What I'm noticing lately is that they'll mix the commercial audio "creatively" to increase its effective volume. I'll be watching a show on cable with 5.1 audio (so, mostly dialogue out of the center speaker), then have a commercial come on and pipe all its audio through both front speakers, at the "maximum" volume. The levels are probably about the same, but it still gets that "attention jolt" from the perceived increase in volume.

The other annoying trend is the use of excessive "wub wub" (bass) in ad music. Result is the same, increased distraction without "excessive" volume.

Profit from health care is not unethical. It's profit from health insurance that I find questionable. As I said, it seems like a serious conflict of interest. The insurer receives compensation in exchange for assuming risk. If the insurer is looking for profit, they are then motivated to optimize risk out of their system as much as possible. This can be done ethically (investing in the health of policy holders) or unethically (denying benefits whenever possible and/or leaving all but the lowest-risk clients out in the cold). History seems to indicate that private firms will take the latter approach when permitted to do so.

Health care is essential to the extent that pretty much everyone will need it in some form at some point. Also, as others have mentioned, emergency rooms can't really refuse patients. It doesn't work like conventional goods and services because an individual's needs are not necessarily predictable, and they are susceptible to catastrophic misfortune that could ruin them financially. The same concept applies to car/home/life insurance, fire protection, unemployment, and other risk-based "goods".

All insurance has issues. It's not good for controlling costs. For health care, the specifics about what should be covered are of course up for debate, and there are major questions about personal responsibility for one's lifestyle and the impact it has on health and healthcare needs. However, the private insurance "solution" doesn't seem to address these issues any more than socialized insurance would. Either we collectively cover the "problematic" individuals, or we collectively pay for their eventual ER visits because those same individuals didn't have preventative health care.

I'm generally not a "government solutions" kind of person, but I do wonder how private insurance is allowed to exist for essential things like health care. How does the profit motive not create an inherent, unethical conflict of interest?

Also, insurance spreads risk and expense over a pool of policy holders. Pretty much everyone needs health care. Coverage-wise, it would seem like one large, central pool would be the best case. And, if the insurer isn't out to make money, it could instead focus on, say, reducing premiums.

Laziness and opportunism certainly play a part, but there's also the fact that a better neighborhood will probably have police response times that aren't measured in hours. It's also a bit more difficult for a ghetto criminal to blend in outside the ghetto, which increases the odds that the cops will be called in the first place.

Hey now, calling them "rent-a-cops" is a unfair... to security guards.

I prefer to refer to airport screeners as "TSA-holes".

It's kind of a moot point. If the system is that badly "infected", you should probably replace the rom anyway.

On my aging Gingerbread phone, I used root to delete the OEM bloatware- Facebook, Amazon, NFL Mobile, etc. A few months later, an OTA update rolled out, and it threw a shit fit because the pre-installed crap was missing. Fortunately I had backups. Now I use Titanium Backup's "freeze" feature to disable (and prevent execution of) apps while still keeping them installed/updated.

Crapping up Windows PCs helps perpetuate the myth that Macs are inherently faster/better.

Agreed, but I think this will only make the problem worse, as increased use of referrer checking will redirect users from Google Images to some cheesy splash-page that serves nothing but ads.

I liked the "original context" feature with the source page displayed in a frame. I guess the change was inevitable though, it seemed like more and more asshat webmasters were using those damn "break out of frames" scripts, derailing the image search. Half the time the page was some poorly-optimized blog, so the image I was looking for was nowhere to be found on the page!

Volkswagen and Porsche have been "related" for as long as there has been a Volkswagen. Hitler originally ordered Ferdinand Porsche to develop the Beetle in 1933.

But yes, platform-sharing is more important here than the actual corporate relationship; two otherwise-unrelated companies may co-develop a vehicle and end up with nearly identical products.

While I agree that teachers' unions (and plenty of other unions) partake in a good deal of organized thuggery, I sympathize with teachers who rightly feel threatened by "job performance" metrics. Teaching effectiveness is difficult to measure, and student performance is affected by a whole lot of factors outside of teaching.

Frankly, if I was looking for someone to blame for the crappiness of our education system, I'd probably start with the parents, then look at the politicians (including the union leadership), then the administrators. Bad teachers certainly do exist, but the problem is exaggerated. Not a lot of people want a job that's difficult, requires some education, and is generally insultingly low-paying.

If I died and went to a place that looks like New Jersey, I don't think heaven would come to mind...

They demoed E-bikes on my college campus, and with good reason- college yuppies are actually stupid and wealthy enough to buy E-bikes. I test-rode one, and it's fun, but not $2000 fun. I'll stick with my regular bike.

To make matters worse, these dumbasses ride around stupidly and create more hate for cyclists from pedestrians and motorists alike. Also, they're stimulating the bike theft market by locking up poorly. Last week I saw one locked with a U-lock around a single spoke of the front wheel and a cable through the rear wheel... the idiot didn't even think to take out the external battery.

Stop the presses, customers are being price-gouged by AT&T and Apple! Oh, the horror!

Who is going to expect sympathy over the fact that they have to pay $200 more to upgrade their iPhone?

Why is this even on the front page? Does Slashdot really worship the iPhone this much?

Really? I find that people who are for unimpeded immigration are usually Hispanic, and fail to comprehend that they will have to compete with the illegal immigrants that they support.