Actually, no. We can program a high amount of variability in pricing and eligibility based on whatever data is required. And we own a private exchange, so we do that, too. Also, we can implement such a project in 6 months, sometimes less, including the entire reporting requirement.

I fear the day we make truly sentient "machines." (In quotes because because I don't know if they will be machines or not.) In order to replicate life as we know it - human, feline, insect, etc. - we must first figure out how to make it want to survive. And once we do that we have created a new competitor in the food chain.

So you're saying I won't be able to fuck a sexbot by 2035?

Forget about the number of lines of code. I work for a U.S. company that builds healthcare.gov type web sites and the reporting back end for large companies. The estimated price tag of the front end ($150 million or so) is about 20 times what the tax payers should have paid. Add in the back end reporting to the insurance companies and billing, throw a call center in at least two different time zones, main and backup datacenters and instead of the full price tag ($600 mil?), let's say at the high end $20 million for the whole thing. Ongoing administration costs maybe in the 7 digits per year. The whole thing was a sham to get votes and fill the coffers of some cronies.

Let's not forget that what most people dislike (or hate) about the U.S. government is something outside the intentions it was founded upon. It wasn't supposed to become a rich man's club running at the behest of other rich people.

Capitalism doesn't have hooks it can put in government. A government highly influenced by corporations is cronyism, or straight out bribery. And lest we give "Big Academia" a pass, a government highly influenced by large universities with millions of dollars is also cronyism.

The universe has been in 3-D for like 30 billion years.

*They are.

Their like pocket-sized Wookies! What's not to love?

I don't think they had a choice at that point except to make him look like a dick. The story had to continue with him as Darth Vader because that's how it was written 30 years prior. They painted themselves into a corner by trying to tell the story starting way further back than they could hope to tell in three mostly consecutive movies, and then by wasting almost one entire movie (Episode 1) just showing us crap.

Also, anyone who compares Ewoks and Jar-Jar is a moron. The Ewoks actually fought, using old but useful weapons to help defeat the imperial forces. Jar-Jar was running away like a coward and accidentally destroyed an invading force in the process. Both character types aimed at kids? Sure. But they were nothing alike.

The prequels sucked because they tried to cram foreshadowing into every scene, as if we needed every single event in the prequels to relate to a specific event in the original 3. Then after the second prequel they realized they left so much undone that the third was just two hours of screen wipe-divided vignettes, and right at the end they were like, Oh shit, Anakin only has the one fake hand. So 5 minutes, one ill-constructed fight sequence, and single slashing of a light saber and suddenly he is Darth Vader in all his shiny, black awesomeness. Crap. Crap. Crap.

I never said bludgeoning a person was easy.

. I said that someone who can and will disarm a person with a gun probably has the skills to then beat the crap out of you with your gun if it for some reason does not fire.

Although it is not "easy" to bludgeon someone to death, it only takes the right kind of strike to knock a person unconscious, at which point the perpetrator can take their time pistol whipping the limp body.

If you are defending yourself with your smart gun and the person takes it away from you, I'm pretty sure that if they can't shoot you with it that they will still be able to beat you to death with it. And if they are the kind of person who can and will disarm someone then they probably can beat you up, too. Either way, I'll take my chances that someone else might get my gun over my gun not firing when I really need it to. I can train to deal with misfires, not with electronic malfunctions.

I hope they don't drop support for the Adventure Construction Kit. That is the greatest game of all time.