Define worst outcomes. For example my brother needed some minor surgery on his knee. Technically it was elective surgery. His biggest scheduling conflict was waiting for a day when his surgeon wasn't out golfing or whatever. Compare that to Canada or some of the other Universal Healthcare countries and he would have had to wait months to get the same surgery on average. The truth is that people with at least some means (upper-middle class and higher) have a higher standard of living than people who are on the universal healthcare plans in these countries based solely on the availability of "elective" health care services. Yes, it would be a lot better and cheaper for our poor, and I'm not opposed to that at all. It's just that the idea that the people who are spending that "twice as much on healthcare" have "worse outcomes" is a myth.
If I had mod points you'd get them. I disagree that most people want universal healthcare but everything past that is pretty much what I try to explain to people constantly, but to no avail.
Assuming you're referring primarily to the mandate... You're no more forced to purchase health insurance than you are forced to purchase an energy efficient air conditioner every year. If you don't purchase an energy efficient air conditioner you will have to pay taxes on the income you would have otherwise gotten a credit for. Now the same will be said for health care. I'm opposed to it too, but the language people use to describe it is outlandish.
I'll add another to your list. I'm a very small government conservative (against Department of Education, against even a large standing army, etc.). But I support socialized healthcare. Why? Because it's the only feasible pathway away from employer controlled healthcare. We've already killed the biggest noose employers put around their employees (pensions), the last big thing is health care. Once you strip that away from the employer you will see TONS of people starting up that small business they've always wanted to. Nothing will be better for capitalism in America than socializing healthcare. Mark my words. It's coming, and it'll be great when it happens.
You have no idea whether it's fruitful or not. Some would have argued that trying to fly planes was needless risk and wasteful. Hindsight of course being 20/20 we can see that it was worth it for all of those people to jump off cliffs with wooden bird wings attached to their arms because it furthered technology. I'm quite certain some of the technologies and methods invented for the purposes of climbing Everest will be used to allow humans to survive in other adverse conditions (moon?).
The truth about business is that having their "collective heads up their collective behinds" is that it's good business. You don't spend money until you absolutely have to. These are business intranet apps, not core business solutions where it's wise to spend some R&D on these sorts of things. Technology changes so quickly that trying to predict what browsers would look like today would have been a foolish exercise. You have to remember, it was successful for them to NOT SPEND ANY MONEY WHATSOEVER upgrading these webapps to new standards/browsers for the better part of a decade.
[tangent] My company is just now starting to migrate away from Visual Studio 6. This year we switched from Visual Source Safe, next year we're moving away from VC++ 6.0. [/tangent]
It's not as if you could develop "to standards" and expect IE6 to run your webapp. I think people forget that during the early years of IE6 there wasn't a lot of "good" standards compliance running around in browser land. So what else were the developers to do besides develop towards the 90%+ marketshare browser?
Apple produces only a small fraction of the cell phones manufactured each year. I couldn't find where Apple is on the list but the 5th top PC manufacturer produces only about 5% of the computers out there. Your original position was that Apple sells more hardware than any other OEM. You haven't provided a single bit of evidence. Now you're talking about market cap which is completely different.
I can't imagine a different entry point for each handset. At worst you'd have one for each carrier. So ATT, Verizon, TMobile, Sprint/Nextel. Four meaningful app stores, a hand full or so regional providers if you're really interested...
It's interesting the differing philosophies. Gnome/Apple take the fewer features less configuration approach. Everyone else lets you do a ridiculous amount of crap to your UI. I personally prefer the KDE/mass configuration model, but the Gnome/Apple philosophy seems to be winning the hearts and minds of the masses. I regularly hear techy iPhone users actually brag about how few features their phone has. It's not cluttered with all the "useless crap" the other options have. *shrug*
I agree with everything you said. All I added is essentially that consumers WANT that "make it so stupid simple for me to spend money on your company" experience. They actually PREFER the "turnkey" solution, to use the business term. Options are the enemy. The fact that iPhone has fewer features than other smart phones is a desired attribute for the consumer. They will almost never be able to articulate that. They will say things like "It's simple to use." or whatever, but that's really what they mean.
I'm a tech tinkerer so I'm not Apple's target market either. It's really hard for me to grasp that consumers actually prefer getting less for their money, but it's true.
Apple products aren't "technically" impressive. They don't have the most power, they don't have the largest feature set, etc. Apple excels at technology integration (itunes musc store for example) and UI design. That's why for Apple products "Ooh, shiny" is more appropriate. Business-wise I would agree Apple is pretty innovative, but from a geeky technology standpoint they're kind of meh.
Slashdot Mirror
Define worst outcomes. For example my brother needed some minor surgery on his knee. Technically it was elective surgery. His biggest scheduling conflict was waiting for a day when his surgeon wasn't out golfing or whatever. Compare that to Canada or some of the other Universal Healthcare countries and he would have had to wait months to get the same surgery on average. The truth is that people with at least some means (upper-middle class and higher) have a higher standard of living than people who are on the universal healthcare plans in these countries based solely on the availability of "elective" health care services. Yes, it would be a lot better and cheaper for our poor, and I'm not opposed to that at all. It's just that the idea that the people who are spending that "twice as much on healthcare" have "worse outcomes" is a myth.
