Pretty simple way to get rid of a lot of these lawsuits would be to switch to a modified "loser pays" system. That way those who actually get wronged get complete compensation (they wouldn't have to pay 25 percent to 33 percent or more to their lawyer for starters) and those who have BS claims will have a very hard time finding a lawyer willing to take the case just hoping for a fairly easy "cost of defense" settlement (which is probably what all the plaintiffs' attorney really expects in this case - in spite of what they told their client or their client has deluded themselves into expecting).
Even if someone is so full of B.S. that they really think X caused Y when the assertion has no scientific basis, that doesn't mean they have a "right" to sue over it without suffering the consequences of that bone-headed move.
One should not be allowed to bring suits like this until they can show credible evidence that there is a causal relationship between the act (price scanner exposure) and the outcome (Tourette's syndrome). If there is no such evidence, they should be allowed limited discovery if absolutely needed (not fishing expeditions) and should pay for the costs of that discovery (to be recovered if they eventually win the case). The system should result in cases like this are dismissed without prejudice (I'm assuming the plaintiff has not shown the court any credible scientific evidence that the scanner exposure and the plaintiff's condition are related).
For criminal cases the standard is guilty "beyond reasonable doubt" and the burden of proof is on the prosecution. And you're innocent until the jury (or judge if you waive a jury trial or you plead guilty) says you're guilty.
For civil cases the standard is generally, IIRC, that the "preponderance of the evidence" finds the defendant liable - much lower bar than the criminal standard. The burden of proof remains on the plaintiff. Obviously with a lower bar to clear for conviction, the defendant in a civil case may need to put up a stronger defense in order to prevail (hence, a person can be found "not guilty" of murder but lose a civil lawsuit for damages caused by the same murder - think OJ).
Also, in civil cases the judge/jury can consider a defendant's decision to "exercise their fifth amendment right" and refuse to testify. In a criminal case the judge and jury may not attach any significance to a defendant's decision to "exercise their fifth amendment right" and refuse to testify.
Yes, I think the instant case was a civil case (I didn't RTFA of course).
Umm... "free" healthcare is not, well, free in single payer or similar arrangements... It's just either pre/post-paid by YOU or paid for by OTHERS.
And, no, I wouldn't give up any freedoms I consider important for "shared responsibility healthcare". I would not, for example, give up my right to speak without fear of government sanctions due to the content of my speech. I would not give up my right to a practice (or, in my case, fail to practice) a religion. I would not give up my right to a trial by a jury of my peers (well, something resembling them at least). I would not give up my right to assemble. I would not give up my individual right to keep and bear arms. I would not give up my right to be presumed innocent until proven guilty. I would not give up my right to refuse to testify against myself. I would not give up my right for my property and self to be shielded from unreasonable searches. I don't even think I'd give up my rights to not have soldiers quartered in my home in some circumstances -- but I'd have to think about that one since I've never exercised that particular right.
I don't think America is the greatest country possible -- I would make a lot of changes if it were my decision (including strengthening the implementation of most of the rights I mentioned above). I do, however, happen to find it, as compared to other major countries, the most compatible, at the moment, with my priorities. Fortunately, as you imply, it's a big world and there's no world police to prevent people from going to a country that better meets their personal priorities -- assuming of course that that country accepts them.
Or, it might cause historians to think there was a Little Dark Age in the early part of the 21st century.
Now, if the LOC would archive/., the historians would know there was a Little Dark Age in the early part of the 21st century (and this post would be evidence that the denizens of the Little Dark Age even knew they were living in such a time).
Interestingly, many Americans, including those bashing America while extolling the virtues of Canada and much of Western Europe because of their enlightenment and social programs, fail to realize how many rights Americans take for granted are not available to many of the citizens of these other countries. In particular, broad freedom of speech/expression and various rights associated with criminal justice.
Personally, probably because I was born and raised in America, I wouldn't give up the freedoms I have in exchange for more collective social infrastructure. But, others may make a different legitimate decision or conclude that one can have the best of all possible worlds.
Corporations also sometimes favor Federal regulation, esp. when the Federal legislation restricts the ability of local/state governments to regulate, because they prefer to deal with one uniform, possibly slightly onerous, regulation than 1000 different and conflicting municipal level ordinances.
