Other less dysfunctional cities either have better mass transit

LA is supposed to actually have quite good mass transit. Just underrated.

I seem to recall there was some reason a lot of people were off the roads, leaving them clear. And there were some races between mass transit and driving. The results (again without traffic) were within the margin of error.

Not sure if the test was rigged, or what, but it was interesting.

I didn't get one (the office got a 3D printer the same time the kickstarter went up), but it sounds really interesting. I'm interested to see what the prints actually look like in the wild.

Well, they claim 1 in 11000, as opposed to 1 in 20000. I question their math. (And yours). You don't get to multiple the liklihood of Chrome and Chrome 39 together, they are highly correlated. See also Windows and Windows 7.

Interesting. The only time I had heard 'evergreen" before was in reference to characters/worlds/other fictional material, and referred to ensuring continued cultural relevance (e.g. Mickey Mouse).

But it explicitly talked about the pragmatic issues... I suppose they already assumed perpetual ownership of the IP.

did anyone consider the possibility of the government backstopping insurance companies for high-expense patients, by (for example) putting a cap on the amount of money an insurance company must pay out in the lifetime of an individual (call it $1 million)--then when you hit that cap, the money beyond that cap comes from the government,

The problem with this is similar to the problem with saying "The emergency room is a special case!". Different payers at different levels give rise to different, conflicting incetnives that raise the cost for the system as a whole.

Imagine Patient A is ensured by Company B. Any costs beyond X are picked up by the government. Now, A gets sick, and has two treatments available. The first (costs X/2) has a 50% chance of working off the bat, and a 50% chance of costing 10X if complications occur. The second costs X (or any number higher than X) and pretty much is assured of working. Maximizing societies total pool of resources devoted to insurance says the second option. Maximing Company B's profits says take the first.

Why don't the instead deny the patent for the new drug? That way, there's no incentive fort hem to act like this.

It doesn't affect the patent. It affects the prescribability.

First, there is a break, when X cannot be prescribed (not made by the company, patent prevents generics), So the only option is X+1, which then becomes the entrenched standard.

Also, some jurisdictions don't allow generics for X to be prescribed. X is prescribed, and the generic can be substituted. So, by stopping the sale, they prevent the generic.

The latter can be fixed by changing the law... the former is a far more pernicious issue.

Libertarian philosophy as I understand it is about coercion.

No, libertarian philosophy talks a lot about coercion. The problem is that the word requires so much interpertation that it is meaningless..

Heck, let's use your example. First, your example presupposed that there is an objective, knowable standard for what a doctor should proscribe. And that somehow we can determine if something is "recklessly prescribing" or "prescribing ... after weighing the risks and benefits."

But secondly, a doctor prescribing something is seen as coercion, if and only if it was the wrong choice. If it was the right choice, no coercion. And it's only coercion if a judge tries to stop him from making a bad choice, not a good choice.

While I think "the decision most likely to be correct should be applied, regardless of source" is reasonable, I don't think it's what you intended.

I do agree with GP. These points are tired, and dragged out constantly. So I worry I'm wasting time shouting into the wind. But, I'll take that chance.

If your decision only affected you, run wild. That's your choice and your right.

It never affects only you. In fact, it doesn't affect you. It affects your kids.

Children are not chattel. They are not capable of making informed decisions, but they have to be protected from abuse. And, fucking a, antivaxers are child abusers.

Now that Usmanov has set the precedent, he can expect a lot of other Nobel Prize winners coming forth to cash in. And when Feynman's heirs put forth his, Usmanov can buy it and keep it.

I highly suggest you entirely disable cookies entirely (yes, I realize this is not worth it at all)

Why on earth would it not be worth it? Especially with whitelisting. Unless I have an account with a company there is no reason to have them save data on my machine.

real men have their own programming language

If I was in charge of a huge budget, and the ability to foist my language on the public, I would invent my own language. heck, every programmer wishes they could design the language everyone uses.

That is actually a very easy technical problem,

Sure it is. Every problem someone else has to solve that doesn't involve a measurable result (e.g. the bridge collapsed) is very easy, technically. If only they had my intelligence unburdened by their silly rules.

there's that whole pink/blue thing that is a modern invention. Hard to explain that.

Well, universal color coding makes sense to enable people to make gender references about newborns they don't personally know. Just like the blue/red divide in politics, it was originally arbitrary, and then somehow got imbued with meaning.

Ever consider girls don't like girly things cause there marketed towards them, but rather, that girly things are marketed to girls cause thats there tried and true demographic?

Well, the question is not about marketing, but societal conditioning. And the reason people believe that it is conditional-able instead of innate is different societies (or the same societies at different times) have conditioned men's/women's attitudes differently then they are now.