If I had mod points you'd get them. I disagree that most people want universal healthcare but everything past that is pretty much what I try to explain to people constantly, but to no avail.
Assuming you're referring primarily to the mandate... You're no more forced to purchase health insurance than you are forced to purchase an energy efficient air conditioner every year. If you don't purchase an energy efficient air conditioner you will have to pay taxes on the income you would have otherwise gotten a credit for. Now the same will be said for health care. I'm opposed to it too, but the language people use to describe it is outlandish.
I'll add another to your list. I'm a very small government conservative (against Department of Education, against even a large standing army, etc.). But I support socialized healthcare. Why? Because it's the only feasible pathway away from employer controlled healthcare. We've already killed the biggest noose employers put around their employees (pensions), the last big thing is health care. Once you strip that away from the employer you will see TONS of people starting up that small business they've always wanted to. Nothing will be better for capitalism in America than socializing healthcare. Mark my words. It's coming, and it'll be great when it happens.
http://www.capsteps.com/sounds/tsa-strangersonyourflight.mp3
Facebook openly sells its data to advertisers. Where are you coming from?
No, the data is no longer free as in beer. It's available to anyone willing to pay Facebook for it.
You clearly did not read the GP's post which was about OTHER PEOPLE posting pictures of his wife. (redtube?)
You have no idea whether it's fruitful or not. Some would have argued that trying to fly planes was needless risk and wasteful. Hindsight of course being 20/20 we can see that it was worth it for all of those people to jump off cliffs with wooden bird wings attached to their arms because it furthered technology. I'm quite certain some of the technologies and methods invented for the purposes of climbing Everest will be used to allow humans to survive in other adverse conditions (moon?).
The truth about business is that having their "collective heads up their collective behinds" is that it's good business. You don't spend money until you absolutely have to. These are business intranet apps, not core business solutions where it's wise to spend some R&D on these sorts of things. Technology changes so quickly that trying to predict what browsers would look like today would have been a foolish exercise. You have to remember, it was successful for them to NOT SPEND ANY MONEY WHATSOEVER upgrading these webapps to new standards/browsers for the better part of a decade.
[tangent]
My company is just now starting to migrate away from Visual Studio 6. This year we switched from Visual Source Safe, next year we're moving away from VC++ 6.0.
[/tangent]
It's not as if you could develop "to standards" and expect IE6 to run your webapp. I think people forget that during the early years of IE6 there wasn't a lot of "good" standards compliance running around in browser land. So what else were the developers to do besides develop towards the 90%+ marketshare browser?
Apple produces only a small fraction of the cell phones manufactured each year. I couldn't find where Apple is on the list but the 5th top PC manufacturer produces only about 5% of the computers out there. Your original position was that Apple sells more hardware than any other OEM. You haven't provided a single bit of evidence. Now you're talking about market cap which is completely different.
Most will charge overnight because presumably the infrastructure will be upgraded to bill them less money if they charge slowly overnight.
Apple is not in the top 5 OEMs for either PC sales OR cell phone sales. Anything else?
Futile = Volts/Amps?
[Citation Needed]
I can't imagine a different entry point for each handset. At worst you'd have one for each carrier. So ATT, Verizon, TMobile, Sprint/Nextel. Four meaningful app stores, a hand full or so regional providers if you're really interested...
They got the brand. The brand is often one of the most valuable items in these buyouts.
Mozilla already does presentations. You have to use this custom presentation language called HTML/CSS and scripting via ECMAScript. :-P
It's interesting the differing philosophies. Gnome/Apple take the fewer features less configuration approach. Everyone else lets you do a ridiculous amount of crap to your UI. I personally prefer the KDE/mass configuration model, but the Gnome/Apple philosophy seems to be winning the hearts and minds of the masses. I regularly hear techy iPhone users actually brag about how few features their phone has. It's not cluttered with all the "useless crap" the other options have. *shrug*
The Board is required to fulfill the company's purpose as laid out in the corporate charter. That may or may not be maximizing profits.
I agree with everything you said. All I added is essentially that consumers WANT that "make it so stupid simple for me to spend money on your company" experience. They actually PREFER the "turnkey" solution, to use the business term. Options are the enemy. The fact that iPhone has fewer features than other smart phones is a desired attribute for the consumer. They will almost never be able to articulate that. They will say things like "It's simple to use." or whatever, but that's really what they mean.
I'm a tech tinkerer so I'm not Apple's target market either. It's really hard for me to grasp that consumers actually prefer getting less for their money, but it's true.
Aren't large sections of OSX open source? I never really cared that much about it, but I thought I'd read that before.
Apple products aren't "technically" impressive. They don't have the most power, they don't have the largest feature set, etc. Apple excels at technology integration (itunes musc store for example) and UI design. That's why for Apple products "Ooh, shiny" is more appropriate. Business-wise I would agree Apple is pretty innovative, but from a geeky technology standpoint they're kind of meh.