I've always thought that the free market approach to health care that the US seems to have is interesting.
If want a new TV, but it is too expensive, I don't buy it, that's the free market at work. If I want a new house, but it is too expensive, I don't buy it, that too, is the free market at work. If I want life saving surgery but it is too expensive I, um...
Basically health is the one field that springs to mind that a provider can charge any price they want. A particularly nice example of this is patented medicines, as that removes any minor price competition that might happen for something like surgery. "Here, if you don't take this pill you will die, and we can charge you anything at all we want for it regardless of our actual costs of production and development."
On the Boeing/Airbus issue, as I understand it, the computers in an Airbus will not allow the aircraft to be pushed beyond certain limits (they are limits for a reason after all). The Boeing approach is (or was) for the computers to allow the maneuver, but to give the pilot feedback such as making the controls harder to move, and shaking the control stick. In normal flight they'll feel this and stop what they are doing, but if they really want to do it, for whatever reason, they will be able to.
Seems like a good approach to me.
Chyren has, of course, nailed it with his initial comment. Taste is a nebulous thing. It interests me that Clerks, a shoe-string budget, independent film manages to make a "most overrated" list, or is this just to gain discussion from a wider audience?
And the score from "The Piano" is superb, you are all crazy, and possibly on drugs of some sort.
They would have had more time to treat the Ents as more than bumbling idiots if they hadn't spent so much screen time patching together the drastic non-Tolkien script additions.
This was my greatest annoyance. Fair enough you have to cut stuff out to fit the books in to three movies, no problem with that, and sure, you have to fiddle some stuff to cover you bits you've chopped out. But chopping out good, important parts of the story only to fill up that time with crap like the Arwen story, or the bit with Aragorn falling in the river. Grrrr.
And while we're nitpicking, I've always hated Jackson's "weird angled zooming closeup of someones face to indicate confusion" shot. It looks stupid, stop doing it.
They ruin it by making some of the ages you guess between only 2 or 3 years apart. I doubt I could guess anyones age to within 2 years with any regularity.
I love how something like Pacman or Breakout is still the same (ignoring whatever that final monstrosity was) whereas in other genres the technology improvements really have vastly improved the gameplay, not just the graphics.
I don't know how you can actually call yourself rational, and be an atheist. Because, even if religion is bunk, that's no proof there isn't a hidden spiritual factor in the universe.
Do you believe in the Easter Bunny? Santa Claus? Do you believe that the whole world was actually created in a test tube by aliens yesterday and we were all created with fake memories about our pasts and tomorrow it will start to unravel and we'll be all like "hey man, what's happening, my memories are unravelling"? There's no proof against any of these things, and yet I'm not expected to go around saying "Well maybe there is an Easter Bunny, but I'm really not sure."
Can't add anything much that hasn't already been said, but I will mention one thing about the current version of Ubuntu. It's a Live CD, so you can boot from it and play with Linux without installing anything, but then if you decide "yup, this is for me" you just hit the "Install" button and it takes you through the steps of installing right there from within the live CD. When it's done you eject the CD and reboot, and you're looking at exactly the same thing as you had with the live CD but properly installed on your harddrive.
And middleclasstool, I actually finally signed up for monkeyfilter, after lurking for ages, to respond to one of your requests for help with your 640x480 problem months ago, but then my login didn't get approved for days...
For what it's worth, the older version of the Ubuntu live CD didn't set up X windows very well, (nothing unsolvable, just one line needed adding to a config file, but still pretty silly) the current live CD seems to work better.
I always just used whatever came with the phone, but when my old phone died the new one didn't come with anything I would consider a "phone" sound, they were all terrible melodies. I was planning on using the "old bell phone" thing, but then I started to hear it everywhere, so I ditched that idea. I just grabbed a generic mobile phone ring from somewhere in the end, but tend to just leave it on vibe when I remember to bring it with me.
Amarok is the best music player/ipod controller thingamy I've used on any platform. Definately worth a look.
K3B for burning CDs and stuff.
I use Digikam for playing with my camera/photos, because at the time I was looking for something it did stuff that f-spot didn't. Can't remember what it was though.
Okay, I know this gets said every time, and I know everyone is sick of it, but please, _please_ can you stick another mouse button on it? Make it like that annoying mighty mouse thing where it's one button and you click on each side, I don't care, just please with the two mouse buttons.
if you have a choice between booting into OS X or Windows
They don't care what you boot, as long as you buy their hardware. That's where they make their money.
Presumably, what with what the kids can do with their new-fangled technology these days, someone with suitable access could just run a query on how many members have logged in lately. Yeah?
Of course that would be less fun. And certainly less poo would be flung.
I've always thought that the free market approach to health care that the US seems to have is interesting. If want a new TV, but it is too expensive, I don't buy it, that's the free market at work. If I want a new house, but it is too expensive, I don't buy it, that too, is the free market at work. If I want life saving surgery but it is too expensive I, um... Basically health is the one field that springs to mind that a provider can charge any price they want. A particularly nice example of this is patented medicines, as that removes any minor price competition that might happen for something like surgery. "Here, if you don't take this pill you will die, and we can charge you anything at all we want for it regardless of our actual costs of production and development."
posted by markr 17 years ago
In "Police chase goes a bit wrong"
Relax people, relax. It's back!
posted by markr 17 years ago
Doh, that's what you get for using a bugmenot account. Someone has removed it already :(
posted by markr 17 years ago
As requested (and that was uploaded with a bugmenot youtube login, so don't blame me for any other videos on the same account)
posted by markr 17 years ago
In "If a Boeing 767 runs out of fuel at 41,000 feet what do you have? Answer: A 132 ton glider."
