The 440,000 would be employees and volunteers of the VA. The VA itself actually handles a lot more than that. There's 21.5 million veterans, of that 3.5 million receives disability compensation. Every veteran is eligible for health care in the VA system. So for 444,000 users of the VA information technology, 900,000 devices isn't that far fetched to handle the date for 3.5 million + veterans.

http://www.infoplease.com/spot/veteranscensus1.html
http://www.va.gov/opa/publications/factsheets/fs_department_of_veterans_affairs.pdf

Most EMS, while on a long shift, do not have to stay awake the entire shift.

Only if you own a car. Driving is a privilege. You can't compare the requirement of car insurance for the privilege of owning a driving a car, to the requirement to have health insurance.

They didn't become mega corps by being " best kept secrets in shopping". There's been a lot of this on /. where some little known entity is shutting down their website or closing their doors. I think too many people actually believe in the field of dreams, but I am sorry, just because you build it, they aren't necessarily going to come, unless you tell them about it.

Thanks. Kind of amazing that with technology they have to use people.

The difference is that for "normal" people the default position for the switch is on and it requires effort to turn it off.

For psychopaths, the default switch is off and it requires effort to turn it on.

I say that because for years I have been using an application called BeyondTV by Snapstream and it has a SmartSkip feature that automatically marks the beginning and end of commercials and doesn't require any manual input.

I would find it hard to believe that Dish would actually pay people to do something there was automated technology to do.

Do you have a link or something to verify your statement?

No wonder profitability is down, you kind of have to get the word out that you exist.

A significant drop is still not zero.

I am not sure I agree with you. You see there are many who feel that the "land of the free" means they are free to do whatever they want, include committing criminal acts. Every civilization had had the criminal element. Even when there was only 4 people on the planet there was still murder. ;)

There will always be crime and criminals, even in a totalitarian society there is still crime and the need for protection. We are fortunate that we are allowed to protect ourselves and not have to totally rely on the government to be safe.

But then it is the computer doing the killing not the gun.

Yes, shooting implies a gun, or some type of projectile, like an arrow or a rock from a slingshot but shooting != killing.

It is 100% accurate is that guns do not kill people. Just like hammers don't hammer nails. It takes a person, or in the case you mentioned, some type of automaton.

the French surrender.