At the time Philips started working on CD-I the internet hardly existed in Europe. When I was working on the UK titles back in 1990-2 the Internet really wasn't on people's radar. Only as 1992 turned into 1993 did anyone think the AOL's and Compuserve's as this world would get anywhere.
Equally you miss out the biggest issue with most developments with CD-I the available disk speed and memory (even ignoring seek times) made most developments an interest combination of careful design and often luck. Watching that Mario interstitial with moving eyebrows I'm imaging the disk spinning desperately trying to load the next scene into memory. As an example I remember spending a week trying to work out how to minimise a MPEG video (quarter screen max) in such a way that we could run a seek and load up the background image ready for the next scene.
Its worth reading this review of the Tesla Model 3 http://www.thedrive.com/new-cars/17280/tesla-model-3-the-fir... which highlights issues with the cruise control in the Model 3 compared to the Model S as it was changed from a stalk to being part of the screen.
Sometimes things need to be actual switches as you don't have time to use anything else...
Health care is the absolute prime example of a Veblen good as people are willing to pay for perceived quality. After all would you prefer the heart surgeon who charges $5000 or the one who can charge $25000
> Health care is the absolute prime example of a Veblen good
"Veblen Good: A good for which demand increases as the price increases, because of its exclusive nature and appeal as a status symbol."
I'm not following. Heart surgery demand is based on having a heart problem. Taking a step back, health care encompasses more than just picking a heart surgeon. Most practitioners won't tell you the dollar price of a service beforehand even if you ask. Standard behavior is to go see whoever is covered by your insurance.
This. I moved to Switzerland a while ago and noticed that they are suffering from the same issue: Switzerland is one of the richest countries in Europe and just like the US, they are also faced with health care costs that are completely getting out of hand.
Another example is day care for children, which is also disproportionally expensive here. Both are cases when people just don't want to cut on money, they want to have the best option for their health or their children, the costs are only a secondary consideration.
Which means that the health care market has not much of a competition on prices and as a result everything that is health related is expensive. Even basic things like nutrition supplements are around 5 times more expensive than in other European countries.
A concrete example: Private health insurance in the UK is cheap, because it excludes a lot of the basics - you use the NHS for that, and only call your private insurer if you e.g. need a specialist or if you can't get an appointment with your GP.
Yet only 10% opt for it, because the NHS is generally good enough. And of those 10% a lot only have it because it's offered as a mostly free perk by their employer.
But I do think that there is a segment - part of those 10% who opt for private insurance - that will always pay extra to get "the best" whether or not there is a major difference.
Seems like a bad example. All board certified cardiothoracic surgeons have to report their mortality rates from procedures (there are problems with that, but one could easily look this up). Not to mention most work for a hospital and therefore have a fixed salary. On top of this, most healthcare consumers in America are directed by their insurance provider as to who they can even go to for these sort of procedures.
> Not to mention most work for a hospital and therefore have a fixed salary.
Unless you have knowledge to the contrary, I'd dispute this. Most physicians, and specialists in hospitals in at least the Pacific North West are NOT hospital employees.
This is how you can get into ridiculous situations where your hospital is "in network", but your provider is not (because of course, you get a choice on the physician you are assigned at a hospital, especially in ED...).
First, it "penalizes" doctors/hospitals that take on the most severe cases. There is no objective metric for "we saved X people who would have died at an average facility." Do you want a metric that would encourage a doctor/hospital to deny an aggressive procedure for fear of taking a hit in its mortality metrics?
Secondly, it ignores ongoing quality of life. A cardiac surgery can have a later death that does not count in its mortality rate, even if it was due to a complication caused by, or significantly contributed to, by inferior medicine.
Oh, I'm in agreement, and should have made my point about this more clear. The reason I brought it up at all is that there are other external factors that influence a patients decision, or lack thereof, in choosing a CT surgeon for their non urgent (or emergency I guess, but there's even less choice there) procedure.
I'm in the UK not the US. The example is actually a friend who has watched his private practice (1 day a week) expand as he tried to reduce demand by increasing his rates.
Watching my children I would argue its a desperate attempt to get children under the age of 16 using Facebook as they just don't.
Both children attend a Music group which has used a facebook
group for years. The older children (17-18) all have active facebook profiles - the younger children don't they use Instagram and Snapchat...
Uber seem to be pushing the Black Cab issue here... A organisation that makes money from Uber was very quick to claim that the issue was due to TfL being pressurised by Black Cabs so I half expect it to be in Uber's briefing note pack...
They wanted a 5 year licence back in May but were given a 4 month licence and a requirement to resolve the issues that there were. 4 months later the issues are still there so what else could TfL do?
Funnily enough, I'm not FB friends with my wife, and she never comes up on my "People You May Know". I spend more time with her than anyone, so maybe FB's algorithm isn't so great?
I don’t except for signing on to other sites (its easier than creating and remembering a password) and for Wi-fi in Barbados (I’m not paying their mobile data rates).
This is a mistake all marketing people will make (hopefully just once but we all know that won't be the case).
The worrying thing is that the last similar social media fail was less than 3 months ago with Walkers Crisps showing various photos of mass murderers..
Equally you miss out the biggest issue with most developments with CD-I the available disk speed and memory (even ignoring seek times) made most developments an interest combination of careful design and often luck. Watching that Mario interstitial with moving eyebrows I'm imaging the disk spinning desperately trying to load the next scene into memory. As an example I remember spending a week trying to work out how to minimise a MPEG video (quarter screen max) in such a way that we could run a seek and load up the background image ready for the next scene.