Medical bills need to be communicated up front, not after the fact.

I once went to a US hospital, I asked how much would it cost, they wouldn't tell me. I asked will it in the range of $100, or $1000, or $10,000 still wouldn't tell me.

How is any sane person meant to go into a contract without actually knowing even an approximate price. They should say would you like Xrays with that for $X.

how can there be a meeting of minds http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M... to form a valid contract

That is really a problem with trademarking, or plagiarism, this at heart is basically a lie, you are saying that you invented a product, or your product to something that is not.

This is the only intellectual property I agree with, people should have the right to protect their reputation. If you wish to make a cheap rip off go right ahead as long as you make it clear that it is a cheap rip off.

I believe Copyright, and Patents do more harm than good, their maybe a need for them but they should be very limited, and as technological improvements speed there lifetime should decrease not increase. I have not seen any actual study (that goes beyond, look loads of people are downloading, so we must be losing money, so we must be creating less) that shows patents or copyright actually promote creativity and innovation. for patents https://www.youtube.com/watch?... also doesn't. (I am not saying that this video shows having patents leads to more innovation just it shows there is no proof to the contrary.)

There are psychological studies that show paying people more actually reduces their creativity.

My opinion is that all works of art, and innovations are based on other works of art and innovations, limiting peoples ability to create based on the work of others, severely limits, the ability of society to create and innovate. With creation of the internet we have made a tool that we can now easily share ideas with anyone in the world, it has unlocked the potential for huge advances in both art and science. Instead of embracing it the people with power, want to limit is so that they can maintain their wealth and power, don't share that's bad.

For example, imagine if we all had access to the 3D models that all these animated movies have already created, how may people would go out and produce their own stories based on them? Would it not mean we have a much more movies produced?

I really wanted to use dart, I liked the fact it had types, but once I tried using it found out types where optional, and there was no way to make them required. So knowing programmers/people in general are lazy it will degenerate into no types at all. I don't mind having untyped variables as long as you are explicit about it, but dart is the other way round.

I think the web needs a statically typed language since webs apps are growing in size, having types allows for greater readability and ease of refactoring that untyped languages just don't provide. Dart is just not it.

Its an argument to make money yes, but I feel it is unfair, It arises from a monopoly position, a monopoly will charge as much as the market can bare, and that is exactly what you are describing. With healthy competition this can never happen. An I item costs a certain amount to produce, so if you start selling it for any higher than cost + reasonable return, then someone else will be quite happy to supply it for cheaper.

Yes I understand that the vast majority of the cost developing IP, and the marginal cost is around 0. So you need to allow people to recoup their money and make a reasonable profit. But in granting someone monopoly rights you also have to ensure those rights are not abused, since competition is no longer there to ensure people do not take advantage.

It is the same if they could look at your wage/bank balance and say well you are rich I will charge you more, just not as accurate, but if they could I assure you they would.

I think rehabilitation part of prison is a joke, you are much more likely to become indoctrinated than rehabilitated. So that leaves punishment, you could consider having X years of your life taken of you as a punishment, it doesn't stop you aging.

This is a very scary concept, you could imprison anyone, take away there power argue, and still "feel good" about yourself because you didn't kill anyone.

You could put it near your ear, if the mic is sensitive enough it should pick up your voice.

I think this is a better option than having a louder speaker, because of privacy.

I don't see how your ear is much different from the current position, if you put the speaker on the strap

The reason quality is not something that people cannot compete on is that it is not something that consumers can easily compare.

People do buy brand name goods, but that is a very small indicator of quality. You can buy expensive but that too really means nothing, it is too easy to increase the price of a bad product to make it look like a premium item.

My solution is that products should be sold as price per time period (It should be prominent when selling not just small print), The manufacture has to state how long they actually product to actually last, not a guarantee period which is like buying insurance. If the product does not last that long they should be forced to replace it, also if a significant number do not last as long as advertised they should have to reduce the life time estimate, increasing cost per interval.

Of course this will not work for all items, such as perishable items, and 1 time use items. I know the solution is not perfect, but it seems better than just comparing things on price.

You could also force the produce to disclose the cost of production (independently audited of course), as an indicator of quality.

What are you talking about? when was the last time a hammer owned assets, lobbied politicians for changes to laws. I am fine with the directors/owners of the companies being held personally liable, to the same extent as an individual is, (i.e. jail time) for the actions of their company . The problem is in most cases no one is, just a fine, to a company that makes more money in 1 an hour (apple makes about 4 million) than you will probably make in a lifetime.