Of course, corporations with large market share often prefer no regulation on their actions (although, they often favor regulations on such things as limits of liability for their actions) -- except of course if they think they can benefit from regulatory capture.
The actually say @17:46 "Well it's their fault for bringing their kids into a battle."
Saying that it "serves them right" has quite a different connotation than saying "it's their fault". The former implies they deserved the outcome, the latter merely indicates that the outcome was the result, at least in part, of their actions. In watching/listening to the video I heard no implications (such as tone of voice) that the speaker was asserting the kids deserved to be injured, merely that the parents, by bringing their kids into a battle, were responsible for their injuries. (Note, I'm not making any judgment here on the decisions made by the military in the situation depicted in this video or if this was rightfully termed a "battle").
To illustrate in a less emotionally charged context... Take a case, for example, where someone's child has been maimed when the family car rolled over the child after the parent, distracted by another one of their children who was throwing a temper tantrum, forgot to set the parking brake after parking on their sloped driveway. Now consider the following statements:
The maiming serves the parent right, they should have set the parking brake.
The maiming is the parent's fault, they should have set the parking brake.
This page (which is referenced by Wikipedia, so it must be correct) only shows ten states as being "left lane for passing only" (and some of those are only on roads with specific speed limits of 65 or 70MPH).
Interestingly though, this doesn't show Wisconsin as a "passing only" state. I started to take a look at the Wisconsin law to figure out what was going on and got bored (and distracted by the parts having to do what one should do when "Passing or meeting frightened animal").
Also watch out for unplanned rerouting due to malfunction, emergency, or weather!
It's gotta suck when the captain announces that due to mechanical difficulties, your flight is being rerouted to a some little country that you've never been in but which has issued an arrest warrant for something you did (who knows, maybe critiquing their leader or something).
Really? That's simply not the rule nor the convention in most states in the US. Some (perhaps most/all?) states have a 'slower traffic keep right' rule and/or convention - so if someone advances on you from behind in the fast (note we don't call it a 'passing' lane in this case) lane, you should move over.
When we start calling a freeway an autostrada, maybe we will adopt the "left lane for passing only" rule/convention.
From a practical standpoint, many freeways and highways in the US in urban areas are highly congested during portions of the day. To eliminate a lane for use by normal traffic flow would be ridiculous -- when traffic is moving along at 15-30 MPH on a stretch with a 65 MPH limit, designating a "passing only" lane would slow traffic down even more and the passing lane would be unused (you can't/shouldn't be passing in that kind of traffic).
Maybe the concern is about the extra letter ("i") wasting a precious column on a 80x24 VT52? I suggest those with this concern update to the latest technology by trading up to a VT100 and selecting the 132 column mode.
I don't know if flowers really pose a significant MRSA risk. However, most hospitals I've been around in the last 15 years seemed to ban flowers over concerns about allergies. Even ignoring allergies, I find the smell of some flowers unpleasant and defiantly not something I'd want to be smelling when sick. So, at least for shared rooms, I approve of flower bans.
(Of course, maybe the metallized nylon balloon lobby had something to do with this also.)
Probably a bad ideas to drill holes in the walls -- but at least if they do, the dust from drilling will go outside rather than come inside (well, at least for a while, and by the time that's no longer true, no one inside will really care much anymore).
Just a requirement for disclosure of payment accepted for devices and services would be a big first step. For example, perhaps all providers would have to publish in a standard form the following for procedure codes that they use at least once a year:
Current "Rack Rate" (what they charge you if you have no discount).
The average and median amount they accepted as payment in full in the past 12 months.
The lowest amount they accepted as payment in full in the past 12 months.
Their lowest negotiated rate with any third party payer (i.e., insurance or medicare).
The average amount they actually collected for the procedure say during a window starting six months ago and extending to 18 months ago (so, if they write of the balance of a bill as "noncollectable", perhaps after partial payment, or sell it to a collection agency at a discount, the procedures on that bill would all be adjusted by the "amount actually collected" ratio to "amount owed").
This increased transparency would allow consumers to shop around and also would put them in a much stronger position to negotiate (such as offering cash payment up front in exchange for being billed at the same rate as the lowest negotiated rate -- after all, this way the provider doesn't even have to deal with the hassle of billing insurance and fighting with them so such a discount would be very reasonable).
