Colorado is the first state to cap skyrocketing insulin co-pays – CNN

Colorado Gov. Jared Polis signed a bill into law Wednesday that places a $100 per month cap on insulin co-pays, regardless of how much insulin a patient uses. Insurance companies will pay anything more than the $100 co-pay, according to the new law.

Source: Colorado is the first state to cap skyrocketing insulin co-pays – CNN

Today, in Medicare-For-All-is-being-slightly-delayed news… Big win. Hopefully, this will sweep the rest of the states. This is something that could be handled by the Congress – DIRECTLY under their statutory powers of governing INTRA-STATE commerce – if they just got their collective heads out of… the sand, and quit wasting time with a sham of an impeachment that they knew would never succeed.

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Drug Company Set to Pay $15 Million to DOJ Over Doctor Bribery Scandal

Mallinckrodt Pharmaceuticals announced today that the company expects to pay $15.4 million in a settlement with the U.S. Justice Department after allegations that Questcor Pharmaceuticals, which Mallinckrodt acquired in 2014, had bribed doctors and their staff to prescribe an incredibly expensive drug.

Source: Drug Company Set to Pay $15 Million to DOJ Over Doctor Bribery Scandal

Today, in Medicare-For-All-is-inevitable news: A pharmaceutical company jacked up the price of a drug for newborns from $40 to FORTY THOUSAND DOLLARS, even though it has been in the market, unchanged, since 1952. And then they were caught bribing doctors to prescribe it!

On top of this, there’s a $33 version of the drug in Canada. So, what did these jerks do? Why, bought the rights to sell it in the US, and then simply locked it up, of course! I mean, what else does one do in this situation?

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DHH on Twitter: “Gig exploitation math is very simple.”

Seems like it’s only a matter of time before word gets around that this just doesn’t work long term. Especially in a time of record employment. Of course, if the government is calling “gig jobs” employment, then we might have a problem. I guess we’ll see if word of mouth about the negative rates involved win out over the exploitation of desperately underemployed people.

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Confirmed: Gucci Fall/Winter 2020 Menswear Still Slaps

Alessandro Michele turned up his blouse game and blasted Marilyn Manson on the Milan runway for his latest collection, a statement against toxic masculinity

Source: Confirmed: Gucci Fall/Winter 2020 Menswear Still Slaps

The movie, The Devil Wears Prada, made me actually consider that there might be something to the fashion industry. Gucci’s 2020 menswear collection has destroyed that notion. This is one of the 4 or 5 most-influential fashion brands on the planet. You can’t convince me that this picture isn’t the result of being told, “You have 2 minutes to run through a Goodwill, and anything you can fit in this bag will be free,” and putting on a runway with the result.

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Communal living concept with wellness vibe coming to San Diego

Haven Coliving houses mostly people who work in the wellness industry. There are activities like yoga and vegan cooking classes. The housing is comprised of four multi-million dollar homes that are connected to one another. “In Los Angeles, where a one bedroom in Venice would be about $3,000, our membership dues are $995,” says founder and CEO Ben Katz. Katz says that about $1,000 a month will get you a bed in a private pod in a shared room. Sheets and towels are provided and changed weekly.

Source: Communal living concept with wellness vibe coming to San Diego

This week, in “grim meathook future” news: An apartment in LA is $3,000/mo. A bunk in a flop house in San Diego is $1,000/mo, and being marketed as a “health and wellness” option.

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Most-Decorated Civilization V Unit

I’m coming up on 4,000 hours total play time on Civilization V. I can’t remember ever getting a unit so highly-promoted. Right after I took this, he got killed by some random barbarian, but he was cool while he lasted. I don’t know how many promotions are possible, but this must be getting close.

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Nibble Stew – a gathering of development thoughts: How about not stabbing ourselves in the leg with a rusty fork?

When faced with this kind of pointless and harmful routine, one might suggest not doing it any more or replacing it with some other, more useful procedure. This does not succeed, of course, but that is not the point. The reasons you get back are the interesting thing, because they will tell you what kind of manager and coworkers you are dealing with. Here are some possible options, can you think of more?

Source: Nibble Stew – a gathering of development thoughts: How about not stabbing ourselves in the leg with a rusty fork?

