I think these laws should be written such that the fines are paid to the individual rather than the state (or at least split 50/50). People would be much more motivated and vigilant about enforcing their rights... (wishful thinking I know)

However, California has a ballot initiative process that gives California citizens a way to propose laws and constitutional amendments without the support of the Governor or the Legislature, so maybe the law could be amended through that process.

"Green Meat"

One big problem i see with all of these tests is that they are temporary. The people receiving the money know they're only going to be getting it for a year and, therefore, these tests don't reflect how people would live and act if they knew they would be receiving this money for a lifetime. However, there is already at least one such project in existence (and probably a lot more that I don't know about) - the Alaska Permanent Fund Corporation. This program has been providing income for Alaskan residents since 1982. However, it is much less than in this test (~$300-$2000 per year) and Alaskan residents are already receiving it so you can't go back and study how people's lives change when they first started receiving it.

Now, aside from how the studies are conducted, the two biggest issues I have with UBI (universal basic income):

- currently unemployment in the US is very low, so it is unclear if this "great job loss due to computers replacing people in the workplace" will ever materialize. People have been wringing their hands about this very issue for at least a hundred years. Is this time different? Maybe, maybe not... I'll believe it when i see it.
- it is extremely expensive. Let's say you give 200 million people n the US each $20,000 per year. You're talking about $4 trillion dollars of goods and services that someone has to generate to fund this program...

For the foreseeable future, in my opinion, UBI just seems the me to be a retelling of the utopian dream...

That's awesome. When they come out with the improved versions, they can say it's learning at MACH 2, MACH 3...

This year will be the year of Linux on the desktop!

I wonder what happens when someone grabs the wheel of this self-driving car.

So it simply that these hospital are negligent and don't have up-to-date backups of their data? Or are these networks so complicated/extensive that having a backup system is prohibitively expensive?

It looks to me like the $329 chip is the best buy if you need a high-performance chip. Low power, high core count, and high clock speed.

People are posting that Lasik only rarely had adverse effects. Actually the rate of complications is very high. Below are a couple of excerpts from a recent NYTimes article:

"A recent clinical trial by the F.D.A. suggests that the complications experienced by Mr. Ramirez are not uncommon.
Nearly half of all people who had healthy eyes before Lasik developed visual aberrations for the first time after the procedure, the trial found. Nearly one-third developed dry eyes, a complication that can cause serious discomfort, for the first time."

and

"Yet few studies have followed patients for more than a few months or a year, and many are authored by surgeons with financial ties to manufacturers that make the lasers.
One such study, written by the global medical director for a large laser eye-surgery provider, reported high satisfaction rates among patients five years after Lasik.
But the study also found that even after all those years, nearly half had dry eyes at least some of the time. Twenty percent had painful or sore eyes, 40 percent were sensitive to light, and one-third had difficulty driving at night or doing work that required seeing well up close."

I was thinking about Lasik until I read this. No thanks.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/0...

I'm of the opinion that practical quantum computing is impossible (see link below for the argument). Start believing this too, and you will have one fewer things to be worried about!

https://spectrum.ieee.org/comp...

I tried to RTFA, but it appears that semiaccurate.com is down. Heh, haven't seen a site be slashdotted in a long time. I guess by moles you don't mean 6.02310^23?

I'm considering buying a Surface Laptop, but I'm reluctant because they are full of glue and irreparable. (Per ifixit.com "The Surface Laptop is not a laptop. It’s a glue-filled monstrosity. There is nothing about it that is upgradable or long-lasting, and it literally can’t be opened without destroying it.")

My current laptop is 8 years old and runs well - i would expect my new laptop to be in use for a similar length of time... The reason I'm considering the surface laptop is they have a taller screen - their screen ratio is 3:2 rather than 16:9 that everyone else (except Apple) uses.

So I am torn... If I buy one, i will need to also buy an extended warranty of at least 4 years...