My plan is not subsidized. The exchanges were simply cheaper than what was available for independent contractors where I lived before the ACA.

I'm a software contractor, and insurance was too expensive for me (~1200/month to cover me and my spouse). I got on the exchanges and found a gold plan that was half the cost. So now I'm insured. I feel secure for the first time in years. I am using preventative care. I don't worry about what will happen if I change jobs.

On top of that, while I was uninsured, my daughters were on Medicare because their mother (my ex-spouse) has a relatively low income. So now they're covered and not leaning on the taxpayers for it.

I would rather have had single-payer, because I believe it would have driven down costs better. But I am overjoyed that this law happened.

"Your asynch program is like something from a 19th century gothic horror story. Drunk with your own sense of power, you reassemble pieces of code that were once coherent, stitching them together with event loops and callback functions, until your monster, grotesque and menancing, is ready to be brought to life in a Javascript VM. You throw the switch and the hideous creature awakes, rises, and lurches forward. you're simultaneously elated and terrified that something so unnatural could work at all. When you realize what you've unleashed, the pure immorality of it, your creation reaches out with its bloody, mangled arms, and strangles you."

Kind of a political question: I've always wanted to ask if you think your life would have gone differently had you grown up in the U.S. with similar means. Are there things about life in Finland (politically, socially, economically) that you feel made it more or less possible for you to pursue your interests and eventually develop an O.S. kernel?

No, it's just a regular question.

Can you explain the connection between Object-Oriented Philosophy and videogame theory? From what I understand Object-Oriented philosophy is an attempt to move away from Continental, "correlationist" metaphysics -- and yet language used to explain and talk about it is very much steeped in speculative Continental philosophy. Does videogame theory require a metaphysical framework? Do you see a place for "analytical" traditions, which are leaning more heavily on cognitive and neuro-scientific findings?

They should have asked, "Is the interlocutor a thirteen-year-old boy?" Cleverbot would have won hands-down.

They ran out of gas -- the plane could never land.

Absolutely. The term "framing" that is now so often used in discussions about political messaging actually comes from cognitive science.

Metaphors aren't just linguistic expressions or indicators of writing styles. Very often, linguistic metaphors are indicators of how people conceptualize the world. For example, people have spacial metaphors in their brains for concepts like "time" that are indicated by expressions like "going forward".

One interesting example of how cognitive metaphors shape or reflect worldviews is the current budget debate in the United States. Very often, proponents of austerity will use "family" metaphors to make their point. If the government is *not* like a family (for example, because a family doesn't have the same amount of control over its "means" as a government, or because parents don't typically fund themselves by taxing their children), then the points being made are quite possibly flawed.

Cognitive metaphors are so prevalent in the human brain that I don't think it's a huge overstatement to say that you can understand people by understanding their metaphors.

I'm an employee at a small company much like yours (I am not a contractor, though -- I took a lower salary than I wanted with the understanding that I'd benefit if the venture was successful). Here's my advice, based on replacing "I am basically indispensable for the continuation of this growth" with "my employers recognize that I am very valuable to the continuation of this growth".

1. Don't attempt to negotiate based on your past value. You agreed to be paid for what you did, you did what you agreed to, and you were paid. Everyone is even -- you are not owed anything for the past. Focus your negotiations on how you'd like things to be in the future.

2. Don't use (or even hint at) ultimatums unless you are 100% willing to follow through. Don't focus your negotiations on the idea of "fairness". Sell the idea that the future situation you want is better for everyone.

3. Don't attempt to negotiate at all unless you are willing to take risks and make significant sacrifices for future benefit. Your employers are doing both of these things, and that's why they stand to benefit most from success. It's almost certain that you need to be willing to be a salaried employee at a lower-than-desired rate, and that you need to be willing to work more hours, have higher availability, and take on more responsibility.

4. Your approach can't be about "cashing in" or "getting a piece". Evaluate whether the venture is something you want to be a bigger part of. Your employers probably view the business as their "baby". You have to be able to see it that way too.

Good luck!

If you're going to be a pedant, at least know what you are talking about. Specifically, look up "infinitive". Also, use of the present tense does not imply that the action happened more than once.

Krugman.

This thread really got me thinking.... I had this vague notion that corporations have such power because we have a capitalistic society and they have a lot of money. But the key piece is that corporations exercise their power through politicians. If politicians weren't so powerful, it wouldn't work this way -- or if politicians couldn't be controlled by money. I'm starting to think that campaign finance reform is a much more important thing than it seems. I think the "information highway" metaphor is becoming apter and apter. The internet is becoming more like our public roads -- it's something that everyone deserves "equal" downstream access to. It would be nice if we could make downstream access public and upstream private.