Also, perhaps pass a law that it's illegal for a third party payer (including medicare) to include contract clauses that restrict the provider's ability to set rates for other patients not covered by that third party. Thus, providers would be free to offer whatever deal they wanted to individual consumers.
It's possible that a driver will initially brake less aggressively because they're afraid of "locking up" the brakes or something like that (perhaps over generalizing past driver training). If they only press lightly on the brakes for too long with the engine at full power, I would think that brake fade would begin to become a factor. If the driver waits until the brakes are too hot, "standing on" the brakes may not be nearly as effective.
Get a life. You obviously understood my comment (else you wouldn't have been able to post your response). The goal of writing is COMMUNICATION -- I obviously succeeded. Your, sir or madam, appear to be a pedantic idiot who has nothing better to do than syntax check comments. What do you think of Hemingway or e. e. cummings (or, have you ever even heard of them?)?
Oh, and if you can't express yourself without using about 6% profanity, you might want to take a class in English or English Literature.
(Oh, I'm around 4x a "teenager" in age and have hired a lot of 22 year olds who have much greater intellects than you seem to have. Life Suggestion: Learn something about technology and THEN be a pedantic idiot if you still, in your pathetic world, need to validate yourself by being a pedantic idiot. Please post when you feel you can comfortably retire long before "traditional retirement age" - let us know how that works out after you have graduated from DeVry.)
One aspect of the "cloud" (as in EC2) is that you can not only scale up easily (for $ of course), you can scale down easily (to save $).
When you have fixed "in house" infrastructure to handle peak loads, there's not a lot of motivation to power off absolutely as many servers as you possibly can when you're not at peak load - all you save is the energy costs (and, if you're using remote hosting, you don't get rewarded for this except for whatever value you attach to feeling "green"). You still pay for the floor space, the machines, and perhaps some sort of maintenance contracts regardless of if the server is powered up or down.
Using EC2 (depending on how you've structured it - some dedicated, some non-dedicated instances etc), if utilization drops to 80% over 20 instances, the temptation is to release a couple instances to save a couple bucks and drive utilization up to 90% on the remaining instances -- with potentially unfortunate consequences.
Although I have no idea, I wonder if Reddit is just releasing instances too aggressively now "because they can" in order to save money? If so, the fingrer should be pointed at Reddit, not the cloud (or EC2 specifically).
Ways to address some of the problems of "loser pays" include:
Limit the amount the loser pays in expenses to be the lesser of what the loser and the winner spent on the case. (This mitigates the "imbalance of resources" problem)
Allow any party to "opt out" of "loser pays" (and the expense reporting requirements below) but if they lose they still have to pay the full expenses of other parties that didn't opt out (even if those expenses are greater than what they would have paid if they had not opted out) and if they win, they get no reimbursement for their expenses. (This allows one party to mask their expenses and/or avoid the overhead of reporting - but at potential cost)
Require that each party file weekly "detailed expenses to date" reports electronically with the court and all parties can see the total (but not the detail) of other parties' reports.
If a lawyer charges their client any contingency fee, that party is ineligible for reimbursement of their legal fees if they win, but if they lose, the lawyer, not the client, pays for the winners' legal expenses. Each party must make an declaration in the initial filing if they will/will not be charging their client an contingency fee. (It should be possible to alter this decision later at the court's discretion, but some "pro rata" rules would need to be established to limit the % contingency and reimbursement based on what was spent before and after the change in this decision.) (This would discourage frivolous lawsuits where the lawyer is willing to spend his/her time in hopes of lucky jackpot)
Lawyers in "loser pays" cases can not charge their client anything if they win and the loser actually pays all the expenses filed with the court. If a loser defaults on their obligation to pay, perhaps the prevailing party's lawyer can, by prior arrangement, take part of the judgment. (This encourages accurate reporting by all parties).
Subject expenses to audit by a court approved auditor and limit expenses reimbursable to the winner to "reasonable and necessary" However, "unreasonable" expenses by the loser are still counted for the "lesser of winner and loser expense calculations" - they shouldn't have recorded or incurred any unreasonable or unnecessary expenses. (This will discourage unnecessary expenses and motions)
If expenses are not recorded in a timely fashion, they would be disallowed for "loser pays" calculations IFF the party that records them late wins (i.e., such expenses won't be reimbursed). (This discourages "late reporting" to game the other party's expectations of their risk).
