An improved map will be entering beta test soon.

Who collects the data points for the statistics?

Not if I'm in the left lane.

It makes planning my vacation touring the brothels of Thailand just that much easier.

So, who do you think you are?

I haven't looked at it yet. So the options are still open.

I hope they never examine all the stuff I've saved on my PC and posted on line.

-- Signed,
Walter Mitty.

Five minutes before Midnight? I always thought it was nearly lunchtime!

Perhaps if these scientists had adopted a digital clock face with military time it wouldn't have been so confusing.

I've worked in the power utility industry for years. As a direct employee for a (now defunct) investor owned utility, PSE. And I have done some consulting for some neigboring utilities. I do know that Seattle City Light and Snohomish County PUDs' operations costs were lower than PSE's back when my company had itw own maintenance crews. Now that they subcontract all of that work out, their costs have skyrocketed to about double the rates of the public entities. This is partly why they went under as a publicly traded company and are essentially being kept on financial life support by owners who also sell them services (those services not being subject to utilities commission review as their direct crews were).

Citations?

The difference being who provides the initial capital and who recieves the periodic payouts and death benefits.

One example of this is what is known as "dead pesant's insurance" (or janitor's insurance). A corporation would buy a policy in the name of some lowly employee (hence some insurable interest) and name themselves as the beneficiary, reaping certain tax benefits. Since the IRS cracked down on this practice a few years back, some legal/regulatory changes have been proposed opening the doors to allow invesstors to buy policies on anyone, effectively "shorting" their life.

... of Geeks bearing gifts.

Never said it was the biggest complaint. Just one of the most obvious.

"Other than that Mrs. Lincoln, did you enjoy the play?"

I did like the episode of Dexter where he had to guess his foul-mouthed sister's password. "password". Nope. "fuckingpassword". I'm in.

... they didn't have this technology available when shrink-wrap licenses were all the rage.

Well, yes.

The traditional life/health/auto insurance markets have been the target for the next collateralized security market. With some quiet legislative changes to insurable interest regulations, the likes of Goldman Sachs will soon be shorting your grandfather's life*. And once that market becomes established, the holders of the most valuable behavioral data will have an advantage in pricing the various tranches of risks properly. That would be Google.

*There has been legislation proposed at State and Federal levels (already passed?) allowing "poor old grandpa" to sell the future benefits of his life insurance, which he has been paying premiums on for years, for a lump sum of cash he can use while he's still alive. Once this new paper hits the securities market, is bundled and then sliced into risk pools, we have the makings of the next securities crisis. Watch for terms being used in the investment community like "catastrophic longevity" and think about the people who will be lobbying against the FDA's approval of the next miracle cancer cure.