Well, at least someone gets it.

To add to your well-written post, I believe the problem is that some people equate "high auto insurance risk" with "poor driver". As an example for those people, consider a race car driver. I'm quite sure the driver will have insurance on their personal vehicle(s). But does that mean they can just as easily get insurance on their race car? No. Is it because they suddenly become a much worse driver when they get into the race car? No. It's because they are in a much higher risk situation when racing.

To reinforce your final point for those who might not get it, driving ability is only one of many factors used to determine someone's risk. It's not an exact science and insurance companies don't have a magic crystal ball to determine when and who will make a claim and for how much. So they have to estimate it using factors that show a strong correlation with high risk. With all other things equal, being a bad driver correlates to being a higher risk, but the inverse is not necessarily true.

While the driver may not have much control over their employer/house/etc., they certainly have far more control over their own situation than the insurance company or its other customers have.

If the driver is, for any reason, more likely to be involved in an accident, then statistically speaking, the insurance co. will have to pay out more money in claims due to having that driver as a customer. The money has to come from somewhere. So the insurance co. has two choices: "punish" that driver with higher premiums, or "punish" other customers by increasing everyone's premiums slightly. And while spreading claims costs across the populace is essentially the main function of insurance companies, they can't spread it too much because eventually people who don't make any claims will get fed up and leave.

Personally, I'd rather have the insurance co. "punish" the one driver rather than charge me more. After all, it's not like I can force that driver to change jobs or houses.

You're forgetting the most important part. Insurance companies don't have to tell you how much of a risk you are calculated to be. So as long as they can convince some customers to pay more, the companies can afford to let some customers pay less.

Insurance isn't about charging people exactly how much they will have to pay out. It's about spreading loss costs over a wide populace. Risk calculation is important to make sure you're collecting enough premiums to cover everyone and to avoid grossly-overcharging low-risk customers (since they would eventually wise up and leave).

Besides, insurance companies don't make money off the premiums they collect. They invest the premiums and turn profits on the returns. It's the actuaries' jobs to ensure insurance companies don't take on so many high-risk customers that they end up paying out more than they are making on their investments.

Whether or not frequent sharp braking correlates to bad driving is irrelevant. All that matters is whether or not it correlates to a higher accident rate.

If the driver is bad, they'll brake sharply often. But even if the driver is good, if they are regularly surrounded by bad drivers, they'll probably brake sharply often. And guess what? In both cases they're more likely to be involved in an accident.

Nah, the current administration won't care much. Now if you tell them a bunch of R-bags in Congress are being bought and paid for, then they'll go to hell and back trying to prove it.

I'm sure it also has to do with the resolution of the nozzle positioning system as well as the spread of the droplets once they hit the surface. To get true 10 million dpi, I think you would need to be able to create 2 dots 100 nm apart without them shorting together.

Of course, it sounds like the resolution is still much better than existing technology, just not 10 million dpi.

You assume that companies can place anything they wish in license agreements. You always have the right to believe something in an agreement is not legal. Based on that belief, you can then choose to fight it in court up front, or you can take your chances choosing to ignore it first then potentially end up in court anyway (probably having to pay lots of $$ if you lose).

Just because something appears in a license agreement does not automatically mean it must be adhered to. But you better be ready to defend your position and face any possible consequences if you choose to ignore it.

Who cares? Just think of all the energy you could produce by dropping it on the tiles!

That's the problem. They did a search on Bing and didn't find anything.

That is the exact problem right there (emphasis mine). The whole point of vision tests and minimum requirements is to decide if an astronaut's vision would keep them from doing their job. And the people developing and administering the tests are far better qualified to determine that than an emotionally-biased astronaut who is directly and strongly affected by the outcome.

California can pass any law they want. It doesn't mean the law will be constitutional, but they can pass it nonetheless. Of course, they're only going to pass laws that they think would stand up in court. Otherwise it would be a waste of their time to even bother. But what they think will stand up and what will actually stand up can sometimes be different things.

Indeed. Because clearly there is no better way of teaching someone biology* than to simply show them a bunch of pictures of different people's vaginas. </sarcasm>

The main problem is that even though medical illustrations are both prevalent and often better at highlighting small details (artists can control contrast of areas very easily to show off such details), there are many exhibitionists out there who add self-made images just because they can. Most people don't post these images for their encyclopaedic value, they post them so that there's a picture of their penis (etc.) on a popular public website. The end result is an article with 10-15 different photos of the same body part, when 1 is sufficient.

* Note: whether or not Wikipedia is the best place to learn about a subject such as biology is a different argument altogether. But as long as one is careful with references, there is no question Wikipedia offers a lot of useful, factual information.

Hypothetically speaking, if the TSA can create a system to effectively screen out bombs, then they should also be competent enough to create a system to screen out impersonators. And if they can't effectively screen out bombs, then screening out impersonators becomes a moot point.

Personally I don't believe they can do either correctly.

Yes. They're called politicians. It's what they do.

I would say a law school's responsibility is solely to prepare a student for passing the bar exam. It is the responsibility of the bar association to ensure the bar exam will only allow qualified individuals through to practice law.

If idiots are being allowed to practice, don't blame the schools, blame the bar association.