I'm still waiting for the used ebook market to claw it's way to life. Unfortunately, it seems as if the first sale doctrine has been derailed by DRM to become the only sale doctrine.

I love my kindle, but I am reluctant to buy new books unless I am absolutely sure I will like them. At Borders (I guess Barnes & Noble now) I flip through the book, which I can to a limited extent with Amazon. However, with ebooks, I can not take a stack of finished books to the used book store and sell them for a fraction of the cost, and then buy more used books at half the original price. What really bugs me, though, is that the ebooks are often priced higher than the ones in Borders! As much as I like my knidle, I'm still more inclined to browse the used book store than to buy new ebooks.

One good thing from this is that I've been re-reading a bunch of the classics lately, since they're all free.

Will this be like a library, where you check out a book for free, or will it be a rental, where you pay to borrow it?

Check out the rates for:
4-door sedan vs. 4-door sedan
SUV vs. SUV
4-door sedan vs. SUV

From what I've read over the years, sedan vs. sedan is a lot less dangerous than SUV vs. SUV. Unfortunately, the sedan vs. SUV makes people think SUVs are safer. As the numbers of SUVs out there keep growing, SUV vs. SUV is getting more and more common. So overall, the danger is growing, and the people in the sedans get to suffer for it.

The insurance don't bear the bulk of those costs. Any "cost" they have to pay out is reflected in a rate increase for everyone else. They never lose. Insurance is one of the biggest scams around. When you pay for insurance, you are essentially placing a bet that you will have an accident. If you don't have an accident, you lose and are out that month's wager. If you do have an accident, you "win" and recover most (but never all) of the costs of dealing with the accident.

The insurance just lets you spread out the cost of the accident across months/years ahead of time, so that when it does eventually occur you're not hit with an unbearable giant debt.

The problem is not someone pulling in front of you. the problem is that it is impossible to leave the proper amount of space, because it will be filled no matter what. Either you slow down more and more to keep re-opening the space, or you end up on the bumper of the last person who squeezed in. There is no middle ground.

If people would stop weaving in/out of lanes trying to get another car-length ahead of everyone else in traffic, you wouldn't have traffic keep slowing down. We could all maintain a safe speed and distance and all get home that much quicker. Some days, I'm amazed I actually reach home intact.

"adequate"? My headlights do a perfectly fine job of illuminating the road in front of me. That is, until someone with HID or LED headlights comes up behind me. Then all I can see is the cone of shadow my car casts in its own headlights, and a pretty brightly illuminated shoulder of the road, so bright that I find it difficult to see the actual road where I am trying to drive.

Are people really so blind that they must have the road lit to daylight levels to be able to see?

"consider just moving your whole data center to a location that's been conveniently pre-hardened, like a water tower or a boiler room."

So, move it to a place where if something does go wrong, in addition to the disaster you also have a huge tank of water nearby to douse your whole center? I'm not so sure I'd like that idea.

I can't tell if you're being serious or sarcastic. While I wouldn't advocate bringing back the physical punishments, I think the social punishments would go a long way to getting people to think before acting. Post it where their friends will see it, on facebook or google+. Stick a sign in their yard. Publishing it in the newspaper may work, but there are a lot of people that don't read newspapers. However, before you do, make sure the facts are right and you have the right person's facebook account.

"Even if you get lucky, how is anyone supposed to even know what gate they are supposed to be at?"

It's printed on my ticket. Except for the rare last minute gate change, it's been pretty accurate.

With the computers down, it can't be perfect, but for *most* of the flights, the available data is still good.

"If you land a plane at an airport, and go and park at a gate, what are the odds that the people waiting for a flight at that gate are supposed to be on the same plane that you just parked there?"

Pretty good odds, actually. Every time I've been waiting at the gate when a plane arrived and disgorged passengers, that was always the same plane that we eventually got on. Except for one time they had to replace it due to mechanical problems.

It doesn't make any sense to pull up to one gate, empty the plane, and then move it to another gate for a new load.

A cup full of caffeine and sugar is supposed to help you calm down?

I used to carry a couple extra books in my carry-on bag, as I have seldom had a flight even come close to being on time (except for connecting flights which are almost always on time no matter how late my initial flight is).More recently, I just make sure my phone charger is with me, so I can keep my battery topped off as I read ebooks or play games on my phone instead. My only real complaints are that I have yet to find an airport with even slightly comfortable seating and that there is never any place at all to get away from all the noise of the multiple TVs tuned to multiple stations all at full volume and the incessant security announcements just in case there is someone in the airport who hasn't flown in the past 20 years.

Overall, I agree with what you said. Only one part didn't make any sense, though: "With the system down they don't even know when/where plane 'A' is in order to get butt 'X' onto it."

Couldn't they just look out the window? Maybe that big thing outside the window that a whole bunch of people recently walked off of just happens to be the plane everyone at the gate is waiting to board?

Yeah, just loading it up and taking off would make a huge mess of the paperwork, but don't tell me they can't find the plane.

Isn't social security going to be bankrupt within 20 years, anyway?

I need more space on my phone for the apps I want. I never understood why I couldn't remove Nascar, Sprint TV, and a few other app that I *never* use.

But for the cities concerned about this, there is no business B. If there were a business B, then many of them wouldn't even be considering setting up a city-run service.

If the private companies refuse to provide service, why shouldn't the city be allowed to provide the service funded by the taxes of the residents, since it's the residents that want it? The private companies had their chance and chose not to participate.