Yupp. Einstein for the win! :-)

Another problem in power generation is that arc fault detectors also has a tendency to be tripped by camera flashes. So keeping cameras out of power plants/transformer sites/etc, is standard operating procedure since time immemorial.

And these EPROMS probably had that black gunk on them that were popular when EPROMS were used in production. Problem is that the gunk had a tendency to dry up and fall off after a couple of decades.

Sure, I wasn't saying that I agree with all or even necessarily much of the legislation against drugs, only that the argument against them usually isn't couched in terms of what it does to consenting adults, but what those adults do to society at large.

But if you check the history of Kevorkian he was acquitted all the times he assisted someone else committing suicide, but when he pressed the plunger himself he was convicted. Giving someone the hypodermic; OK. Injecting someone; not so much. So I think my original characterisation still stands. There is a bright line that must not be crossed legally speaking (mainly because it then becomes difficult to differentiate between murder and suicide after the fact), but if you stay on the right side of it you'll be in the clear.

For Perl at least I can see their point, but for programming languages? Not so much...

I'll sort of give you drugs, though most of that is actually motivated in terms of what drug addicts do to their surrounding (crime, family etc. etc.), but I'll give you that.

Euthanasia though, I won't give you as easily. There's no-one trying to outlaw killing yourself as far as I know, only forbidding the medical profession from helping you (something I agree with BTW). There aren't typically any legal repercussions for attempted suicide, or even helping someone else, as long as you don't "help" crosses over to "murder".

Well, as one of those parents (of allergic children that had had all tests known to man), the problem is that the tests are far from perfect. While the problem of false positives is manageable---that usually just means that you aren't showing symptoms, or at least not serious symptoms, yet, i.e. you will in time if you keep up exposure---they do suffer from false negatives, esp. in children. Any good allergologist will base a good deal of their diagnosis on the history of the patient. Much more so than you'd think. Mothers are often right. (At least Swedish ones, don't know about Alaskan... :-)

This is especially true of the simpler skin provocation tests that you often administer to children as they're quick, cheap and easy, and that are often interpreted by non-experts.

That's not to say that you shouldn't see a doctor. Far from it. Only that if you have tests at your GP, and they don't show anything, but real life suggests otherwise, you should seek more qualified help and have a blood test taken looking for specific antigens, rather than a simple provocation test.

That diagnosed childhood allergies have risen dramatically in the western world in the last couple of decades (three), and that this increase in diagnosis is based in a true increase in the population, is not in question, and a well established fact. Why that is so, is still in doubt, though the hygiene hypothesis is looking better and better.

Well, you'd be wrong. The incidence of childhood allergies have increase substantially in the western world in the last thirty years. We don't know what causes it, but we have a few ideas from for example the observation that the same genes in an impoverished setting does not seem to lead to more allergies, pointing to the hygiene hypothesis, but the jury's still out on that. The wikipedia entry on peanut allergy actually has some good info.

Now, what to do about it is good question. In schools, in the case of people who are allergic it's imperative that they are kept away from it as it can lead to anaphylaxis even when air born, but whether that's enough to outright ban it is a good question, and there are probably other ways to handle the associated risk.

Keeping out of aircraft is much more warranted as that's a much worse environment in which to have an anaphylactic shock, so I don't feel the risk is warranted for the relatively minor gain. (We even ban smoking due to general discomfort more than anything, i.e. no immediate risk of death, and smokers are addicted, and hence suffer much more than someone who will have to wait till landing to get their peanut fix.

I've had to use an "epipen" in anger twice, and believe me, that's not something you'd want to have to do midway across the Atlantic. Better keep out shellfish from the inflight meal while we're at it.

That's not to say that it's a huge population risk on aircraft either, but that's more due to the low frequency of peanut allergy in the population. If you are one of those that are allergic, then the risk is higher. Actually higher than you'd think from just looking at the survival-statistics of anaphylaxis, as most cases are iatrogen, i.e. caused by doctors already in hospitals. Of course, when you have an anaphylactic shock already in a hospital you're chances of survival are greatly improved, compared to mid flight.

I hear you. But on the upside, they also give you a lot more choice and availability of food you can eat. In just the last few years my family can find naturally gluten free (i.e. free of all wheat proteins, as that's the allergy, and not celiac disease per se) food almost everywhere, instead of just at the local pharmacy.