On the Boeing/Airbus issue, as I understand it, the computers in an Airbus will not allow the aircraft to be pushed beyond certain limits (they are limits for a reason after all). The Boeing approach is (or was) for the computers to allow the maneuver, but to give the pilot feedback such as making the controls harder to move, and shaking the control stick. In normal flight they'll feel this and stop what they are doing, but if they really want to do it, for whatever reason, they will be able to. Seems like a good approach to me.
posted by markr 17 years ago
In "Top 20 Overrated Movies?"
Chyren has, of course, nailed it with his initial comment. Taste is a nebulous thing. It interests me that Clerks, a shoe-string budget, independent film manages to make a "most overrated" list, or is this just to gain discussion from a wider audience? And the score from "The Piano" is superb, you are all crazy, and possibly on drugs of some sort.
posted by markr 17 years ago
In "No hobbitses for you"
They would have had more time to treat the Ents as more than bumbling idiots if they hadn't spent so much screen time patching together the drastic non-Tolkien script additions. This was my greatest annoyance. Fair enough you have to cut stuff out to fit the books in to three movies, no problem with that, and sure, you have to fiddle some stuff to cover you bits you've chopped out. But chopping out good, important parts of the story only to fill up that time with crap like the Arwen story, or the bit with Aragorn falling in the river. Grrrr. And while we're nitpicking, I've always hated Jackson's "weird angled zooming closeup of someones face to indicate confusion" shot. It looks stupid, stop doing it.
posted by markr 18 years ago
In "Some people look clapped out at 25..."
They ruin it by making some of the ages you guess between only 2 or 3 years apart. I doubt I could guess anyones age to within 2 years with any regularity.
posted by markr 18 years ago
In "game evolution"
I love how something like Pacman or Breakout is still the same (ignoring whatever that final monstrosity was) whereas in other genres the technology improvements really have vastly improved the gameplay, not just the graphics.
posted by markr 18 years ago
In "Vibestreamer. "
FiftyPoints: I'm sure there are a zillion mp3 streaming addons for Apache. Something like Ampache might be the go.
posted by markr 18 years ago
In "chess babes."
From the title I assumed this post must have been a link to this story.
posted by markr 18 years ago
In "The New Naysayers."
I don't know how you can actually call yourself rational, and be an atheist. Because, even if religion is bunk, that's no proof there isn't a hidden spiritual factor in the universe. Do you believe in the Easter Bunny? Santa Claus? Do you believe that the whole world was actually created in a test tube by aliens yesterday and we were all created with fake memories about our pasts and tomorrow it will start to unravel and we'll be all like "hey man, what's happening, my memories are unravelling"? There's no proof against any of these things, and yet I'm not expected to go around saying "Well maybe there is an Easter Bunny, but I'm really not sure."
posted by markr 18 years ago
In "Free-ish music"
But if you are going to crack the DRM, you might as well just pirate the stuff in the first place...
posted by markr 18 years ago
In "Linux-Curious"
Can't add anything much that hasn't already been said, but I will mention one thing about the current version of Ubuntu. It's a Live CD, so you can boot from it and play with Linux without installing anything, but then if you decide "yup, this is for me" you just hit the "Install" button and it takes you through the steps of installing right there from within the live CD. When it's done you eject the CD and reboot, and you're looking at exactly the same thing as you had with the live CD but properly installed on your harddrive. And middleclasstool, I actually finally signed up for monkeyfilter, after lurking for ages, to respond to one of your requests for help with your 640x480 problem months ago, but then my login didn't get approved for days... For what it's worth, the older version of the Ubuntu live CD didn't set up X windows very well, (nothing unsolvable, just one line needed adding to a config file, but still pretty silly) the current live CD seems to work better.
posted by markr 18 years ago
In "What's on your desktop?"
Mine.
posted by markr 18 years ago
In "Curious George: Que est-ce que ringtone?"
I always just used whatever came with the phone, but when my old phone died the new one didn't come with anything I would consider a "phone" sound, they were all terrible melodies. I was planning on using the "old bell phone" thing, but then I started to hear it everywhere, so I ditched that idea. I just grabbed a generic mobile phone ring from somewhere in the end, but tend to just leave it on vibe when I remember to bring it with me.
posted by markr 18 years ago
In "Curious George: You bunt, too?"
Amarok is the best music player/ipod controller thingamy I've used on any platform. Definately worth a look. K3B for burning CDs and stuff. I use Digikam for playing with my camera/photos, because at the time I was looking for something it did stuff that f-spot didn't. Can't remember what it was though.
posted by markr 18 years ago
In "The new MacBook is out."
Okay, I know this gets said every time, and I know everyone is sick of it, but please, _please_ can you stick another mouse button on it? Make it like that annoying mighty mouse thing where it's one button and you click on each side, I don't care, just please with the two mouse buttons.
posted by markr 18 years ago
In "Yes, in fact, we DO do Windows."
if you have a choice between booting into OS X or Windows They don't care what you boot, as long as you buy their hardware. That's where they make their money.
posted by markr 18 years ago
In "2006 Roll Call:"
Presumably, what with what the kids can do with their new-fangled technology these days, someone with suitable access could just run a query on how many members have logged in lately. Yeah? Of course that would be less fun. And certainly less poo would be flung.
posted by markr 18 years ago
(limited to the most recent 20 comments)