Note to mods: He's talking about the square socket drive (from, e.g. the ratchet handle), not the size of the socket wrenches themselves.

They're already here because they are the same. They are 6.35mm (1/4"), 9.5mm (3/8"), and 12.7mm (1/2").

There would be absolutely no upside to fragmentation in this standard (the only point of which is interchangeability). If you think the point of the metric system is to have everything in some integer measurement, then you're converting for the wrong reason.

He probably was also a fan of breakfast cereals. So what?

This presumes some kind of rational analysis of relative risks, and humans are terrible at that.

If we cared about such things, we'd already ban cars today in favor of vastly-safer public transit. And before some doofus starts tossing Amtrak safety records around, I'm talking about public transit in a first world country, not the designed-to-fail idiocy that passes for transit in the USA.

The first-order cause for the falling per-capita divorce rate is the falling per-capita marriage rate.

Maybe in absolute terms, and only just barely. Go back and take a look per capita, and get your pointer finger ready.

90% were bullied for being too intelligent? How can *everybody* be overly intelligent? Was the survey was conducted in Lake Wobegon, by any chance?

Maybe it seems that way to your emotions, but by any evidence-based thought process nuclear power is the safest means of energy production ever devised by humans.

Coal power kills more people (by several orders of magnitude), and generates more radioactive waste, and releases said waste into the atmosphere. Nuclear energy is imperfect, but the time to discuss shutting it down is after the last coal plant is gone.

That's not what "per capita" means. If you are paying only $4500 per year, and that includes both your and your employer's share of the costs, and you have a $0 deductible, pay no co-payments or other charges, and you spend $0 on prescription and over-the-counter medications, then you are astronomically fortunate.

Such anecdotal information is irrelevant, though, since we're talking about per-capita (i.e. average) costs, which are exceedingly well documented at about $3000/year in the UK, and nearly $9000 in the USA (probably higher in 2012).

That's a separate issue. In the UK, nearly all health care expenses are paid from general taxation. In the US, it's a mixture. But, irrespective of the source, the total expenses in the US are about $6000 per capita per year higher than the total UK expenses.

It's true because the countries' respective health care expenditures are well-documented facts.

As I noted elsewhere, every british citizen could get ripped off in this fashion at least twice per year and still pay less for health care (per capita) than we do in the USA. The USA spends about $6000 per capita *more* than the UK (and despite this the USA does not even manage to cover everyone).

Some perspective:

Every british citizen could get ripped off in this manner twice each year, and still come out way ahead compared to the USA. As bad as the $2000 fee sounds, if he moved to the USA he would pay an average of $6000 extra per year for his health care.

It's time for single payer, and if you disagree, this price differential is the bar your alternative proposal needs to clear before I bother paying attention to you.

Huh? Except in the ways that it's better. It differs significantly in that voters can vote for whom they want instead of against the lesser of the two likely-to-win evils.

If you don't understand the difference, then please watch this.

But not the same two parties, because the voters are free to vote for whomever they want, instead of the lesser of the likely-to-win evils. If it tended toward domination the same two parties, there wouldn't be much resistance to changing the vote system.

What range problem? The cars go hundreds of miles per charge and can charge at a rate of 60 miles' range per hour. US average commute: 24 miles. Average daily driving: 30 miles.

The data confirm--over and over again--that, despite most people's fantasies to the contrary, long distance road trips and boat-towing are outliers in our collective driving habits.

If you absolutely must drive long distances regularly and you only have one car, then that's too bad for you. Shut up and go drive something else. It's a false premise that electrics must be a 100% solution for everyone. If that was an actual requirement for vehicles, we'd never have Hummers, motorcycles, or concrete mixer trucks.