So I actively encourage the hipsters to not get tested, just demand that everything should be gluten free everywhere they go. :-) It's made my life a lot easier.

No, "right". He's not talking about the difference between open and closed cycle. NERVA was indeed a closed cycle design, i.e. one that would keep its nuclear fuel on board when operating within normal parameters. However, given the lightweight structure and majors temperatures (and temperature swings) keeping the fuel elements from cracking and leaking into the exhaust stream turned out to be a major headache and NERVA suffered from those problems for a long time (one time, due to operator error making it run dry, it even dumped the entire core out the back of the engine). By the end though, those problems seemed in hand, even though they weren't completely solved.

TL;DR; while NERVA was designed to not expel nuclear fuel, in operation it did, due to the bugs in the design not having been worked out.

Because it includes health care and pension. duh

You know what it doesn't include? Broadband. With the tax breaks you've given your telecoms you've probably subsidised broadband more, and gotten less. (Just like you spend more for health care and get less.)

Not when it comes to Sweden, no. We're roughly the size and shape of California (we're 10% larger) and have 9 million people. True, our population density is varied, most people live in the southern most 1/5 of the country, but even comparing to California, they have huge swaths which much higher population density than the densest Swedish hotspots.

And even so, the people in Northern Sweden often have better access to fibre, as it's cheaper to dig and they organize fibre coops with substantial local government involvement (having good access to fibre is seen as a way to attempt to remove at least one reason for young people to move away; we are still in the process of urbanisation).

The most successful model here is open networks, the coop/city/power company/whatever (even the old telecoms monopoly company) lay and run the physical fibre and equipment and then ISPs are more or less free to offer services on that network (for a fee, typically 10%-15% of your montly fee). I for example, pay about $40 for 100 Mbps symmetrical, including IP-telephony and cable TV (very basic package).

While that is interesting in its own right, one should be careful to read too much into the existence of such plans. In the 1800-hundreds more emphasis was put on military planning as opposed to execution in the face of what had already happened. It was thought (largely correctly) that to gain and hold the initiative you had to already have considered possible ways of conducting operations and have ready plans for what it would take to carry those operations out. (The specialised staff officer comes from this period, the general staff being responsible for this analysis and planning).

However, in order to keep the necessary knowledge alive, major engagements being few and far between, a system whereby these staff officers were continuously trained by (more or less) dreaming up new scenarios, analysing them and making the plans to support the operations that that scenario would entail. As for keeping the updated, what do you otherwise do with the new young officers that can't be trusted to do stuff that actually has an effect on anything? You put them to update "War plan Z" or something. When they're finished you get to tell them why and where they got it all wrong, and send them back to their desks which both keeps them busy and out of everybody's hair, and also impresses the important lesson on their young and impressionable minds that they don't actually know anything and should mind their tongue and manners when the grown-ups are talking.

That these plans are kept secret isn't necessarily due to military necessity, but rather to make sure that the equivalent young know-it-all- politician doesn't get wind of them and create all manner of problems getting in the way of the work the grown-ups have to actually get done. It's more of a "conveniently secret", than actually sensitive (as these plans are on such a high level that most of the data they use aren't secret/unknown to begin with. What forces are where, what their general capabilities are and what the map looks like are no great secrets.)

So, if you look through the archives there would and should be plans for almost everything including invasion by space aliens via flying saucer(s) as the plans themselves aren't that important in the greater scheme of things, but the planning process, and keeping that skill alive is very valuable.

Hardly. There are still papers published on Darwin's theory of evolution, how it applies in different situations, addressing paradoxes arising from the theory etc. This doesn't mean that the issue wasn't "settled" long ago.

So the price of building roads, erecting power poles, and building a power station are artificially raised due to regulatory capture by how much? It's not like there aren't private roads, and it's not like they're built cheaper, in fact they cost as much as building a road anywhere.

And when it comes to screwing over customers, how come my Internet fibre in Sweden cost so much less being provided by a municipal company (no subsidies I might add), than anywhere in the US where it's almost exclusively provided by private entities? How is that even possible?

Sure. You can sweat all you like. That's not the problem.