Expenses that are recorded and later reversed would be counted (even though subsequently reversed) for "loser pays' calculations IFF the party that records them and reverses them loses. (This discourages reporting of charges "early" to intimidate the other party).
Parties that intentionally misrepresent expenses or manipulate the timing of their reporting would be subject to sanctions (including being found in contempt of court, fines, removal from the bar, etc).
If a party sues for $X and ends up being awarded $Y where $Y<$X, only $Y/$X of their expenses will be reimbursed by the loser. (This will discourage exaggerating claims)
The final "loser" is determined when the last appeal is resolved or the period for filing an appeal has elapsed - intermediate "wins" have no bearing on the final settlement of legal expenses.
If a defendant makes a financial offer to settle with no other restrictions (such as gag clauses) except that acceptance of the offer completely resolves all claims being litigated, the defendant's liability to pay legal expenses of the plaintiff (because the plaintiff prevails) will be limited. If any settlement amount offer made was greater than or equal to the amount of the final judgment, the defendant would only be liable for the prevailing parties' legal expenses up to the time the first such of
Some of the words hello and bye were dark, the rest were mostly light gray.
What, one may wonder, was the actual message? Well, it appeared to be someone trying to fax something - although, the tones didn't sound quite like FAX negotiation tones, but surely no one would be mis-dialing a modem number in this day and age.
I was intrigued by the limited vocabulary it produced here. Almost as if the most common words are these greeting words (hello, hey, hi) and sign off words (bye) and these words are so preferred that line noise ends up just being these top few words.
Of course, you have no idea (or evidence one way or the other) if I'm an economist, an evolutionary biologist, an advanced physicist, or a climatologist -- but you state as fact that I'm not. So, I can pretty much ignore the rest of your rambling comment. Let's play again sometime (and, maybe, you can at least post as your real userid next time).
Oh, and were the authors of peer reviewed article(s) about a link between autism and preservatives in vaccines "experts"? Surely, since they got published, you still believe them even though elimination of the "suspect" preservatives in vaccines for young kids didn't affect autism rates.
Stop accepting without question everything the "experts" say -- it's really rather foolish. Think for yourself, consider the evidence, consider if the evidence stands up to scrutiny. Also, consider if last year's models, without changing the model, match observed data better when variable coefficients are adjusted for new evidence (such as methane releases from natural sources which were previously thought to be lower) -- or does the model get "refined" as new data comes in in order to match the (adjusted) observed behaviors. Don't forget that it's quite easy to generate a polynomial that predicts the closing value of the DJIA on Dec 31 of each of the past 50 years -- the problem is, it will not help you predict the closing value of the DJIA this year.
As I stated, I have no doubt that AGW is a reality -- however I doubt the degree of precision that some claim about predicting its impact. The IPCC should just publish as their "final answer" a prediction for the 95% confidence level of the range of measurements of annual mean equatorial tropospheric temperature levels for each of the next fifty years - with variables for all inputs such as CO2 and methane introduced into the atmosphere by human activity. If, the range is too high, I'd be suspicious but willing to listen. If in twenty years, the predictions are right, the model becomes even more credible. I'm fine with the range being reduced as new research is done (or, increased, but that does call into question the validity of the original model and requires a new starting point for the fifty year predictions).
Science also didn't care if preservatives in vaccines led to autism. The media cared a lot. Articles in peer reviewed journals thought it did (until they were retracted in embarrassment).
Those who denied that a bacteria (imagine that) was responsible for most stomach ulcers were ridiculed by the established medical community (until they were proven wrong).
And, both of these were FAR less complex systems than the Earth's climate and far easier to test theories on.
Be very careful of claims of "settled science". AGW may be real (I think it is almost certainly real) - but the magnitude of its is much more uncertain (and, if it's actually a good or bad thing for human survival is unknown -- if we are heading for another mini ice age, we might be happy that a few hundred years of AGW had increased global temps by a degree or two).
Rule of thumb... "Settled Science" should only be applied to PROVABLE premises, else a better term is "hypothesis".
