cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/16364128

Hospitals adding charge to bills from doctors’ offices, outpatient surgical clinics and diagnostic centers they own

Hospitals are gobbling up doctor’s offices – and they’re bringing higher prices to patients when they do, even if a patient never sets foot on a hospital campus.

Enter the “hospital facility fee”: a charge hospitals can add to bills from doctors’ offices, outpatient surgical clinics and diagnostics centers that they own, rebranding them as “outpatient hospital departments”, even if the facility is miles from a hospital campus.

“It’s one of the most egregious examples of hospital financing at the expense of consumers,” said Liz Hagan, director of policy solutions at the United States of Care, a non-profit advocacy group that released a new report on the practice.

The report, “Behind the Bill” argues that “hospitals are at the center of a massive market failure”, where consolidation is driving price hikes for patients.

“Rather than just tossing in a coin and getting into the game immediately, you must click an icon, wait for the logo, wait for the title, look at the instructions screen, wait until everything loads, and then you’re finally at the main screen, after which you can start playing.

“I want you to measure the total time this takes and shorten it by even one second.”

To prove that he was serious about this, Sakurai then revealed that GameCube racing game Kirby Air Ride was originally supposed to have Dolby Surround audio, but Sakurai chose to ditch it because it would have meant showing the Dolby logo at the start of the game for a few seconds.

“I feel very sorry for making the user wait,” he explained. “If you take one second from each user, that means you’ll be taking 10,000 seconds from 10,000 people. The more this repeats over the years, the more time you will cause players to lose.”

Tesla might be dropping Steam support on some new deliveries of Model X, according to a message from the company shared by a Reddit user who is expecting to take delivery of the long-range version of the electric SUV.

Tesla’s message alerts the customer that the company is “updating the gaming computer” in the Model X and says it’s “no longer capable of playing Steam games.” The message ends with a button for the customer to confirm they will proceed with the delivery.

There’s no indication that other Tesla models will be affected. And we’re not seeing any signs that the automaker plans to remove Steam from current owners’ vehicles through a software update. However, Tesla’s already seems to be leaning toward dropping Steam support for some other models.

Steam isn’t available in the Cybertruck, for example, and Tesla hasn’t said whether it plans on bringing the gaming platform to its bestselling Model Y and Model 3 vehicles, despite newer models sporting improved AMD Ryzen processors. The company has already removed some games over the years, including Sonic the Hedgehog.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk had hyped Steam as a selling point, advertising the new GPU as powerful with the ability to play top-tier games like Cyberpunk 2077. Steam launched in a revised 2022 version of the redesigned Model S and Model X. Initial 2021 models were not installed with sufficient RAM to support the advertised games, so Steam was not included. Musk has said a retrofit would be available, but it’s not free.

There’s speculation that Tesla might be backtracking on powerful gaming hardware in new Model S and X vehicles. Musk has been busy squeezing the company through hot-headed layoffs in an effort to make the company “absolutely hard core.” Tesla scaled back on what a new low-cost vehicle will look like and is going all in on building a robotaxi, which means games like The Witcher are no longer a priority.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/15542273

Netflix has managed to annoy a good number of its users with an announcement about an upcoming update to its Windows 11 (and Windows 10) app: support for adverts and live events will be added, but the ability to download content is being taken away.

Netflix must realize that it's a huge frustration for people who relied on offline downloads to watch content without internet access: on planes, trains, and campsites, and anywhere else where Wi-Fi is unavailable or unreliable.

There's a small chance that Netflix will change its mind if it gets enough complaints, but the streaming service seems determined to add as many money-making features as possible, while taking away genuinely useful ones.

There was a time when streamers wooed potential customers with the promise of an ad-free experience. In recent years, however, companies such as Netflix, Amazon, Disney and more have hiked up their prices and made an ad-supported tier the most affordable option. Now, Netflix is taking the next step towards becoming a de-facto ad tech company by moving its development in-house, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

Netflix announced the shift during its upfront preview, in which the company also shared that its $7 per month ad-supported tier has 40 million monthly active users. The ad-supported plan is reportedly getting 40 percent of new signups, with it having 15 million users just six months ago, in November.

The streaming company has relied heavily on Microsoft to reach this success, partnering with the tech giant in 2022 on advertising and sales. But, the training wheels are coming off with Netflix's choice to move things in house, a choice that "will allow us to power the ads plan with the same level of excellence that’s made Netflix the leader in streaming technology today," Netflix ads chief Amy Reinhard said. Microsoft will also no longer be Netflix's sole ad tech partner, as the streamer will start working with companies like Google’s Display & Video 360 and The Trade Desk later this summer.

This is a scanned teleplay of a Seinfeld episode written by Larry Charles. This episode would end up being unproduced due to the cast and crew's concerns about the episode's subject matter. Any handwriting on this scan is from Larry Charles.

https://seinfeld.fandom.com/wiki/The_Bet

“The Bet” (also known as The Gun) is an unproduced episode for Season 2. It was not made due to its controversial subject. It would have been the fourth episode of season 2, and would have aired on February 13, 1991. It was replaced by "The Phone Message".

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/14304523

President Joe Biden is reportedly seeking to revive a project that would construct a high-speed railway from Houston to Dallas in Texas utilizing Japanese bullet trains.

According to a Reuters report on Tuesday, citing unnamed administration sources, the White House is looking to make an announcement on the project following talks between Biden and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida in Washington, D.C., this week.

The Japanese government and the White House declined to comment on the report, though the project has seen renewed support from Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, who told KXAS in Fort Worth on Sunday: "We believe in this."