A good general rule is to make it hard for people to do bad things, and to not create incentives to do so. This seems to do the opposite.

Isn’t homeowners insurance subsidised in the US in some places, especially in high risk areas?

I can‘t find good resources on this - is there a logic behind this beyond pleasing the people that have vested interests in those areas (like owning a home)?

Flood insurance specifically. Flood insurance in the US is often provided only by government entities because private insurers have all pulled out of that insurance market.

Problem is when the only provider of waterfront insurance is government taxpayers, that kinda looks like people who own waterfront property have convinced everyone else to subsidize their lifestyle.

Yes it often is. E.g. https://www.floodsmart.gov/

I agree, I've found it very useful for search tasks that involve putting a few pieces together. For example, I was looking for the floor plan of an apartment building I was considering moving to in a country I'm not that familiar with. Google: Found floor plans on architect's sites - but only ones of rejected proposals.

ChatGPT: Gave me the planning proposal number of the final design, with instructions to the government website where I can plug that in to get floor plans and other docs.

In this case, ChatGPT was so much better at giving me a definitive source than Google - instead of the other way around.

Historically a storeroom for provisions in monasteries, in Oxford colleges it is where students get their food. Edit: To clarify, it is pretty much the cafeteria kitchen.

Oxford colleges use quite a lot of antique jargon. Battel is also something related that took me a while to figure out.

A battel is an account of items supplied by a buttery, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battel.

And they pronounce 'Magdalen' as 'maudlin' because that's briefly how people pronounced it hundreds of years ago.

> To clarify, it is pretty much the cafeteria kitchen

Well, the college refectory - canteen

Are we going full circle from TV to streaming back to TV? Probably not, but I do really enjoy the discovery aspect as well as reducing the overwhelming options of streaming down to a few channels.

This has a super smooth feel and throws you directly in, really well done.

Its the discovery aspect I miss, even cable had channels you could look at shows of a type - scyfi or Arena etc. Even free to air had reliable shows pre picked for you that you could rely on being decent. Now there's a fire hose of shows on Netflix, some good, some bad finding something to watch is now a task.

How has the LMB changed?

During its golden era (1950-80), LMB was set apart by emphasizing small groups, internal funding, and staff scientist tracks.

Right now, LMB is not very different from the classical principal investigators and postdoc pyramid model that is so pervasive in Academia.

LMB hasn’t changed, but the world has changed.

The strengths of LMB (molecular biology, structural biology) haven’t been yielding the same fruits as the old days.

Your driveway drains to a nearby body of water, most likely, while your bathroom trains into sewage which is treated.

It makes more sense if your run-off and sewage are treated separately - assuming the car washes get theirs treated.

My understanding is that the UK has a combined system where rainwater and waste go into the same system and is all treated the same. More because of history than because anyone now thinks that is a good idea. Maybe someone who knows more about this could confirm?

I'm in the UK and our privatised water companies seem to mostly just pump stuff into the nearest river or coastline, untreated. Treating the sewage or building infrastructure would eat into their dividends and bonuses. Trebles all round!

In both of your examples I could see the model becoming the default, with humans double-checking, if even that. If things go wrong as you describe, humans are pulled into the loop by the humans wronged (unless they give up before). There is a company making money with auto insurance claims: https://tractable.ai/en/products

I live in Basel, Switzerland, where it is common sport to jump into the river Rhine on a hot day, and float right through historic downtown. It’s a marvellous thing, even just to watch. Really adds to quality of life! Edit: Missed the other comment by a fellow Baseler.

Same on the Limmat in Zürich, such a relaxing 2-hour float down the river (only interrupted by the deadly dam in the middle).