Let's stop subsidizing nuclear power accident liability costs: either you manage to design it to be safe enough to be privately insureable, or it's not safe enough to get built.

Sure thing. We'll just build a few coal plants instead. They're privately insurable despite killing people and destroying the environment when operating normally, since unlike nuclear no one expects them to pay for their externalities. Or we could build a hundred large solar plants, which together equal about one reactor as long as sun shines from cloudless skies. That shouldn't require any subsidies, and if it does, it's okay because it's not nuclear. Of course, they'll still need those coal plants for backup, but that's okay because dying from microparticle-induced cancer is a lot better than dying from radiation-induced cancer, amirite?

Everyone is missing the point. The space program was done one step at a time, finishing each step before moving on to the next. Yes, this is "waterfall" thinking, but in the space program it was the right way to do it. Properly done, the agile approach could also have been used in the moon program, as long as the result is that the final push is composed of fully-tested and vetted pieces. (Could it be that the agile approach was indeed used? People closer to the facts can answer that.)

The reason to have multiple contractors is to allow development of different parts to be done in parallel. The key to success with broad development is a really, really good architect specing the interfaces, and each people/group showing that their stuff works as specified at the interfaces. Then integration testing becomes a manageable exercise. This includes performance metrics -- at the interfaces. Was that done here? I highly doubt it.

And the Affordable Care Act missed a number of elements that would have made health care affordable. It's isn't about insurance, it's about the total experience. And Congress bungled it. At least, those people in Congress who were allowed to contribute did. What was wrong with stepwise refinement?

We just call those ducks now...

Flip a coin. The coin is now in a super position of heads and tails. Is it possible for it to be heads up when you measure it? Ooooh, spooky quantum bullshit.

Around the 70's we performed several expensive experiments to quantum entangle the Earth with its moon. This way, if the Earth is ever destroyed the moon will instantly create more astronauts.

Let's do a simple experiment to find out:

# echo "Hello... hello... hello" > dev/null
# cat dev/random

It's not destroyed, but it's nothing like what went in. The arrow of time guided by entropy.

And then there's the NSA Fox Acid system by which they purchase exploits from the black market, automatically attach payloads, then deploy them via skiddies reading a flow-chart to determine intelligence cost/benefit analysis; No amount of constitutional rights or encryption will prevent infection from our "cyber army" and its Ferret Cannon: Metasploit + unlimited funds + black-market 0-day exploits + wanna be hackers.

It's basically the ultimate computer nerd version of the school yard bully. Big, brainless, and dangerous. I mean... Just listen to the code names they use. It's like they're actually proud to be thuggish dipshits.

Since childhood I've loved burritos, machines, reading science mags, and was fascinated by the terrifying discovery of black holes. They have Art-Car parades in my town; The cars have to get there somehow. One night, while gazing at the cosmos stopped at a red light, my attention snapped suddenly to my rear view mirror wherein an eight cylinder Jaws was bearing down on me. Shat myself clean, I did.

Hmm. Well, I guess that's why I don't use Facebook. All my friends have different viewpoints on many subjects. Some align and have caveats, others ascribe different reasons. We all care about different things. For instance, as a cyberneticist I'm keenly aware of the degree of suffering my food endures. Unlike my idealist vegan friend who's largely clueless about being an evolved product of our environments, neuronal density of livestock, and the fuzzy complexity threshold of sentience, I simply appreciate my meals more, and try not to be wasteful -- C'est la vie.

I've got religious friends and have studied most major religions somewhat deeply, but I'm an atheist. Along with my philosopher friend we debate philosophy, esp. epistemology (which I have a firm grasp on thanks to information theory) -- This sets me at odds with the others since I can quantify what's knowable within relative degrees of certainty, and even run cybernetic simulations that demonstrate many philosophical and religious concepts, like where free will comes from.

Not every conversation is a debate, we accept each other's viewpoints instead of devolving into flame wars. You see, we try not to make ourselves asses since we're face to face, not on Facebook...

I'm hesitant to label this an "IRL" vs "Online" phenomenon since my experience with offline friends mirrors my IRC friends (think, twitter, but with separate feed-views [rooms], direct file transfers, and no 140 char limitation). Perhaps consider the null hypothesis? Perhaps you just suck at friending?

They don't control word of mouth. Also, the 1st revolution wasn't very well organized, and yet we won.

As a US citizen it makes me sad. Well, once your fearmongering warlords get an atomic bomb dropped on you, and then hold out until another one drops on your other friends and family... Yeah, then you might see why the Japanese don't give in to threat narrative bullshit as easily as the fat scared Americans do. Ironic since heart disease kills 200 times more Americans per year than 9/11. I guess we can add stupid to the list of typical American traits too (yes, I'm talking about you too Canada).

So that's how you buy a shill...

Just a reminder: Heart Disease and Accidents cause more deaths every single year than over four hundred 9/11's. It's been over a decade now... That's more than 4000 September 11th sized attacks. Are you scared to eat and/or drive now? That's how fucking pathetic the fear narrative is.

This is America. We drive fast cars to fast food restaurants without a second thought. You want me to continue to ALLOW an expensive totalitarian spying apparatus to protect us from 0.00025 the danger we face from cars and cheeseburgers? What the fuck can the ineffectual terrorists do? If the NSA wanted to protect us they'd be making tastier health food and building self driving cars or the Hyper-Loop.

Fucking "intelligence" bullshit; Protip: All government labels mean the opposite. "PATRIOT Act", yeaaah. "Intelligence?" hahah... oh man. No wonder the basement dwelling NSA stinks so bad. If they're afraid of terrorists, just imagine how they feel about the many times greater threat of falling down in the bathtub!

They're called Unions.... you know, like the first name of USA?

Exactly ... as the price of books go down, the demand for books increase. This is basic Econ 101. By setting a price floor, you are limiting the ability to reach customers who would otherwise want to buy more books.

No matter how cheap books are, you are still only able to read one or two per day. Therefore the demand is capped. On the other hand, two books are not inerchangeable unless they're copies of the same book; even if Amazon was giving books away for free, it might still be worse deal than keeping lots of small bookstores in business and thus ensuring that a single seller doesn't have a total power to determine what books and authors get on the market.

Maybe you should take a few more Econ classes.

If I have Ã100 in my pocket how many books am I going to walk out the store with?

Start with these. If it's sheer quantity you want, that should set you up for life.