go to the hospital for extended treatment. That's the facts, regardless of what others here may shout with great indignity that the wealthiest country has neighborhoods full of sick and dying people we hide from view.
The credit reporting system in the US is in need of a major overhaul, but beating the banking lobby is tough. Seems it really doesn't matter what party is in charge. A recent attempt to rein in the credit card industry was very watered down when all of the lobbyists put the hammer to the party of hope and change, the Democrats. I believe in free markets but the financial sector needs tight regulation, primarily because they are the engine that keeps the US economy moving and everything they do should be as transparent as possible.
With all of our electronic communication these days, I wonder if we've lost the ability to just talk to each other, face to face and with real emotion, not some goofy emoticon.
First thing - get rid of the books about marriage. Most are useless, authored by people who have had real problems and think they can now solve the world's problems. Spend a lot of time with each other and talk - honestly and openly. Your lady may be a literary geek, but she's still a woman, and women respond to verbal communication far better than us knuckle-draggin' males.
It may seem uncomfortable to be that open, but if both of you practice this, you'll not only gain a good marriage partner, you have a new best friend.
Sometimes, love has no barriers...
Taylor:"Doctor, I'd like to kiss you"
Zira:"Alright....but, you're so damned ugly...."
Jeezuz, I hope HTML 5 has an effin' tag so asshats like you don't have to get your panties all in a knot.
You wanted an argument? It's Slashdot fer cryin' out loud. And to the 14 year old who modded me TROLL - many thanks. When I get my 15 points watch out!!
To survive in this world, one must be a victim so the (insert Western government name here) government can take care of you - with monthly checks, no doubt.
You must be this guy
Methinks there is more to this story than detailed in the reportage.
Moreover, the customers are individuals or small businesses, meaning there is practically nothing to fear in the form of loss of business due to dissatisfied customer base or defamation. It's not like they have too many other choices.
You'd get my mod points for this statement alone, if I had any....
You can exist without a credit card, but having one does make things easier, especially when you travel. But if you slip up on the rules, cc issuers will nail you. Few businesses would ever stand for that kind of thing but without significant legal protection, the cc issuers can do anything they please.
Stupidity is raised to a new level at cc banks. Several years ago, I thought I had paid off a card, only to receive a statement with a .33 balance on it. It cost at that time, about .35 to mail the damn statement, and who knows how much the processing costs were, and they paid for the call on the toll free number I made to ask if they really thought I was going to write a check for that absurd amount. The CSR removed the charge, but wouldn't it have made more sense for their systems to NOT produce a statement and automatically delete the charge?
I don't like a lot of government regulation, but when an industry is as stupid as the cc industry, clearly they need a lot of oversight.
ahhhh.....Visa OWNS Mastercard
Do I just pay the minimum?
Oh, please! you're not serious? am I just not getting the joke?
Windmills changing weather patterns? does nobody ever pick up a science book!
Yes, but it's hard to read them through the tinfoil hats.
The basic approach to being declared unstable was to simply obsess on any given concept - it didn't need to be anything particularly grisly or perverted. Butterflies would do just fine.
How about obsessing on:
Linux
Microsoft Sucks
Apple
Linux
Microsoft Sucks
Linux
Linux
Linux
asshats
What would Mom say about this?
North Koreans are still told that the mighty leader Kim-Jong Il brought down the evil western internet.
You mean it was the Queen who did it? Or was it Charles?
I think new drivers need time before the ability to navigate kicks in. Yes, you may have been on certain roads many times before you drove, but when you're behind the wheel, the perspective changes and you truly are multi-tasking. In your brain, the navigation thread gets a lower priority to the driving thread - staying out of an accident is more demanding.
I started using a GPS two years ago when I received one as a present. As with many "old guys", I didn't inherently trust the female voice, figuring it couldn't know all of the details I know of Boston area streets. To my surprise, it is usually spot-on accurate and now routinely saves me lots of time when I am in an area I'm not familiar with.
The GPS is a useful tool and one of those inventions that will eventually become commonplace. I'd hate to see map reading go the way of how to read an analog clock or learning cursive handwriting. One could argue that if we're expected to do less driving to reduce our "carbon footprint" then when we drive, we need to do it more efficiently and a GPS will help do that.
When this happens in this day and age the CIO should be fired! And if the CIO recommended a redundant D.C. but the CEO, CFO or Board rejected it as "too expensive"????
If that's the case, then the aformentioned officers should give up their pay to the thousands of merchants who lost their day's pay due to this problem. Yeah, like that'll happen.