I have no doubt that some people of some fringe beliefs try to associate with libertarians (or, even Libertarians) for "relevance". However, this is little different than Progressives who try to, when convenient, associate themselves with "liberal" or, at the other extreme, with "socialist".
KKK will try to use "libertarianism" to support their view -- until they discover that for each of them, there are 1,000 libertarians (and 10 ACLU supporters who will actually put their balls on the line) chanting them down standing by protesting.
even if you have it you are highly unlikely to actually get much in the way of benefits back should you HAVE a serious illness or injury
I think this is a serious misconception. Most Americans with insurance who experience a serious illnesses or injury find their medical care is well covered subject, of course, to their policy caps/deductibles. (There is, however, a serious problem with lack of portability of insurance and pre-existing conditions -- interestingly, COBRA deals with these somewhat effectively, why we don't first try placing similar rules on private insurance policies rather than going the whole "mandate" route perplexes me).
Of course, the media reports the exceptions far more often than the norm (much as the fact the sun came up in the east every morning for the past century is rarely reported but if it came up in the south tomorrow morning, that would be a well reported event).
It seems that most cases where people have difficulty getting their insurance companies to cover expenses (within policy coverage limits/deductibles of course) revolve around the question if a procedure is medically appropriate and necessary for the condition and/or is likely to be successful. These calls are, of course, subject to judgment. Insurance companies may try to avoid paying for things like organ transplants if they don't think they are likely to be successful (for example, see Nataline Sarkisyan). Or, they may deny a request to pay more to accelerate a transplant if they feel such acceleration is not necessary. However, these are the exception rather than the rule (for example, people with various forms of cancer which cost tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars to treat under standardized diagnostic and treatment protocols find that their care is covered without argument by their insurance company).
It is true that sometimes the insurance company (or, HMO) will limit a policy holder's choice of provider (i.e., only providing full payment to "in network" providers), but the insured knows that before taking out the policy and these providers are licensed and regulated - they aren't unlicensed quacks in some third world nation.
Slashdot Mirror
Pretty simple way to get rid of a lot of these lawsuits would be to switch to a modified "loser pays" system. That way those who actually get wronged get complete compensation (they wouldn't have to pay 25 percent to 33 percent or more to their lawyer for starters) and those who have BS claims will have a very hard time finding a lawyer willing to take the case just hoping for a fairly easy "cost of defense" settlement (which is probably what all the plaintiffs' attorney really expects in this case - in spite of what they told their client or their client has deluded themselves into expecting).
Even if someone is so full of B.S. that they really think X caused Y when the assertion has no scientific basis, that doesn't mean they have a "right" to sue over it without suffering the consequences of that bone-headed move.
One should not be allowed to bring suits like this until they can show credible evidence that there is a causal relationship between the act (price scanner exposure) and the outcome (Tourette's syndrome). If there is no such evidence, they should be allowed limited discovery if absolutely needed (not fishing expeditions) and should pay for the costs of that discovery (to be recovered if they eventually win the case). The system should result in cases like this are dismissed without prejudice (I'm assuming the plaintiff has not shown the court any credible scientific evidence that the scanner exposure and the plaintiff's condition are related).
IANAL, but as I recall in the US...
For criminal cases the standard is guilty "beyond reasonable doubt" and the burden of proof is on the prosecution. And you're innocent until the jury (or judge if you waive a jury trial or you plead guilty) says you're guilty.
For civil cases the standard is generally, IIRC, that the "preponderance of the evidence" finds the defendant liable - much lower bar than the criminal standard. The burden of proof remains on the plaintiff. Obviously with a lower bar to clear for conviction, the defendant in a civil case may need to put up a stronger defense in order to prevail (hence, a person can be found "not guilty" of murder but lose a civil lawsuit for damages caused by the same murder - think OJ).
Also, in civil cases the judge/jury can consider a defendant's decision to "exercise their fifth amendment right" and refuse to testify. In a criminal case the judge and jury may not attach any significance to a defendant's decision to "exercise their fifth amendment right" and refuse to testify.
Yes, I think the instant case was a civil case (I didn't RTFA of course).
Umm... "free" healthcare is not, well, free in single payer or similar arrangements... It's just either pre/post-paid by YOU or paid for by OTHERS.