I assure you if you had a hammer, dog, sheep, whatever other entity that is considered, not human, that went around killing people, or destroying their property it would quickly be destroyed.

I never said assets where not seized, that's a type of fine, isn't it basically if the whole organization isn't a criminal one, its not going to be destroyed. Yes directors do go to jail, but unless its the directly doing it its not likely.

If we found out tomorrow, Apple was using say, slave labor (quite likely that it is) in china do you think it would anything more than a please stop doing it, and maybe a relatively small fine. What would happen to you if the police found you where using slave labor? Go directly to jail, do not pass go do not collect your 41 billion dollars per year.

Of course "He did it too" is a valid argument when comparing two methods of software development.

You are comparing the relative advantages of both, against each other, that what comparing means, no on said open source was perfect.

And as a person who has worked on close source, I can assure you people do go around shouting how great closed source is, and I can assure you closed source and as easily be written by people who have no idea what they are doing.

Corporations have more rights than people, when was the last time you saw a corporation sent to jail? even for causing someones death, you kill someone even though manslaughter you are going to jail, if you steal you will probably go to jail. if a corporation does it, they get a fine, which relative to their income is minor.

I think advertisers are shooting themselves in the foot with this, I have recently noticed just don't believe a word any of them say anymore, Its like I am building up an immunity to them, and they need to create bigger and bigger lies, ops I mean deceptions.

Before I saw a sale advertised as "Demolition", I went in and it was 10% off, well I could negotiate that any time, hardly a demolition sale, now I just don't even bother going in. If I need something I go in sure, but I don't go in because of a sale or stated discount, because they are so likely to be lying that it is not even worth the effort step inside the shop to find out.

My daughter asked me how much I believed the advertisements on TV, and I said not at all, I then started paying attention to the ads and rating if I believed them, and if i thought they where using hiding some important fact from me. The answer was unless it was a public service ad where they where not trying to sell me something, like don't speed, I didn't believe them at all. And even public service advertisements I think they are fudging the truth in order for them to get me to do what they think is best for me.

What we need to do is start charging to be advertised to, I think this specifically applies to junk mail, which goes directly in the bin, since I have to pay to dispose of it.

really depends on what you define as conscious, if it is merely self awareness the yes we are aware of ourselves. I can see how you could program a robot to be aware of itself. But another part definition from wikipedia "the executive control system of the mind" that is harder to judge? Are we merely a function of inputs to outputs or something more? Or is it we are just that we think we have the illusion of control?

If we are just an function, the ability to think I am conscious is just part of the equation and not something in your control at all.

Put another way, you could program a robot to think it was conscious, argue to the bitter end that it was, if it self examined itself come to the conclusion it was, but in the end it actually had no free will at all. For us it is of no use (expect as an experiment) to build robots with a desire for life, or self awareness, I want to use them without considering their feelings, destroy them without thinking I am committing murder. They do not need a survival instinct.

Personally I think that we are more than just machines, there is something more to life than what we already know, but I seen no way of actually showing that we are anything more than just a sophisticated machine.

The reason to believe yourself conscious, is that you may need that illusion in order to survive, If a being, capable of reasoning, did not believe it was somehow special, worthy of survival then it would not be likely to survive.

Same but I pay $17.26US per year ($1.43/ month), ok no smart phone, and I don't make too many calls, i really don't want one. They don't advertise my plan you really have to read between the lines.

But the reason I think it works at least where I live (it is not the US, plans are more expensive here, mid range plan will cost $110.46US per month for 3GB of data, unlimited calling) is the plan prices are the same if you take the contract or not, are you being ripped of yes, but they just rip you off more if don't upgrade. Yes you can go without a contract and save a lot of money depending on usage, but that requires a lot of looking, and thinking, things that people generally can't be bothered doing. They don't really advertise the good deals nearly as much advertise.

Your right you are encouraged to write long documents, but it should really be the opposite, writing is about communicating, if your document is so long that people don't bother reading it, the document has failed in its main purpose.

This standard should be applied to legal documents, such as License agreements, Insurance agreement, What your ELA is more than 100 words long, you don't expect anyone to read this do you? Agreement Invalid. If you need longer it should ensure that people understand what they are agreeing to, maybe run a 1 year course of something.

100 words yes!