Note: This is hadouken24's partner posting, not hadouken24 himself.

I hate the word "lawmaker." It seems to be almost exclusively used to make minor local politicians who are probably relatively unknown in their own area seem more important in order to generate maximum outrage over their comments.

I can't really disagree with that, but it has to be said that the issues that are not brought up are distinctly non-partisan--that is, the issues that are not brought up are the ones that are disadvantageous to both parties.

For instance, no one talks about gerrymandering anymore. It clearly benefits both parties, but it is destroying our political system by creating disincentives to working across the aisle with the other party.

In my view, there are three major structural reforms in the US government that need to be addressed: 1) Gerrymandering 2) Campaign finance and 3) regulatory capture. Of these three, only the second one is addressed by either candidate, but not in a satisfying way.

We need major reforms in healthcare and economic wealth distribution, and we need to prepare ourselves for certain worldwide economic changes due to technological innovation and globalization, but until we deal with those three major issues, we won't be able to make any headway.

The way it was set up, the mod developer did have the choice whether to charge or not. The final price point was also at the mod developer's discretion.

The 25% figure sounds low, but it's the same cut that developers of hats and skins for TF2 and Dota 2 get for their sold items--and there are people making a living at it.

Also, after Valve's 30% cut, the Bethesda looked at what a fair breakdown of what was left would be. Valve--30 Bethesda--45, and modder--25. If you just look at the portion after Valve takes its cut, Bethesda took 65% of what was left, and the modder took 35%. Which is typically what a development studio gets back from sales from a game publisher.

The 25% sounds really low if you're not familiar with how this kind of thing usually works, but it's actually about what content creators typically get when they're given a percentage from a publisher. It's a lot higher than some industries--authors usually only get 10-15% royalties on book sales, and even then only after the first 10,000 books sold.

Yup. You live in Oklahoma?

First of all, I'm sorry that you had a bad experience with that claim. Auto accidents are never fun to deal with. The goal of a good claims rep should be to do what they can to put the customer at ease and work to get the claim settled fairly and efficiently.

For the most part, the adjusters I deal with at other companies do work in good faith to settle their claims. Insurance adjusters are held to a high ethical standard. At most of the larger carriers (with some exceptions), the ethical standards are quite high. Otherwise, they would be sued right out of business.

There are certainly some bad companies out there and some bad adjusters out there. There are a few smaller companies in Texas and California that I can think of that have particularly bad practices--I'm not sure why the Texas and California DOI's haven't shut them down.

That said, the obligation of an ethical insurance adjuster is to pay what the company owes. No more, and no less. Paying less than what is owed, or stonewalling, delaying, or otherwise acting in bad faith, is certainly unethical. But it is also unethical to overpay claims--to pay out on coverages that have not been purchased, for example, or to pay more than what the claim is worth. Personal lines insurance companies operate on very slim margins. If we consistently overpay on claims, then it will come back to our customers in the form of higher premiums, which could result in losing customers and perhaps the business being closed.

I'm not sure what you're talking about with regard to Florida's Uninsured Motorist laws. They're pretty similar to the UM laws in most other states. There's not a lot of variation there. Florida is a no-fault state, so you do have to file under your Personal Injury Protection first. (Which blows. No-fault laws just make your premiums more expensive.)

It is possible that a forensics expert could use the video to determine if the truck is accelerating by looking at how quickly the painted lines are passing. But that's pretty expensive, and probably wouldn't be used unless the claim was going into litigation.

There are definitely two pieces of information I would want to gather before making a decision--the statements of both drivers. While based on the video I would place liability on the truck 60-70%, the statements from the drivers (and how well they match up with the video) could affect the decision 10-20 points either way. In particular, there is a point in the video at which the VW has partially completed the lane change, appears to be aware that there is an issue, and then continues to move over.

I would want to know what their reasoning was at that point. It could easily impact their degree of negligence, as part of determining negligence is figuring out what people knew, when they knew it, and how they took action to minimize or avoid a loss.

As far as pulling vehicles over for speeding--not my area of expertise. I'd ask a law enforcement officer about that. Insurance adjusters aren't in the business of writing tickets.

The ironic thing is that without video footage, this would go 100% in favor of the trucker. All he would have to say is that he hit his brakes and tried to avoid it. With the video footage, he can't.

And he audibly boasts about how he's going to get the other driver with the video footage. Talk about self-hoisting via petard.

So, I am an auto liability adjuster. I do this for a living--I take statements from drivers and witnesses, review damage and, when it's available, I watch videos of car accidents to see where fault lies.

In this particular accident, it seems pretty obvious that both parties contributed to some degree or another. The VW's driver was obviously making an unsafe lane change. However, the trucker had the last clear chance to avoid the accident, and from the audio in the cab was clearly distracted by a cell phone. The truck thus contributed by failing to maintain driver attention.


So we're going to need to assess partial negligence on both driver's. So, how much will we need to assess, and what does that mean for how much each person might or might not get paid?

In terms of negligence law, Texas is a Modified Comparative state under the Not Greater Than rule. What this means is that in order to recover money from the other party, you cannot have more responsibility than they do in order to recover any money. But you can only recover the percentage that the other party is at fault. So if it's 50/50, each party gets half of their costs from the other party. If it's 51/49, one person owes the other guy 51%, but the other guy doesn't owe a dime.

In this case, 50/50 would be a likely and attractive option for the insurance companies. Both parties clearly contributed, and each party had equal opportunity to avoid the loss, so each insurance company would pay the other 50%.

The gross negligence of the driver of the pickup is such that I don't see less than 50% negligence on that driver. However, I can see the car's insurance company arguing for a higher responsibility on the truck.

When the car puts on the signal and starts moving over, there is clearly room to move over without striking the truck. The car starts moving over, and the truck starts to overtake the VW. The trucker was closing the distance with the traffic ahead. The VW appears to hit their brakes as the traffic ahead is slowing down--but the trucker doesn't, and appears to be accelerating.

Moreover, as the driver of the larger vehicle, the trucker has a greater duty to maintain driver attention and avoid accidents, as a mistake on his part has greater likelihood of causing more serious physical damage, and severe bodily injury or death.

I believe that it would be justified to put a slight majority on the truck, 60-70%. This would be my preference. So they would owe for 60-70% of the VW's damages. The trucker will have to go through his own insurance or pay out of pocket for his damages.

Mixology skill level: Asian

Witnesses are crap. Don't believe a word they say.

There's video of the shooting. It doesn't show what happened immediately before or after, but it shows what happened in the shooting.

That's the happiest Saab story I've ever heard of

It's not trying to eat the finger or taste it. It's trying to anoint itself with the scent of the finger. There's another video by the same user (you can see it in the suggested videos) that's 4 seconds long showing the behavior.

Hedgehogs, when confronted with strange new scents, lick and gnaw on the object until they have enough of the scent in their mouth. They then foam up their spittle and reach around and spread the foamy stuff on their quills.

It's really weird. No one really knows why they do it.

This debate didn't have enough action. I was sitting there waiting for the climactic boss argument. Boring.

It looks like there's suppose to be a hose attached, like the two posts next to it. You can actually see the hose on the ground. I guess when the hose came off, it just started spraying.

You were only able to carry 200lbs of food back to the wagon.