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Comment Re:Assault (Score 1) 312

We don't actually need new laws to go after people who do something bad with a robot.

And that is the reason why the police has trouble figuring out what to charge him with. The legal situation is no different than when he was shooting a couple rounds for fun. That it involved a drone at low altitude (high altitude may be a different case), makes no difference.

Comment Re:$805M budget (Score 1) 231

DURRRR...

Please explain the following:

How can it be that the exact same hip replacement in the US costs 10x the cost than in Spain? It is cheaper to fly to Spain, stay a month in a hotel, get your hip replaced, run with the bulls, get injured, get your hip replaced again and still have spending money.

Just to ensure there is no confusion, it is the same operation with the same materials (even same brand) and a similarly qualified doctor. Also, yes your insurance will not cover the travel to Spain.

No system is perfect, but the US system is the worst*. You pay your last penny for medical services and you don't even get better service, in some cases even worse. Many people in the US don't even have dental coverage; WTF?! You don't realize how much you actually get ripped of.

* out of USA, Germany, France, Spain and UK

Comment Re:$805M budget (Score 1) 231

If you knew what you where talking about could have a point, but as it stands you sound like a shotgun polishing hill billy.

The primary problem with healthcare in general is that it is an inelastic market for individuals. That is if you need a treatment to save your life, it does nto mater if it costs $7 or $7000, you will find the money to pay for it; even if you have to beg on Facebook. The primary problem that insurances have in the US is that they are almost all small and have little bargaining power. This is different in countries that have socialized health care, it is one insurance and they have a huge bargaining power. The result is that in the US the healthcare costs are the highest world wide, by orders of a magnitude.

One of the valid solutions in the US would be if the insurances came together and bargained together. Alternatively a semi socialized approach may also work (like in Germany), you define by law a catalog of basic healthcare procedures and their costs. Then private insurance companies work within this catalog and provide discretionary additional services. For example tooth filling is covered by all at a certain rate, but if you like white filling that looks like your tough you got ti either pay extra from your own pocket or get an insurance that covers that.

I have seen 4 different health care systems in action and the US sucks the most.

Comment Re:When one fails to learn from history ... (Score 1) 183

maybe it would be safer to just rear-end the other guy?

If you could not properly stop in a straight line you either did not pay attention or you did not maintain the safety distance. I would rather have a car on car collision with dV of 20 mph than a truck on car collision. Even at slow speeds the truck will pile drive through your car.

Comment Re: Silicon Valley Isn't Wrestling with it (Score 1) 398

If you look at the graphic you can see they made an effort and then failed miserably at reality. They compared students with employees at companies. For starters that sounds reasonable to not demand they try to reduce required qualifications for minorities.

But then they fail in two ways, first it appears that their numbers are all recent. They ignore the fact that the racial composition has changed over time and the primary differences you can see are mostly lag in the system. The second issue is that they compare US universities (only US permanent residents) with companies that hire people form outside. Currently we are seeing an influx of Chinese and Indian workers being employed by companies. You can see this that in some cases it's even double in comparison to the student composition. This influx results in a bias that reduces all numbers, including white. It also ignores the fact that many Asian, especially Chinese will study in the US on a student visa (not counted in study) and then start working at a company in the US on a working visa (counted).

Comment Re:end consumer? (Score 1) 72

Except it does not apply to currencies, because as the name says it is value ADDED tax. What is exactly taxed is the amount that was added from buying to selling the good. For example a shop buys chocolate for 0.5 a price and sells it for 1. The shop will then pay the VAT on the 0.5 that was added. As a consumer you don't see this, because you pay the VAT for each step and originally the value stared with 0. This is complicated by the technicality that the bulk of the VAT is actually payed by the store selling to the consumer, but they are just routing the taxes of others, since they got their products VAT exempt.

But that is not true to currencies. For example if I "buy" USD for EUR, no value was added. Although the exchanges take a fee (which may contain VAT), but the value only converted. This is the same for gold and in some areas silver coins for example, since they are considered a currency. The assertion that BTC is a currency and value is only converted, not added, is totally correct.

Comment Re:Except (Score 1) 72

Not quite, BTC has no leverage to implement monetary policy. The result is that there is no way to counteract severe inflation and deflation. Some people think that this is a good idea; either because "market powers" or because it means they can trade (gamble) it like a stock.

In addition, the amount of power required to validate transactions ("mining") is astounding. The primary reason why paper money was introduced is to detach the money generation from it's value.

All things considered, yes BTC is economically and technologically in the bronze age. It is not significantly different from gold coins, with the only advantage that you can trade them through a computer.

Comment Re:Concorde 2.0 (Score 1) 238

The problem with Spike Aerospace is that they have yet to actually build even a prototype. They don't even have a sale model for wind tunnel testing. It is questionable if anything soon will come out. What especially looks suspicious are the big panorama windows; even sub sonic airplanes can't work with so little structure.

On the other hand a supersonic private jet may actually work; in contrast to the Concorde. The problem the Concorde faced was that to few people used it. It needed a constant stream of passengers to keep them profitable. But this economic does not apply to a private jet, a billionaire can simply buy it and then use it when he wants to. The plane can not be much more expensive than a totally pimped out Airbus 340 and having the "fastest" plane will just work with the dick comparison game they play.

Comment Re:good! (Score 2) 92

The stock market (tactical investment) is generally speaking a zero sum game. So a good number of people got suckered out of their money.

What makes the stock market not zero sum is increase in money volume (inflation) and dividends (actual value produced by the companies). Because of that, unless you dabble in high frequency trading, value based investment is the best way to go.

Comment Re:Missing Option (Score 1) 126

As stupid as it sounds, I would blindly trust my life to SpaceX. Honestly if you look at what they do and how efficient they are, the other agencies pale in comparison. Yes, yes they are basing many of their technology on existing research, but so are the national agencies. In addition they are aiming at getting the dragon capsule to "inflight abort", something no one has ever achieved. They are quite rigorous in their testing and when they resolved most of the teething problems they will let the national agencies in their dust.

Comment No Substance (Score 1) 288

This was the longest article that I read that said almost nothing. The TFS is basically "People have problems with modern interfaces, please provide a simple accessible interface." At any point in reading the article I was hoping for some salient details and examples, what does not work and what may be better solutions. But I was disappointing, no details, no analysis, nothing. This article is borderline useless, it is a half mute scream of "something needs to be done", but does not provide any guidance as to what and how.

Comment Re:This ride may not be suitable (Score 1) 144

What's new? VR will have a new and improved iteration on the epilepsy warning label. But then doing anything is dangerous, if you do it wrong or have a predisposed condition.

I demand that beds have warning labels! Excessive lying in bed can cause a plethora of health conditions, not limited to bone loss and muscle atrophy. /s

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I tell them to turn to the study of mathematics, for it is only there that they might escape the lusts of the flesh. -- Thomas Mann, "The Magic Mountain"

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