And, no, I wouldn't give up any freedoms I consider important for "shared responsibility healthcare". I would not, for example, give up my right to speak without fear of government sanctions due to the content of my speech. I would not give up my right to a practice (or, in my case, fail to practice) a religion. I would not give up my right to a trial by a jury of my peers (well, something resembling them at least). I would not give up my right to assemble. I would not give up my individual right to keep and bear arms. I would not give up my right to be presumed innocent until proven guilty. I would not give up my right to refuse to testify against myself. I would not give up my right for my property and self to be shielded from unreasonable searches. I don't even think I'd give up my rights to not have soldiers quartered in my home in some circumstances -- but I'd have to think about that one since I've never exercised that particular right.
I don't think America is the greatest country possible -- I would make a lot of changes if it were my decision (including strengthening the implementation of most of the rights I mentioned above). I do, however, happen to find it, as compared to other major countries, the most compatible, at the moment, with my priorities. Fortunately, as you imply, it's a big world and there's no world police to prevent people from going to a country that better meets their personal priorities -- assuming of course that that country accepts them.
Or, it might cause historians to think there was a Little Dark Age in the early part of the 21st century.
/., the historians would know there was a Little Dark Age in the early part of the 21st century (and this post would be evidence that the denizens of the Little Dark Age even knew they were living in such a time).
Now, if the LOC would archive
Interestingly, many Americans, including those bashing America while extolling the virtues of Canada and much of Western Europe because of their enlightenment and social programs, fail to realize how many rights Americans take for granted are not available to many of the citizens of these other countries. In particular, broad freedom of speech/expression and various rights associated with criminal justice.
Personally, probably because I was born and raised in America, I wouldn't give up the freedoms I have in exchange for more collective social infrastructure. But, others may make a different legitimate decision or conclude that one can have the best of all possible worlds.
Should you eat the attached redneck also? Yuck.
Corporations also sometimes favor Federal regulation, esp. when the Federal legislation restricts the ability of local/state governments to regulate, because they prefer to deal with one uniform, possibly slightly onerous, regulation than 1000 different and conflicting municipal level ordinances.
Of course, corporations with large market share often prefer no regulation on their actions (although, they often favor regulations on such things as limits of liability for their actions) -- except of course if they think they can benefit from regulatory capture.
and when the soldier says "serves them right"?
The actually say @17:46 "Well it's their fault for bringing their kids into a battle."
Saying that it "serves them right" has quite a different connotation than saying "it's their fault". The former implies they deserved the outcome, the latter merely indicates that the outcome was the result, at least in part, of their actions. In watching/listening to the video I heard no implications (such as tone of voice) that the speaker was asserting the kids deserved to be injured, merely that the parents, by bringing their kids into a battle, were responsible for their injuries. (Note, I'm not making any judgment here on the decisions made by the military in the situation depicted in this video or if this was rightfully termed a "battle").
To illustrate in a less emotionally charged context... Take a case, for example, where someone's child has been maimed when the family car rolled over the child after the parent, distracted by another one of their children who was throwing a temper tantrum, forgot to set the parking brake after parking on their sloped driveway. Now consider the following statements:
See the difference?
This page (which is referenced by Wikipedia, so it must be correct) only shows ten states as being "left lane for passing only" (and some of those are only on roads with specific speed limits of 65 or 70MPH).
Interestingly though, this doesn't show Wisconsin as a "passing only" state. I started to take a look at the Wisconsin law to figure out what was going on and got bored (and distracted by the parts having to do what one should do when "Passing or meeting frightened animal").
Also watch out for unplanned rerouting due to malfunction, emergency, or weather!
It's gotta suck when the captain announces that due to mechanical difficulties, your flight is being rerouted to a some little country that you've never been in but which has issued an arrest warrant for something you did (who knows, maybe critiquing their leader or something).
Really? That's simply not the rule nor the convention in most states in the US. Some (perhaps most/all?) states have a 'slower traffic keep right' rule and/or convention - so if someone advances on you from behind in the fast (note we don't call it a 'passing' lane in this case) lane, you should move over.
When we start calling a freeway an autostrada, maybe we will adopt the "left lane for passing only" rule/convention.
