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Comment Re:Lockdown (Score 1) 100

Besides handling the uploading of completed exam questions, ExamSoft locks down the computer on which it runs, so Wikipedia is not an option.

Yeah, that'll work, because nobody has internet capable cellphones, secondary machines or even Virtual Machines.

It doesn't need to be perfect, just decent enough to make it harder to cheat. Things like the consequences of getting caught also apply--law is a highly regulated profession, and getting caught would keep a person from ever becoming a lawyer. Failing the bar exam generally just means you retake it six months later and study more.

Cellphones are not permitted in the exam room; so are second computers; and I believe the software is designed not to run on at least some class of virtual machines.

Comment Security (Score 1) 110

This is like being accused of overeating by the world's biggest fat man.

Yes, it is. It is about security rather than monopoly. Both discouraging Chinese citizens from using Microsoft (this lets state media trash talk them for a little while) and trying to get their hands on source code or other references to flaws in the OS.

Comment Wrong - bad summary (Score 1) 100

Students weren't unable to complete exams; they were unable to upload the exams, which you need to do after you get home (or to a hotel) after the exam. It gets stores on your laptop (presumably with public key encryption) in the meantime. Examsoft's servers ran at least 50% slower than they had in the past; the company hasn't announced why.

The only trick is that some jurisdictions required you to upload the exam within a few hours, so Examsoft had to contact those jurisdictions and get them to extend the deadlines.

The only other issue is stress. If it takes law students a lot of time to deal with Examsoft's incompetence and they have to take day 2 of the exam the next day, people who needed just another hour of studying (Not many where an hour would make a difference, but there will be some who just barely fail)... the result, predictably, will be lawsuits.

Comment Re:Lies and statistics... (Score 1) 570

Pre-existing condition exclusions are required because of adverse selection. Flood insurance works the same way; you've got no coverage at all until the policy has been in effect for 30 days. If your house washes away on Day 29 you're SOL.

In any case, I didn't share my story to indict the insurance companies. It was more of an indictment of the healthcare system in general. There was one unavoidable expense: the $4,500 immunoglobulin shot. Why then did the total bill come to nearly $7,000? It came to that much because treatment was routed through the most expensive delivery system (the ER) available in our healthcare system. Why is that? The rabies series is not time sensitive, waiting a few days causes no ill effects. The taxpayers ostensibly pay for it anyway so why not just have it at the County Health Department Monday through Friday?

I try to route my healthcare through my PCP, because 1) I like him, 2) It's cheaper (both for me and society) than the alternatives. Of course, we're killing the PCP providers, they're barely paid cost as it is (less than cost for medicare patients) and there's no incentives for med students to pursue primary/family medicine as a specialty. The ACA didn't do anything to address this either, a fat lot of good having insurance for the first time is going to do you when you can't find an MD that's taking new patients.

Comment Re:Lies and statistics... (Score 1) 570

That's a valid point but you kind of missed the bigger picture. With my history and health status they shouldn't be on the hook for more than $300-$500 annually. That's the cost of an annual physical and standard blood/urine lab work. All it took was one incident to largely wipe out their earnings on me and in this case the costs really weren't inflated all that much. Despite what the other poster thinks, the immunoglobulin really is that expensive. It has a very short shelf life, production is a bitch, and there's little economy of scale because it's so rarely needed. Socialized medicine won't fix any of that....

Comment Re:Lies and statistics... (Score 5, Insightful) 570

Yes, since the bills would be covered by insurance.

After the deductibles and co-pays. I have a "platinum" plan through my employer; better insurance than anyone else I know and the co-pays still total up to a considerable amount. No deductibles for in-network on my plan, which makes me extremely fortunate. As a single guy I can afford the co-pays even with my modest salary but I can see how quickly they would bankrupt someone with a family, particularly if said family had one or more members with a chronic illness.

Incidentally, I was just exposed to rabies a few months ago:

Strike One: The only place to get the immunoglobulin is the ER, because it's very expensive (>$4,500) and has a short shelf-life. ER co-pay: $150
Strike Two: There's a set schedule for the vaccine, Days 0, 3, 7, and 14. You can get the vaccine from your primary, in theory, but of course my primary has a months long waiting list because we're driving PCPs out of business. Bottom line, I can't get appointments with them for Days 3 or 7, so that's two more trips to the ER. Additional co-pay total: $300
Strike Three: New York State ostensibly has a fund to pay for out of pocket expenses related to rabies exposures, but they only reimburse for the rabies vaccine and immunoglobulin. Since the ER decided to give me a tetanus shot on Day 0 NYS won't reimburse me, even though my out of pocket would have been $150 with or without this extra shot. Hooray for bureaucracy!

Totaling all this up, that stupid bat that found its way into my apartment has personally cost me $465 ($450 of ER co-pays, $15 of PCP co-pay) while my insurance company is on the hook for close to $7,000. My annual premium is about $6,000. So this one incident wiped out every penny they made on me and then some. I'm an otherwise healthy 32 year old marathon runner that ought to be subsidizing those who are less fortunate. Now imagine a family of four that were all exposed to the same scenario I was.....

Comment Constitutional (Score 1) 242

Sounds like security clearance language. That is an odd sieve to use.

Not at all. "Reasonable suspicion" is legal language, which is why they use it in both contexts. It is the minimum amount of information that a police officer (or other federal agent) can have to stop you on the street, even if they lack a warrant, without violating the Constitution. It basically means they have to point to specific facts that under the circumstances suggest you may be up to something criminal. (They don't have to identify those facts to you when they stop you, necessarily, but they can make a reasonable inquiry to dispel their suspicion.) Otherwise they have violated the Constitution, which doesn't help you a lot sometimes, but still sometimes results in either evidence they find being excluded or you being able to sue them.

Whether it should be the standard here is a different question, but the government wants it to be because it's a pretty low standard.

Comment overstate things much? (Score 1) 175

MUCH more importantly, though, ads are draining your BANDWIDTH. It's important, because it's also a simple demonstrable harm. If you pay $30 per month for your internet bandwidth, and the ads use up half of it (conservative estimate)

In which universe do you live where ads on a webpage total up to half of the bandwidth to deliver said webpage?

Because Google purposely don't allow you to block the ads in android (*)

They don't make it easy but they don't make it all that difficult either. Buy a Nexus, Developer Edition, or one of the multitude of carrier branded phones that are rootable. Install one of the multitude of ad blocking apps that are available, AdFree being my personal favorite. Problem solved.

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