So I had no option to pay for it in Canada as well. But back to the point of this article, NEW scientific advances would not benefit the Canadian Health system until it became old and cheaper.

The waiting list for the MRI once it was deemed necessary would not have been 8+ months though. One of the professional teams (think it was the Maple Leafs) offered to buy 3 MRI machines for 3 hospitals around Metro Toronto and the cost of staff - with the caveat that if their player gets injured -- they have priority.... Ontario Health said it was not possible... so they bought only one for the dressing room and no-one else had access to it.

The health-care system works perfectly as long as you don't need something special or new (so new advances are often not available because of cost). I had a torn knee cartilage and it took many many months before I gave up and "jumped the queue" to have an MRI done in Buffalo for $450 (the day following the appointment). They schedule cheaper "tests" first, then after those failed to find anything they scheduled an ultrasound.... I asked what the doctor expected to find - he told me nothing but he had to schedule it first before more expensive tests..... after a couple of months in different queues I was getting a little impatient.... I asked if they could schedule the MRI now since their was a long queue for it and cancel it if not needed -- he told me no.... I had to come back with a negative on the ultrasound before the next test was scheduled -- and the queue for the MRI was at least 8 months at the time. That friday I called up a clinic in Buffalo and asked the cost and when they could schedule me.... they said.... tomorrow and $450.... I jumped, if I was waiting on the Canadian Healthcare system for my knee - I would probably still be waiting. 90% don't need it for anything more than the odd consult and for those 90% it works perfectly....

Learning a language is easy, but learning a paradigm is not. I usually pick up a language in a matter of days and can program fairly competitively pretty soon.... but I found that most developers that came to Java programmed how they did before because they failed to grasp the paradigm that the language was designed for. Programmed in Java for 15+ years, but prefer programming in Scala over Java. Java ecosystem is scattered with "advancements" that only later did we learn was holding us back. I am sure Scala will eventually be the same way. I found that moving to Scala with it's full support of object-oriented paradigm and full support of functional paradigm has allowed me to produce cleaner more concise code.

I had bought a bunch of futures based on there being an impact in that year....

I have to agree with that - higher than average intelligence in too slow of course = boredom.... which means lack of interest and you end up investing your time elsewhere. The most extreme example (although more reflective of memory than intelligence) was a grade 9 class (was more to do with geology - can't remember the name). I did not do any of the assignments which meant the highest mark I could get 60%..... when the final exam came around I had to get 96% to pass according to the teacher -- and again did not bother to study.... I ended up getting 97% on the exam which gave me a final 50 or 51% overall. That mark was not reflective of knowledge, it was reflective of poor discipline when being bored.

Disappointing to see such an important long term research project get shelved by politicians.

The answer to this - have the same people that run Singapore Airport run airports in North America. They are probably more secure than North American airports and the average time from landing to being out the door in a taxi or on the MRT subway..... is 15 - 17 minutes (and most of that is walking). I go through that airport around once a month and it is amazing in comparison to North American airports.

When I was working in the UK and flying from Canada or the US the jet lag tended to be brutal for the first few days to as much as a week or two. We would fly, then arrive in the morning -- then make it through most of the work day ..... then try to keep each other awake until evening..... but eventually we would end up sleeping too early and it would set the cycle out of order for a while. In fact what would happen is that we would get to the point where each day we were closer to being in sync with the local time - then think we have adjusted - only to have a boomerang effect (would adjust the wrong way for while).... But when travelling 24 hours the opposite direction to asia I would land - go to sleep ... and adjust almost immediately. Probably had something to do with the fact that I could never sleep on any plane - so I was dead tired and slept until the following morning which started me off on the right cycle.

The Washington Redskins should sue the patent office for issuing invalid patents in the first place and allowing them to build a business on invalid patents which were then revoked. It is obviously a case of negligence in the first place that is causing the financial damage now of having to rebrand. :p

No, but I have two sisters that work for the government (Foreign Service) and they would not be able to get away with this sort of behaviour (Canadian). The first thing anyone does after getting a request - is to go and do an initial evaluation of the situation..... especially if you have to go and testify. The email server used is not going to be any different than any corporation uses - and any search warrant requesting data like this takes a couple days at most to extract and to backup on media..... The only reason why it would take "years" as earlier testified is if you are trying to delay (and now avoid) sending the data - by assigning one of your slowest (and the only one) to go through each email that was retrieved and to flag or not for further review during their lunch break. If you quarantine (house arrest) the senior manager on site and feed them only pizza.... the job would be done very quickly.

There are two independent issues. The investigation is about using the IRS to pursue the political agenda or those that are in charge of the IRS. The 501c is a separate issue. Non-profit status should only be inferred on charitable organizations or religious (i.e. not political) , and the congress could make those changes anytime it wants.

Earlier testimony by the IRS indicated that it would take years to fulfil the current request to get the emails from the email server. Now they are saying a workstation crashed so the emails were lost....... Time to start charging people with obstruction of congress/justice.

No matter how good your hiring practices are you will end up hiring some people that just don't work out. If you don't encourage them to look elsewhere, that bottom 10% will just grow (under performers tend to accumulate in safe organizations; while high performers are not afraid to move on to other organizations when it benefits them). Automotive productivity productive worker to unproductive one tends to be a 2:1 ratio. This balloons to 12:1 for programmers.... in some cases you can even get programmers that are net negative in productivity (they consume more resources than they put back - i.e. code constantly having to be re-written / debugged; corporate overhead). Not only does hanging onto these underperformers destroy team moral, but it puts all the productive team members at risk since business is a competitive environment.... eventually, your unproductive fat organization will fall to those that are leaner.

One of the better organizations I worked for if someone was significantly lower than the mean -- then they were "counceled out". There will always be some people that are not meant for the position they hold, and you have to move them out and make that position available to someone that can fit in. If you start holding onto everyone that is below average, your organization will sink and not excel. Any responsibility the organization has to it's employees is to keep it healthy and vibrant for the majority....