No, they cannot. The reason healthcare costs are so high now is precisely because the government has done just that (viz. Medicare/Medicaid). When you have a guaranteed payout, you can pack and pad the patient bill so as to maximize the amount of money that Uncle Sugar pays out per patient. This is usually done through such tactics as unnecessary tests, extreme itemization, and even collusion among providers to raise the overall costs (even if indirect). Top that with a government that regulates every last tidbit of healthcare (see also the FDA, among dozens if not hundreds of other acronyms), and even in some ways artificially restricts the supply of new doctors (at the educational level)? That's an overly-simplified but fairly accurate reason why we have the overpriced mess we have today.

Thing is, they can afford it whereas the US cannot. This is largely due to the demographics of these nations, the fact that their defense budgets are largely carried by NATO/Treaty/aid/etc (read: the US is paying for and/or providing a very significant percentage of it, even if indirectly), immigration laws are uber-strict (which cuts down on the flood of low/no-income users of the system), and because each has a relatively low population that is densely packed when compared to the US (which means you don't need so many clinics, doctors, specialties, etc). In spite of this, many of the nations you list are already under moderate to severe economic crisis in spite of that...

Meanwhile, if the US were to adopt such a system, or if the US DoD stopped providing direct/indirect military defense for these nations in order to afford such a system, a whole lot of economies would collapse within 10-15 years, maximum - the economies of both sides would be radically hamstrung under either condition.

False equivalence: an ugly smile != your house burning down.

...that would've been be a good point, until you find the torrent of NIH scandals and the massive money-suck it represents.

Because they'll pay for you to have something you'd argue isn't essential, like fire protection, food safety, fertility treatments, counselling, etc.

Again, false equivalence, but this time in multiples, with a non-sequitur thrown in for fun. (hint: fertility treatments are not essential to life and limb, and "counselling[sic]" is too vague to provide context as to how essential it may be.)

...and while it's nice that your granny is getting the surgery, I completely fail to see how "lost confidence" is justification for physical surgery, let alone having it become sufficient justification for payment from the public purse.

FYI: Many sat providers still require an independent Internet connection - my Dish Hopper set for instance still wants/demands Wifi access to your home Internet so that it can receive updates and let you purchase PPV. You can get by without it, but it won't do PPV until you connect it.

Correction - *some* malware authors will update their kit.

The script kiddies will continue using whatever they can find, and most malware authors will happily (and TBH, justifiably) rely on general user ignorance to get what they want.

Consider it a parallel to those gawdawful stupid "You're about to get sued" phone scams. Everybody knows they're scams, yet enough ignorant/scared people take the bait to still make it worthwhile.

First, Lightwave is indeed the suck UI-wise, but the blame lies squarely with the dev team's choices and design. Remember that they're likely still using something from back in 2000 or so. Count your lucky stars though; at least you've never had to work with a Kai Krause production (e.g. Poser, Bryce, Carrara)... I still wake up with night sweats at the very thought of having to untangle the UI mess that Bryce was built with.

Secondly, the whole back-button-on-Android thing is standard UI housekeeping; conceptually it's not really different than, say, having to deal with the difference between pointing to the "Preferences" menu item on OSX and "Settings" menu item on 'doze (which is why I mentioned case statements up there ;) ). Basically, whoever left that button in the Android version of their app is a lazy chump who should be slapped silly with a keyboard.

Can't blame the framework for shitty design and/or implementation, can you? It's like blaming a shovel handle because your neighbor Rule 34'd one before he let you borrow it.

Dunno... I've seen where a well-built common UI framework (Qt specifically) can make cross-platform not only easier, but improves the UI beyond the OS it rides on, and more importantly, provides a consistent user experience for those who do switch between platforms.

A perfect example of this is in desktop CG applications (...like this one, ferinstance.) In this case, there are no real OS-specific strengths that your UI would even need to care about. In the case of cross-platform CG apps, a professional artist can use the Mac version at work, the Windows version at home, and not have to care about interrupting his workflow because of UI inconsistency.

Now on the mobile side, this becomes even more important I suspect, with a not-insignificant number of folks swapping between platforms every year or two... your app remaining consistent between them is kind of important at that stage. For anything cute/unique that you want to add or remove for a specific platform, I suspect that case statements (or equivalent) would take care of that, no? It would at least allow you to keep it all in one codebase if nothing else. You just have to know what you're doing when you build it, and be sure that the underlying language is equally cross-platform (in the above example, C++ is the weapon of choice).

Besides, the only way you really would be able to commit to tight hardware integration would be the case of iPhones - it'd be the only platform where you could expect a consistent and relatively limited variety of hardware specs and features across all users - a condition you'd never see with Android, WP, or even (heh) Blackberries.

...depends on the size of the set.

Holy shit - that was so beautiful I almost cried. :)

On a more serious note - parent post (or something like it) needs to be required reading for anyone who wants to be more than just a rotating scrum team leader or etc.

Hell, it should be required reading for anyone with "Sr." in front of their job title.

Something you may not have considered...

Yes, younger coders/admins/etc are willing to put in insane hours, and can bang out huge swaths of effort.

The problem arises when you realize that most of the kids are not so adept at, well, solving problems that arise. As a corollary, that lack of experience is a basis for lack of creativity. They only know what they were taught with perhaps a few limited ideas, and haven't enough hands-on time in the real world to realize that there are multiple ways to get something done, especially on a macro scale - many of those ways being far more efficient and elegant than what they just barely learned in school.

Oh, and I have found that the kids by and large have little-to-no people skills. At all. In a company larger than 400-500 people, the ability to explain and persuade becomes just as important as the ability to do your job.

The good news is this: over time, those kids get that experience, those skills, and most of them realize that there is more to life than throwing 80+ hours a week at a project.

So let's tie it all together: As the near-median mid-40's guy, I've found that I don't have to toss my life upon the altar of the Kanban board. Instead, I find ways of getting the work done more efficiently, and have the people skills to demand (and get) management to set realistic timelines to meet the company's goals (meanwhile, the kids just bitch, moan, then go blast out 80+ hour work-weeks to meet the deadline, often at cross-purposes which blows the timeline anyway - then someone else has to go back in and refactor their barely-running shit, usually after release).

...and that my friend, is what an old fucker brings to the table. ;)

You do realize that there is one possibility no one has considered: English may not be the guy's first/native language?

He may be a mouth-breathing idiot, but destroying his argument publicly (instead of his grammar skills or lack thereof) would be far more effective, no?

Probably somewhere in the middle... he knew the location of enough closeted skeletons to avoid a stay at Hotel Leavenworth, but he was not quite powerful enough to just have the system shrug it off.

Then again, consider that he is still, even now, a paid consultant for the Obama Administration (ostensibly concerning ISIS), so take from that what you will...

Agreed... I stopped bothering at "So if I can find an Apple-approved app and get it to load external content..."

It's a possible corner-case privilege escalation at most, and nothing near the breathless 'OMGWTFBBQwe'reallgonnaDIE!' summary and headline. Oh, and it still requires the user to do something stupid.

Wake me when someone finds a way to take remote control of an OSX box without first requiring a complicit keyboard actuator to help him do it.

That's weird, my work machine is a 15" MBP... and I don't see the BSoDs (black, not blue), frequent reboots, dropped wifi, or the cursing in general that the 'doze users commonly do.

It's also easier to have an OS that does both the necessary evil of MS Office/Outlook, and at the same time gives me a usable bash shell without having to use PuTTY, Cygwin, or something similar.

But you know, YMMV...

The Mac Pro desktops are all allegedly built in the US.