Phone lines occasionally go out and that might affect local merchants, but when it's a data center that handles the livelihoods of thousands of merchants, there needs to be much greater redundancy. The businesses that are affected by this are not all huge e-tailers either. Many are just small operators trying to make a living on the web. As it stands now, a merchant can't have multiple card processors unless he's willing to pay the monthly fees for two processors. I've never heard of that being done and doubt it would be feasible.
Merchants affected by this will just have to suck it up, but for those who are not involved in e-commerce, this is a shining example of how doing business with credit card processors is dancing with the devil. They screw you on all of the charges, they screw you on chargebacks, and now they've screwed a lot of small business people by denying them income, probably because it wasn't cost effective to have a first class backup plan.
Happy Independence Day!
Chick: Mum, do chickens come from humans? Hen: No, Chickens come from eggs. Chick: Mum, do eggs come from humans? Hen: No, eggs are laid. Chick: Mum, are humans laid? Hen: Some are, but others are slashdot geeks!
Fixed that for you. It's more relevant now.
I remember hearing about an aircraft canopy design being tested against bird strike by having dead chickens fired at it via an air cannon. It was the best emulation they could come up with.
They couldn't find any volunteers. They were all chicken.
Therefore, I'm left to come to the same conclusion: parent poster only used his middle name as a form of feeble ad hominem.
You mean an attack like Chief Justice John G.Roberts did at Obamas' swearing in ceremony?
Not only the costs, but the loss of trust. Email users (that's pretty much all of us), especially the non-tech types, have been told over and over to not respond to email. Some understand the instruction, many do not, but there are many who now think any email they don't like or want is spam.
I operate a web site for an author who sells his own books. We keep in touch with his internet customer base via email, using Constant Contact, a very good and ethical bulk email service. Inevitably, after we've sent an email campaign, I see several who have marked the email as spam. They didn't just unsubscribe, they went the extra steps to report our email as spam, which it isn't because they opted-in. One fellow even sent an email to the author accusing him of sending spam. Ironically, the guy has a web based business and on his web site guess what he has - an email sign-up field!
For small businesses, email should be a godsend - no paper is used, no postage is purchased and the cost is small. Thanks to turds like Ralsky, emailing one's customers has become problematic and is close to being a waste of time. People have been so pounded by all the crap, legitimate communications are categorized with the sh*t he and his ilk have produced.
I don't think capital punishment is appropriate, but six years isn't enough. More like 25 in a Supermax would be about right.
Damn. Guess that means I'm decades old too......
Oh. come on - the old media is comprised of upstanding, honest folks who dream of doing anything untoward. Isn't it....?
I don't think anyone outside of Iran knows the truth.
Iranians living in the US know the truth. Seek out what they have to say on Google.
By the way, you may think the US government is FOS, but take note of the language used on many of the protester's signs. They're in English, and I don't think they are necessarily looking for attention from the Brits.
Having worked with a former Iranian several years ago, I can tell you only what he told me - there can be terrible consequences if someone speaks out against the ruling mullahs. I, for one, would like to see this upheaval undermine the bastards that are ruling that otherwise magnificent country, populated by smart hard working people.
that everyone has a social security number. There is no requirement to have one. I love the stunned looks I get when I reply "I don't have one". I actually have one, but they don't need to know that either.
You're correct that an SSN is not required, but assuming you are employed, your employer IS required to file taxes in your name and that requires an SSN.
If you are employed, file taxes and wish to take a deduction for your child, the child must have an SSN. Hospitals now routinely fill out and transmit the SSN paper work before your infant even leaves the hospital.
The Exalted One's administration (Obama) recently filed for legislation to "overhaul" the credit card industry, but AFAIK, never touched the SSN requirement. Why? Because the banking lobby is one of the most powerful in Washington.
On the front of your SSN card it says "Not For Identification", yet businesses have routinely done so for decades. It's time to put a stop to this abuse and require business to establish a secure option to the SSN. Losing control of your SSN is handing over the keys to the castle. If businesses can't manage to secure CC numbers, how can we trust them to secure this most important number?
One might think they're part of the dreaded private sector with that mindset.
Would you agree that despite the security paradigm of Linux-based OSes, that the overriding security problem is social engineering?
You know - your (insert non-tech relative name here) would open an attachment, download a free app, visit a malicious website - something that some clever criminal would use to lure them to defeat the security. Or worse, with a prevalence of *nix OSes in use, actually break the system.
An old cliche might be applicable here - why do we climb mountains? Because they're there. Hackers, spammers and malware writers seem to live by that creed too. *nix OSes are just another mountain to be conquered.