morrow
With Amazon, the reduction comes from the streamlined buying process - you provide your name, address, billing info, shipping info up front, thereby eliminating the overhead of that task from future purchases. It's also a one-stop shop, you don't have to think if they will have an item you want, as 9 times out of 10 they carry a version of what you are looking for.
With Hammacher Schlemmer, the reduction comes from not having to do really any research about products before purchasing. They offer a limited selection of tested products, so you do not have to consider alternative products, sellers, shipping methods, reviews, and are not susceptible to accidentally ordering a counterfeit product. The catalog format is also approachable, you can pick it up and read it and "window shop" without knowing exactly what you want or need.
So I would say not really laziness, just a shift in cognitive overhead from the product purchasing process to the product research process.
I think we do way too much stifling as a society as it is, and a lot of that has to do with people who gave up on their dreams for a safe existence justifying their decision by ridiculing others who dare to take risks.
In this particular case, I think it's safe to just take his story as fiction (even though some of it is true), since there are plenty of other journalists covering the same topic. It's just a shame that he felt he couldn't just tell Ira from the beginning what was storytelling and what was reporting, since his piece was so well done, and he really did not need to mislead or lie in order to be compelling.
I remember hearing in the excellent pixar documentary that one of the intentions behind this layout was to facilitate random interactions among employees, all sharing a common, open walkway.
Looking at the companies that control media today and trying to mold the environment of the web so that they survive is exactly backwards. Instead, I think the W3C should focus on creating the best environment for an open web possible, and let the companies that exist now adapt to it or be replaced by those who can.
Great job on the site, and thanks for making it - I've already added several books to my shelf.
The depressing part is either that this forces you to realize or reminds you that time is, in fact, limited -- or that it tricks you into thinking time isn't infinite, depending on your philosophy.
I probably screwed something up, but in any case you are definitely right that the false-negative odds are very low among all potential applicants. Really makes the argument against seem foolish.
1) http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-504763_162-57333212-10391704/cdc...
2) http://www.organtransplants.org/understanding/marrow/
3) http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=%28%281%2F20000%29++*+%...
I'd agree with people who are okay with profiling if there wasn't a reliable test for HIV, or if there weren't enough resources to test for it, but I haven't found any evidence for either of those potential claims.
So if the transfer can work with a 3 month delay (I'm not sure if it can, just assuming), and the HIV test comes back clean, you're going to have a 97% chance of a true-negative, 3% chance of false-negative.
At that point, comparing it to the odds that the "eliglble" donor is lying about their sexual activities or is simply HIV positive and heterosexual, the ban on letting gays register seems draconian, and a scientific test-based approach seems better all around.
Especially when you consider that if no donor is found, the patient could die anyway. So if the only donor is gay, test them, and then notify the patient of the 3% chance of contracting HIV from a false-negative patient versus the 100% odds of dying from Leukemia, and see what decision they make.
I suppose the idea is not to waste time and resources on ineligible donors, and it seems as though they've made the decision that profiling based on sexual orientation is the best balance between wasting time and resources tracking patients who are ineligible or will likely become ineligible and missing out on potential matches.
I just can't believe that an inclusive and scientific approach - don't profile, test at sign-up, test again at match - wouldn't yield more matches (and more positive goodwill, obviously). Then again I haven't seen the data...
For example with this, tax the happy meal and other fatty kids foods, allocate revenues earned from that tax directly to childhood obesity prevention campaigns. McDonald's still makes money, kids still can get happy meals, and childhood obesity is reduced through funding effective programs.
The marrow guys could even cover the cost of the STD screen for people who register for the program.
Seems to me this would be an even safer way of ensuring potential donors don't have HIV than just asking them about their sex lives...
Feeling guilty isn't solving the problem, however. Guilt is just a pre-cursor to either resolve or apathy. If you don't do anything about it, you either get into a loop of guilt-> apathy-> guilt or you choose to ignore the problem (as you say your friends do).
Any action you take towards true progress for those in need, no matter how small, is good.
"The journey of 1,000 miles begins with a single step"
If you want to try it, set the following cookie (and disable cosmic panda obviously):
document.cookie="VISITOR_INFO1_LIVE=ST1Ti53r4fU";
(From: http://www.redmondpie.com/heres-how-to-enable-the-new-youtub...)