From a practical standpoint, many freeways and highways in the US in urban areas are highly congested during portions of the day. To eliminate a lane for use by normal traffic flow would be ridiculous -- when traffic is moving along at 15-30 MPH on a stretch with a 65 MPH limit, designating a "passing only" lane would slow traffic down even more and the passing lane would be unused (you can't/shouldn't be passing in that kind of traffic).
Maybe the concern is about the extra letter ("i") wasting a precious column on a 80x24 VT52? I suggest those with this concern update to the latest technology by trading up to a VT100 and selecting the 132 column mode.
I don't know if flowers really pose a significant MRSA risk. However, most hospitals I've been around in the last 15 years seemed to ban flowers over concerns about allergies. Even ignoring allergies, I find the smell of some flowers unpleasant and defiantly not something I'd want to be smelling when sick. So, at least for shared rooms, I approve of flower bans.
(Of course, maybe the metallized nylon balloon lobby had something to do with this also.)
Probably a bad ideas to drill holes in the walls -- but at least if they do, the dust from drilling will go outside rather than come inside (well, at least for a while, and by the time that's no longer true, no one inside will really care much anymore).
This increased transparency would allow consumers to shop around and also would put them in a much stronger position to negotiate (such as offering cash payment up front in exchange for being billed at the same rate as the lowest negotiated rate -- after all, this way the provider doesn't even have to deal with the hassle of billing insurance and fighting with them so such a discount would be very reasonable).
Also, perhaps pass a law that it's illegal for a third party payer (including medicare) to include contract clauses that restrict the provider's ability to set rates for other patients not covered by that third party. Thus, providers would be free to offer whatever deal they wanted to individual consumers.
It's possible that a driver will initially brake less aggressively because they're afraid of "locking up" the brakes or something like that (perhaps over generalizing past driver training). If they only press lightly on the brakes for too long with the engine at full power, I would think that brake fade would begin to become a factor. If the driver waits until the brakes are too hot, "standing on" the brakes may not be nearly as effective.
Get a life. You obviously understood my comment (else you wouldn't have been able to post your response). The goal of writing is COMMUNICATION -- I obviously succeeded. Your, sir or madam, appear to be a pedantic idiot who has nothing better to do than syntax check comments. What do you think of Hemingway or e. e. cummings (or, have you ever even heard of them?)?
Oh, and if you can't express yourself without using about 6% profanity, you might want to take a class in English or English Literature.
(Oh, I'm around 4x a "teenager" in age and have hired a lot of 22 year olds who have much greater intellects than you seem to have. Life Suggestion: Learn something about technology and THEN be a pedantic idiot if you still, in your pathetic world, need to validate yourself by being a pedantic idiot. Please post when you feel you can comfortably retire long before "traditional retirement age" - let us know how that works out after you have graduated from DeVry.)
One aspect of the "cloud" (as in EC2) is that you can not only scale up easily (for $ of course), you can scale down easily (to save $).
When you have fixed "in house" infrastructure to handle peak loads, there's not a lot of motivation to power off absolutely as many servers as you possibly can when you're not at peak load - all you save is the energy costs (and, if you're using remote hosting, you don't get rewarded for this except for whatever value you attach to feeling "green"). You still pay for the floor space, the machines, and perhaps some sort of maintenance contracts regardless of if the server is powered up or down.
Using EC2 (depending on how you've structured it - some dedicated, some non-dedicated instances etc), if utilization drops to 80% over 20 instances, the temptation is to release a couple instances to save a couple bucks and drive utilization up to 90% on the remaining instances -- with potentially unfortunate consequences.
Although I have no idea, I wonder if Reddit is just releasing instances too aggressively now "because they can" in order to save money? If so, the fingrer should be pointed at Reddit, not the cloud (or EC2 specifically).
Suggestion: Be very careful to pay the rent on time.
Some of the words hello and bye were dark, the rest were mostly light gray.
What, one may wonder, was the actual message? Well, it appeared to be someone trying to fax something - although, the tones didn't sound quite like FAX negotiation tones, but surely no one would be mis-dialing a modem number in this day and age.
I was intrigued by the limited vocabulary it produced here. Almost as if the most common words are these greeting words (hello, hey, hi) and sign off words (bye) and these words are so preferred that line noise ends up just being these top few words.
Of course, you have no idea (or evidence one way or the other) if I'm an economist, an evolutionary biologist, an advanced physicist, or a climatologist -- but you state as fact that I'm not. So, I can pretty much ignore the rest of your rambling comment. Let's play again sometime (and, maybe, you can at least post as your real userid next time).
