France has a different culture and population and economic class separations than does America. It's a people problem more than a procedural problem. Ironically we could do the insurance thing totally cashless fairly easily (government provided debit card/insurance card with a payment guarantee for covered procedures).

You're very much correct about the UK. However France requires a copay and I don't disagree with that. Truly free healthcare leads people to go to the ER for stuff their Primary Care Physician should be handling (as the uninsured do now). This presents the ER staff with a large triage issue and it affects emergency care quality. A reasonable fee would discourage this and allow for the creation of additional funding that could be applicable to public funded medical research. Stipulations on that research could be things such as private companies using the research must not patent protect any application of that research (so a drug company using public money couldn't patent and restrict access to a new drug that, say, cures cancer).

Medical research is rather expensive and pure taxation wouldn't be enough. I'd love to see the bulk of medical research moved into the public domain vs companies discovering a cure and making a pill that has to be taken forever (at great cost) instead of using the version of the pill which cures in one round of treatment.

Let's face it, Apple doesn't exist without America. Their designers live here, their product engineers live here, their top management lives here. It shouldn't matter that a shell company based out of Ireland is what "holds" Apple assets. If a company does business in the US (selling to US consumers) it should be required to submit the same financial paperwork as any other registered American company. It should then be taxed accordingly. If they don't like they're free to get out of our country and never be allowed to sell a single product unless they accept a 400% tariff which gives true blue American companies an edge within one of the world's most powerful, prosperous, consumer driven market. They're free to sell to Cuba anytime they want, good luck selling your overpriced junk to a bunch of poor people.

> all other health costs.

Let's clarify this. Universal Coverage doesn't mean "free" healthcare. It would work the same way a private insurance plan works now, except it's the government running the program and doing so without charging money to pay for CEO private jets, bonuses, and lobbying efforts. No one I know has a problem with paying copays, deductibles, or coinsurances, it's the massive premiums (of which a not-insignificant chunk of which goes to paying silly things while insurance companies actively work to deny claims for any small reason they can find).

And this has what to do with the topic?

"The problem is what's the point of Java?"

The problem being solved isn't speed. Most of the scripting languages of yesteryear were very limited or restricted to specific platforms. The problem being solved is cross-platform development.

Do you feel you're exempt from having to pay for the work others have done? We can get real philosophical and shit about whether copying data is tantamount to stealing it, but there certainly can't be any argument to the point that if you don't purchase a DVD or download you're not paying the people who are asking to be paid for their work. People like you are why companies feel the need for restrictive DRM. You feel the product is overpriced so you won't pay for it, but that doesn't mean you should than be able to partake in that product's benefits, right? I think this is the biggest problem for software devs like myself who feel that our work entitles us to payment OR you don't have a right to use my software. I don't think that's unfair.

An unregulated business practice designed to funnel jobs and monies overseas? Say it ain't so, George, say it ain't so!

Why is this any different to you than a search warrant against your house?

Now we can have loads of girls thinking that they're special goddesses instead of mere mortal princesses. How trite.

I'm not a troll...I actually love Tesla and hope they come out with an option in my price range. I'd certainly take a free one and happily drive it.

I get what you're saying, but if the "high speeds" were "nearly" 100MPH it's not unreasonable to wonder just how the car got literally ripped in half. I do wonder about the safety of a car like that. A lot of the US's top Interstate speed limits are between 70-80MPH. You're not talking a huge difference in speed at that point, so it's not unreasonable to at least question the safeness of the car and ask for some additional testing/data.

God, then pay cash. You act as if YOUR legal financial dealings are important. Unless you're buying anthrax, massive amounts of coke, or guns with serial numbers filed off than chances are your dealings are about as interesting to the government as my pissing schedule is to you.

Third party firmwares patch this. However it's the carriers and manufacturers who lock down bootloaders, void warranties, and refuse to allow a more open environment that refuse to make additional changes or updates. I've got a Note 2, it was updated by Samsung nearly a month before Verizon could come out with the update and that was delayed quite a bit from when Google released 4.4.2.

You can blame Google all you want, but it's an Open Source OS and patches can be backported by anyone. Sadly the only people interested in doing that have no power over the carriers and device manufacturers.

I don't think that intelligence (perceived or not) is equatable to a hobby.You can't get "more intelligent" and those few that are true blue geniuses didn't just start being a genius the way you or I go out and start stamp collection. It's a biological trait, not a sociological construct.