I can think of another…

The Sock Puppet of the Auditor
“We hired auditors at great expense of time and money, and we’re going to do what they told us that ‘all’ companies do, no matter how inappropriate it is for us and our particular workflows.”

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New evidence shows that the key assumption made in the discovery of dark energy is in error

Taken at face values, the luminosity evolution of SN is significant enough to question the very existence of . When the luminosity evolution of SN is properly taken into account, the team found that the evidence for the existence of dark simply goes away (see Figure 1).

Source: New evidence shows that the key assumption made in the discovery of dark energy is in error

I don’t know what the graph is supposed to represent, but… no “dark energy.” You know, the bedrock idea that has undergirded all astronomical research for the past couple decades. You know, the thing that has never been observed or measured; only assumed, in order to make the math work. All just chucked out the window, based on some new observations.

Like whether eggs are good for you, or going to be the grisly death of you, depending on the year, maybe this will go back and forth for awhile.

Please don’t wonder why I have a hard time taking what’s reported in the news about biology (evolution), cosmology (Big Bang), or climate (death of the planet by “change”) to be gospel. Excuse me while I give such things a couple hundred years to be proven out.

My problem isn’t with the research, or the invalidation of previous results. My problem in all of this is there’s no objectivity in the papers or the reporting. So as we try to answer a fundamental question like: “Is the universe going to eventually collapse onto itself, and start the Big Bang all over again, or did it happen in a way that can never be repeated?” I wish, instead of stating, “Yes, and it will happen 13.72343 billion years from now,” papers would summarize their findings like, “We think so, and perhaps a dozen billion years from now, given these critical assumptions, and within this confidence interval.” Then I could start taking it all much more seriously.

Until then, all I can see in our current system are shocking headlines in a bid for page views, and preposterous statements in a grab for more grant money for the next study.

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Statements: Office of the Provost & Executive Vice President: Indiana University Bloomington

Professor Eric Rasmusen has, for many years, used his private social media accounts to disseminate his racist, sexist, and homophobic views. When I label his views in this way, let me note that the labels are not a close call, nor do his posts require careful parsing to reach these conclusions.

Source: Statements: Office of the Provost & Executive Vice President: Indiana University Bloomington

Indiana University has a professor who is apparently so self-documentingly racist and sexist that they feel they have to address it publicly. In this admission, they promise to make accommodations for students who do not want to take classes from him, and declare that he will be subject to double-blind grading procedures so that his views can’t affect grades.

Here’s a crazy thought: FIRE HIM!

This is what you get with the equally-archaic-as-racism-and-sexism system that is academic tenure. How ridiculous is it that universities have the audacity to foist this unmeritorious system on students and parents, as they purport to be the gatekeepers of justice, equity, and wisdom, all while they continue their downward spiral of value and relevance on a young person’s future?

Truly, this is a case of dying by the same sword you lived by. What other job in the entirety of our capitalistic society has a mechanism whereby one can be immune from the repercussions of being a misanthrope, and still be guaranteed a job for life? This is just one example, but, for many reasons, I think it’s time to get rid of this system, and not just in post-secondary schools, but at all levels.

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Linux in 2020: 27.8 million lines of code in the kernel, 1.3 million in systemd • The Register

Another point of interest is that systemd, a replacement for init that is the first process to run when Linux starts, is now approaching 1.3 million lines of code thanks to nearly 43,000 commits in 2019.

“Everybody who has ever worked at that level in the operating system has agreed that systemd is the proper solution. It solves a problem that people have. Distros have adopted it because it solves a problem for them. If you don’t want to use it, you don’t have to use it. There’s other init replacements out there. Android doesn’t use it because they use other things,” he (Greg Kroah-Hartman) said.

Source: Linux in 2020: 27.8 million lines of code in the kernel, 1.3 million in systemd • The Register

A Linux distribution is the kernel, the userspace programs, a service management system, and a package manager. I’m still not clear on everything systemd does, and that bothers me. As it continues to grow, it’s a learning process, and I’m not down in the weeds with Linux every day like I used to be. But I appreciate what they’re doing. It always bothered me that init was just a cobbled together bunch of scripts. This feels like the proper, modern approach.

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