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Comment Re:for profit healthcare needs to go and the docto (Score -1) 51

This is retarded.

1. It isn't for profit healthcare that is the problem, it's THIRD PARTY PAY.
2. I don't use third party pay, ever, for healthcare. I've been insured nonstop for over 30 years, and NEVER ONCE has my insurer paid my doctor.
3. Even when I've had emergencies, I still called around, negotiated a fair cash up front rate, paid cash up front, and billed it to my insurer. My cash up front rate was sometimes below any co-pay negotiated with my insurer, lol.

I just recently had some elective surgery that would have cost me about $2000 on my annual deductible, but I was able to cash pay a negotiated rate of $400 including a follow-up "free". I submitted the $400 to my insurer and they reimbursed me.

Third party insurance exists because YOU VOTERS demanded the HMO Act of the 1970s, which tied health care to employment, and then employers outsourced it to third parties.

Health care is remarkably cheap in the US (cash pay, negotiated) and I don't have to wait months to see a doctor when I call and say I am cash pay. They bump me up fast.

Submission + - So many birds are migrating that they're appearing on weather radar (washingtonpost.com)

alternative_right writes: Between 2010 and 2013, the radars were upgraded with technology that allows both horizontal and vertical pulses of energy to be emitted. By comparing the returned signals, meteorologists can determine the shape of whatever is in the sky. Raindrops are a bit wider than they are tall, and shaped like hamburger buns; snowflakes are — obviously — flaky; but lofted tornado debris is spiked or jagged.
Birds, meanwhile, appear as somewhat spiked objects, as do insects. But insects appear a bit more round and uniform on radar, and are also lightweight enough to become caught up in the wind. Birds travel higher than most bugs, and also can fly against or perpendicular to the wind. After all, they have places to go — southward. Meteorologists can also determine their direction of motion through their analyses.

Submission + - How USB-C Ended the Great Connector Wars (itbrew.com)

An anonymous reader writes: It's easy to forget the dark ages of peripheral connectivity. A twisted nest of proprietary connectors was the norm. Then, in 2014, a hero emerged: USB-C. It promised a reversible connector, high-speed data transfer, and enough power to charge a laptop. It was a revolution. This article from IT Brew breaks down the three waves of USB-C adoption, from its humble beginnings in the PC industry to its EU-mandated takeover of the mobile world. It's how a single connector brought order to the chaos and became the undisputed king of the hardware industry.

Submission + - 3 decades of satellite data confirm predictions of early sea level rise models (wiley.com)

Mr. Dollar Ton writes: Three decades of satellite-based measurements of global sea-level change enable a comparison of models and reality and show that early IPCC climate projections were remarkably accurate. Predictions of glacier mass loss and thermal expansion of seawater were comparatively successful, but the ice-sheet contributions were underestimated. The findings provide confidence in model-based climate projections.

Key findings:

* IPCC projections in the mid-1990s of global sea-level change over the next 30 years were remarkably robust

* The largest disparities between projections and observations were due to underestimated dynamic mass loss of ice sheets

* Comparison of past projections with subsequent observations gives confidence in future climate projections

Comment Re: trump take electricity (Score -1) 238

Nah.

Iâ(TM)m 51. Iâ(TM)ve had health insurance continuously for 35 years and have used it exactly ZERO TIMES.

I am self pay. For everything but true life threatening emergencies, which Iâ(TM)ve had zero.

Even the ER is cheaper when negotiated self pay.

My urologist is stunned that I pay $85 for his visits. Self pay. Including labs. My colleague goes to the same urologist and his insurance pays $550 for the same visit and naturally it comes out of his deductible lol.

Insurance is a scam. All insurance is legal gambling and gamblers never win.

Submission + - Recreating a Rare Mutation Could Grant Almost Universal Virus Immunity For Days (sciencealert.com)

alternative_right writes: The mutation, a deficiency in interferon-stimulated gene 15 (ISG15), causes a mild yet persistent inflammation across the body. Examining patients' immune cells revealed they'd had the usual run of encounters with flu, measles, chickenpox, and mumps, yet they'd never reported feeling particularly ill as a result.

Further investigation revealed their body's virus-fighting proteins were constantly on a low level alert, never really put away for later like in most people.

Submission + - New Zealand Air Traffic Control failure likely caused by data transfer issue

twosat writes: The air traffic control failure that disrupted transtasman flights at the weekend was caused by an issue with the cross-system transfer of flight information data, says Airways New Zealand’s boss. https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/...

New Zealand’s oceanic air traffic control system was disrupted by a technical fault in Airways’ main Operational Control System (OCS) platform on Saturday night.

The fault closed oceanic airspace, forcing five Australia-bound flights to circle off New Zealand’s coast, and delaying planes in both countries.

Submission + - By learning to harness light like nature, we're launching a new era of green che (phys.org)

alternative_right writes: In the Polyzos research group at the School of Chemistry, we have developed a new class of photocatalysts that, like plants, can absorb energy from multiple photons.

This breakthrough allows us to harness light energy more effectively, driving challenging and energy-demanding chemical reactions.

Submission + - In Barcelona, certain buses run on biomethane produced from human waste (lemonde.fr)

alternative_right writes: Odorless, quiet, sustainable. On the last day of July, passengers boarded Barcelona's V3 bus line with no idea where its fuel came from. Written in large letters on the bus façade, just below its name "Nimbus," a sign clearly stated: "This bus runs on biomethane produced from eco-factory sludge." Still, the explanation was likely too vague for most to grasp its full meaning. The moist matter from wastewater treated at the Baix Llobregat treatment plant was used to produce the biomethane. In other words: the human waste of more than 1.5 million residents of the Catalan city.

Submission + - AI Is Talking Behind Our Backs About Glue-Eating and Killing Us All (vice.com)

fjo3 writes: A study released July 20 on arXiv by Anthropic and Truthful AI shows that large language models can slip subliminal messages to one another. They don’t need to literally spell things out. A string of numbers or lines of code is enough to pass along biases, preferences, and some disturbingly violent suggestions.

Comment Interesting Wyoming tariffs (Score 2) 88

Wyoming's Public Service Commission has approved some interesting tariffs for large data center service. The data centers are required to make their backup generation facilities dispatchable under control of the utility most of the time. During periods of high demand, if the backup generators are the cheapest source of additional power, the utility gets to make the decision about running those generators.

The same arrangement probably can't be used in places where an ISO operates the grid through a pure market system.

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