So, something similar to what I've implemented twice in the past at different companies for $10 million in software development and $10 million in hardware? (monthly operational costs for bandwidth can get expensive, but that's not included here).

So what does the other $600 million+ goes towards? Bribes and other assorted waste?

Most people don't realize how bad news stories are until they see one they have personal knowledge of. Guess, what, the others are generally just as bad.

Most people don't realize of wasteful and inefficient the government is until they see it try to do something they know something about. Guess what, the other things government does are generally just as bad.

fiat: a formal authorization or proposition; a decree.

Since the delay of the employer mandate was literally done via a formal decree from President Obama, I'm not sure why you're objecting to the OP's language choice...

No, it was the reverse.

The GOP tried to delay this fiasco a year as part of funding the 18% or whatever of the government that is "discretionary". The Senate and President shot that attempt down.

BTW, none of the funding for this website implementation was part of that discretionary funding. So no effect there, either.

I'll bet you a dollar that if you can show me a new device that doesn't retain, I'll show you a device with a connector which is out of spec. That's not the fault of the spec.

So just to be clear, you complained that the cables have poor retention, which is bullshit, but you don't actually care if the cables have poor retention, you just wanted something to complain about so you made something up? Got it.

Well like I said it was mini-USB, because this was quite some time ago, we're talking about a RAPH110 here. But you could plug an ordinary mini-USB connector into it. For the purposes of this conversation, it's the same thing.

In any case, all a manufacturer needs to do in order to get the same meaningful functionality as Apple (drop-into-dock support) is to put their connector[s] right next to the mandated connector. Including a typical headphone jack among them is a great way to get centering.

It doesn't matter how much money you have riding on your $100 router, it's serious if it's all your money. Which for many people is just a few hundred dollars in a bank account (if that!) which they need to feed their family. But if they don't participate in the internet, then they're not a member of modern society and their situation may well worsen. How much do you propose someone in this situation spend on a home router? Remember, your arrogance will be recorded for posterity.

What idiot told you that? And why on earth are you repeating it? No successful government ever pursues just one goal. Everything must serve multiple purposes. Those are all very much intended consequences. The fact is that profit is also an intended consequence, not the only one.

What about the poor dumb fucks who believed what their government told them, the government which you've been paying for by the way, and were sadly misled as a result? You've paid for them to be misled, why don't you think you should pay for the results? It's easy to say that they should have listened to some better advice, but the curriculum and the media and the laws are all written by the same gang of assholes, so the amount of better advice is lost in a shitstorm of the bad stuff. And you've been merrily signing the checks and sending them off to pay for more of this abuse and deception, but now you don't want to sign the checks and send them off to pay for the cleanup.

The preservative that was falsely blamed (but which may well be dangerous anyway, because there is substantial disagreement about its breakdown products) is still being used for multiple-injection vials, which were used for child flu shots well after the ban citing "necessity", which actually means "cost" and "availability". They had the stuff sitting around and weren't just going to throw it away, so they claimed they couldn't make more in time (or perhaps just delayed until that was true) and then used the old stuff with the thimerosal in.

If I were less lazy, I would dig up the links. If you search slashdot long enough, you will find a post I made in the past which contains them. They were all links to govermnent sites, mostly CDC.

And who's going to make this determination? Will it be the CDC or the FDA? I might be inclined to listen to the CDC. I am not inclined to listen to the FDA.

Thanks for that link. I just posted it to Facebook to see if they would censor it, since it apparently shows unnatural behavior for primates

You were so close. The US' healthcare is worst among industrialized nations because of the nature of our free health care. Only emergency services have been free until now. That is what leads to the situation you describe. If there were no free health care here you'd have what we had before we made ER visits free for people with no money. Well, you can still be charged and such, but so far you can't be imprisoned for failing to pay.

Like so many of our institutions, it seems designed to maintain the populace in a state of poverty. Most of our entitlement programs are like that. If you start to save money to get yourself out of your situation, you won't be eligible for assistance any longer. That's why poverty is a trap. Even worse, it is functionally illegal to be poor in the USA. It's functionally illegal to be homeless. Some people up in my corner of the world have made the BLM land their home, and they just sorta roam around shooting pigs, which are always in season because they are a sort of plague. They cause damage to basically everything; crops, livestock, whole ecosystems as they root around killing plants, increasing erosion. Unfortunately, the shutdown meant a lot of people kicked off of those properties, which supposedly belong to all of us...

The biggest problem in medicine is capitalism. Charging whatever the market will bear, in this case, means endangering the health of everyone below the baseline.

And now I'm wondering if my renter's insurance covers damages due to failed christmas lights.

Because I was sure you were wrong, I looked up parasite in webster1913 and got back "An animal which lives during the whole or part of its existence on or in the body of some other animal, feeding upon its food, blood, or tissues, as lice, tapeworms, etc." Checkmate, coward.