A big reason for them sucking at driving is a lack of experience. Delaying that might might reduce accidents a bit because they'd be (hopefully) a bit more mature, but they'd still lack the experience. Then again, the more things we keep delaying "until they have more maturity" the longer that maturity takes to come around.

None of that could possibly be any different than if Aunt Mildred just sent you a gift card for Amazon. Nor would it be different than if Aunt Mildred sent you the items, and then you returned them to Amazon for store credit.

Also, for reference alcohol isn't sold on amazon. Also, I can't find anything about it now, but I remember hearing that when sending knives to Germany, Amazon has to to inform the deliverer because they will only deliver to someone over 18. So yes, Amazon is aware of the laws and what is legal in your area.

I've heard of no studies, no evidence, that choice in browser indicates anything with regards to handling money. Without such research, it would be a meaningless metric to use.

I agree with the gist of what you're saying. However, they don't need outside, independent research for their purposes. They've given out loans before, and many people pay their loans online. It's quite easy for them to use their own internal data to see that people who use browser x to pay their loans default at y rate.

I doubt there has been much in the way of independent research for car accident statistics for my zip code, but insurance companies use zip codes for determining rates all the time. I'm sure Capital One's actuaries are up to the same kind of stuff with regards to loans. As to the actual interest rate, while the rate shown on a website isn't at all binding, there are still valid reasons for changing based on the browser. For example, let's say that their own data has shown that people who pay using Firefox are most likely to default, they can show a higher rate hoping that you'll go somewhere else instead of with them, so they'll be less likely to get a new defaulting loanee.

I just wasn't all that clear. I should have said, "Don't confuse the entirety of the 'real world' with the portion of it in which you live"

I'm fairly certain that there is a large swath of land in the "real world" of which you speak where day-to-day weather conditions couldn't kill you no matter how stupid you were, at least not on the end of the temperature scale where gloves are required. Don't confuse the real world with the location you chose to live in.

Then search for it. First hit for me is for playdota.com with the heading of "Official DotA website". Second is a link to wikipedia titled Defense of the Ancients followed by the text (on the google page still):

Defense of the Ancients (commonly known as DotA)

(emphasis in the original). You're in the games section of slashdot. You should have been able to figure out that the first link (the one with the word "play" in it) was for a game. Also, the summary does mention what it is:

DotA Allstars mod for Warcraft III

With all of that, how do you even know that DotA is an acronym? All you need is right before you, in the summary no less. It's a mod for another game called DotA and Valve is releasing version 2 of the funny-named game.

This is why I think the inability to easily reverse engineer must be the standard for obtaining a patent. That is, if whatever you are trying to get a patent for can be reverse engineered before that patent would expire, then you don't get a patent. That way, either patent terms would become much shorter, or only really difficult, non-obvious things get patents. Granted, this would probably mean the death of patents, and I'm fine with that as well.

Let's come up with a new one for them in short order.

nobody is going to come after you for copying and p(a|o)sting on a comment thread

Maybe my sarcasm meter is in need of some maintenance, but this happens all the time. Just check out the Righthaven/LVJR lawsuits for a small sampling.

Buying 100,000 shares of already issued stock is an investment, but does nothing to create jobs.

Perhaps not directly, but if you invest those 100,000 shares in the company I work for, their stock price might go up, allowing me to sell my shares for even more, and then I can buy stuff from local businesses, like the small local home builder that I just hired to build my house.

Investing in already issued stocks doesn't mean the money disappears, it just means its harder to trace its effect on the economy.

Isn't the iPod Touch just an iPhone with out the 3G antenna? The 64GB version of that is only $400. Does it really cost that much more to add an antenna?

Good thing he's not hiring the Soviet Military. Some Swedish economics professor built a submarine that went to a depth of 10,000 feet. He later designed one that already accomplished this feat in 1960. So the design is not a problem. The X-prize isn't about getting it done, it's about getting private funding to do it twice. James Cameron should have plenty of money to accomplish this.

I'm so indie...

I mean, it makes no sense for the Author's Guild to castigate Amazon yet remain silent in regard to Apple. Since anything Apple immediately hits the airwaves

I think you have the reason why the Author's Guild is being silent. Their blathering about the TTS feature against Amazon was ridiculed by everyone that heard the story. The only reason they didn't get more ridicule was that the story wasn't broadly heard. Put Apple in the story and everyone would be ridiculing them.

That saves a step for ingredients->food, but it doesn't at all save on ingredients->stomach. In fact, what you propose makes it worse, because instead of going to the supermarket several times per week, they are now going to the cafeteria several times per day.