So lefties, what rightist thing to you support?

[Zkribbler]

Re: Re: So lefties, what rightist thing to you support?

Originally posted by MichaeltheGreat
"Tort reform" is just a nice package for letting those who commit torts escape liability for their acts. Someone grossly ****s up a routine appendectomy and leaves you paralyzed from the waist down for the next 30-40 years, unless you die sooner? Hey, let's cap pain and suffering awards to say, $400,000, no matter what.

While I agree with your point you picked out a wuss of an example . How about when a delivery is botched, and as a result, the baby comes out twisted and crippled for life?

Tort reform -- it's all about the rich and powerful being pre-granted amnesty for their wrongdoings.

[Arrian]

Hmm. That seems like a pretty one-sided review of tort reform.

Surely some reform is warranted? Damages awarded can get ridiculous, especially when causation is questionable (for instance a person who got cancer who alleges they got it from work, but also happened to smoke 2 packs a day).

Maybe I've been corrupted because I work for a big insurance company, but I'm pretty sympathetic to capping damages or coming up with some other system for dealing with asbetos claims and such. There are about a gazillion asbetos suits out there. Only a tiny fraction are by people who are actually sick. Of those, how many are sick b/c of asbestos and how many are sick because they smoked or because of some other exposure?

I'm certainly open to the idea that the current reform effort is flawed. But it seems to me that the current system is also flawed.

-Arrian

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by Cort Haus
Economies of scales can benefit larger enterprises, but increased efficiencies don't necessarily scale upwards with size.

Bigger is always better. You can always cut out waste by getting bigger. There are lots of managers and monopoly workers to cut.

[Kuciwalker]

Untrue for anything where costs are O(n^2) or bigger.

[Kidlicious]

What the hell is O(n^2)?

[Kidlicious]

You can merge just about any two companies and get some synergies and cut costs. There's tons of possible gains out there. The only thing stopping the mergers is people not wanting to sell out for the price offered, or what they could get.

[Flubber]

Re: Re: So lefties, what rightist thing to you support?

Originally posted by MichaeltheGreat

Cali already has one effective form of tort reform - the §998 settlement offer - basically, if one side makes the offer, and the other side rejects it and fails to do better at trial, that side is liable for the costs and attorney's fees of the party making the §998 offer.

About time !!! That mechanism has been a part of Canadian courts for years-- Actually it supplements the general rule that if you lose you pay the "court costs" of the other side. These costs are in a schedule and are a fraction (about one-third to one half) of the real costs.

But if someone does an offer similar to your 998 rule, the costs are the ACTUAL costs if you refuse an offer better than you do at trial.

The general rule was enough to prevent most frivolous lawsuits while the offer rule means it is unlikely that parties can afford to take the chance of refusing a reasonable offer.

[chequita guevara]

I don't think losers should automatically have to pay the court costs of the other side, since that would scare off many people who deserve justice from filing a case. Though I'm inclined to think that in malicious or frivolous cases, that maybe should be the case.

[Odin]

Originally posted by Kidicious


Bigger is always better.

Not if you are for supporting local communities.

[Kidlicious]

What? Like Mao?

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Kidicious
What the hell is O(n^2)?

Order n^2. That is, costs that scale more than linearly with personnel.

In the very very extreme case, a sufficiently large company would have great than linear costs simply because their payroll would take longer to search through, since search is at best O(n*ln(n)).

[-Jrabbit]

As a lifelong lefty, I still support the QWERTY keyboard, despite its overt favoring of the right.

I also support the right-handed versions of most stringed instruments.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Cort Haus
When one person develops something for years, they know it inside out. Adding one person will not add equivalent output however 'agile' or 'modular' the team. It usually slows things down at first, in fact, as the newcomer drains the time of the original person getting things explained to them.

I reckon there are some advantages of seeing software development as some sort of handicraft, but we ought to transform it into a science so we can progress forward. Afterall, I am a computer scientist

Originally posted by Cort Haus
A team of programmers needs managing and administering which creates overheads.

Well, maybe, but talented programmers are an eccentric lot and managing them is like herding cats

Originally posted by Cort Haus
Saying that efficiency can scale with the right 'agility & modularity' may apply in certain special cases, but in the general case, it's just management speak of the type used by people like Dilbert's boss.

Well to get any large scale project done in a reasonable amount of time you need teams of programmers. The "lone hacker" image makes a nice film stereotype and may even work in some areas, but corporations can't deal with that.

And it's "agile," not "agility."

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker
Untrue for anything where costs are O(n^2) or bigger.

That's a very strange application of the Big O notation.

[Kuciwalker]

Since we're talking about asymptotic efficiency, it's also a very natural one.