Oh, and were the authors of peer reviewed article(s) about a link between autism and preservatives in vaccines "experts"? Surely, since they got published, you still believe them even though elimination of the "suspect" preservatives in vaccines for young kids didn't affect autism rates.
Stop accepting without question everything the "experts" say -- it's really rather foolish. Think for yourself, consider the evidence, consider if the evidence stands up to scrutiny. Also, consider if last year's models, without changing the model, match observed data better when variable coefficients are adjusted for new evidence (such as methane releases from natural sources which were previously thought to be lower) -- or does the model get "refined" as new data comes in in order to match the (adjusted) observed behaviors. Don't forget that it's quite easy to generate a polynomial that predicts the closing value of the DJIA on Dec 31 of each of the past 50 years -- the problem is, it will not help you predict the closing value of the DJIA this year.
As I stated, I have no doubt that AGW is a reality -- however I doubt the degree of precision that some claim about predicting its impact. The IPCC should just publish as their "final answer" a prediction for the 95% confidence level of the range of measurements of annual mean equatorial tropospheric temperature levels for each of the next fifty years - with variables for all inputs such as CO2 and methane introduced into the atmosphere by human activity. If, the range is too high, I'd be suspicious but willing to listen. If in twenty years, the predictions are right, the model becomes even more credible. I'm fine with the range being reduced as new research is done (or, increased, but that does call into question the validity of the original model and requires a new starting point for the fifty year predictions).
Science also didn't care if preservatives in vaccines led to autism. The media cared a lot. Articles in peer reviewed journals thought it did (until they were retracted in embarrassment).
Those who denied that a bacteria (imagine that) was responsible for most stomach ulcers were ridiculed by the established medical community (until they were proven wrong).
And, both of these were FAR less complex systems than the Earth's climate and far easier to test theories on.
Be very careful of claims of "settled science". AGW may be real (I think it is almost certainly real) - but the magnitude of its is much more uncertain (and, if it's actually a good or bad thing for human survival is unknown -- if we are heading for another mini ice age, we might be happy that a few hundred years of AGW had increased global temps by a degree or two).
Rule of thumb... "Settled Science" should only be applied to PROVABLE premises, else a better term is "hypothesis".
Interesting, but cites?
I have no doubt that some people of some fringe beliefs try to associate with libertarians (or, even Libertarians) for "relevance". However, this is little different than Progressives who try to, when convenient, associate themselves with "liberal" or, at the other extreme, with "socialist".
KKK will try to use "libertarianism" to support their view -- until they discover that for each of them, there are 1,000 libertarians (and 10 ACLU supporters who will actually put their balls on the line) chanting them down standing by protesting.
I think this is a serious misconception. Most Americans with insurance who experience a serious illnesses or injury find their medical care is well covered subject, of course, to their policy caps/deductibles. (There is, however, a serious problem with lack of portability of insurance and pre-existing conditions -- interestingly, COBRA deals with these somewhat effectively, why we don't first try placing similar rules on private insurance policies rather than going the whole "mandate" route perplexes me).
Of course, the media reports the exceptions far more often than the norm (much as the fact the sun came up in the east every morning for the past century is rarely reported but if it came up in the south tomorrow morning, that would be a well reported event).
It seems that most cases where people have difficulty getting their insurance companies to cover expenses (within policy coverage limits/deductibles of course) revolve around the question if a procedure is medically appropriate and necessary for the condition and/or is likely to be successful. These calls are, of course, subject to judgment. Insurance companies may try to avoid paying for things like organ transplants if they don't think they are likely to be successful (for example, see Nataline Sarkisyan). Or, they may deny a request to pay more to accelerate a transplant if they feel such acceleration is not necessary. However, these are the exception rather than the rule (for example, people with various forms of cancer which cost tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars to treat under standardized diagnostic and treatment protocols find that their care is covered without argument by their insurance company).
It is true that sometimes the insurance company (or, HMO) will limit a policy holder's choice of provider (i.e., only providing full payment to "in network" providers), but the insured knows that before taking out the policy and these providers are licensed and regulated - they aren't unlicensed quacks in some third world nation.