A friend's mom bought an iPad. She's going to return it because something she does runs on flash, and it's a deal breaker for her. I guess she didn't even realize what flash was before her site didn't work anymore. I'm not endorsing flash or even challenging what I would say is Job's wise criticism of flash, but in the end, that's the pig we're putting lipstick on.

Is anyone really surprised banks and bankers are the problem? They're middlemen to the extreme. Not only do they not create any wealth, they actually get in the way of honest wealth creation.

You're right, of course. It just makes her a total cunt.

Someone being a total cunt is correlated with whatever that have to say not being worth listening to.

I will concede that Objectivism is wrong in its own right, without needing to look at how big of a hypocrite Ayn Rand actually was.

But seriously, if someone is making an argument from the basis of morality, that they are immoral, by their own code, does make whatever they're preaching suspect. You can argue that anything anyone said should be judged by its own merits, without taking into account the quality of the person saying it, but I disagree this is a case of ad hominem logical fallacy. I mean, if I have a twenty year old rentboy plowing my ass on a vacation while I'm writing a blog about how evil and wrong homosexuality is, then you better believe whatever I have to say isn't worth listening to.

If you read your own link you posted, you'll see ad hominem is only when it "introduces irrelevant personal premisses". That Rand accepted welfare while railing against welfare is very relevant.

It's a bit like the proverbial million monkeys with a million typewriters -- sure, Ayn Rand might wipe her ass and end up with a masterpiece on the tissue, but the odds are so low that I, personally, don't want to start sifting through her refuse, and you can't really call that fallacious logic. If you want to, then more power to you. You may end up a very, very wealthy man for owning the greatest masterpiece of our time.

Often, there must be federal laws to protect citizens' freedoms from their state and local governments.

What you suggest is like turning a game of herding 50 lions into a game of herding 5,000 cats.

Yep, because you'll have to hire a lawyer to defend you regardless. That's going to be about a grand in Nashville. I've been through the court there for a Misdemeanor offence -- it's a joke. The DA's are all pricks, and the public defenders are totally overwhelmed. I only got a "not guilty" because the judge was friends with the lawyer I hired, not because I actually wasn't guilty. Of course it all came about because some dickhead cop decided to pull me over for no reason, make some vague claim to "smelling something" in my car, then inviting himself to search through it, in violation of my 4th amendment rights.

All this stuff that's based on "prosecutorial discretion" is total crap. It's a full-on invitation to the DA's and the police to do whatever they please.

Tennessee ALSO passed a law about "theft of entertainment services" which is so broadly written that I could be convicted of a FELONY if I were to share my netflix password. That's not the intent of the law, but it's written broadly enough to include that.

The average web user probably also doesn't realize the relationship between development platform and the quality of the product, either.

Unfortunately, the US people don't influence the US government.

A university operated by a particular state usually has substantially lower tuition for residents of the state. If you go to a private university even in your own state, the tuition is generally the same as going to a state-funded university in another state. Of course, private universities generally have better options for scholarships and endowments. It's easier to get a full ride to a private university.

For example, here in Nashville, TN, tuition for the state university is about $7000 a year. A very prestigious private university, Vanderbilt, is about $40,000 a year, but they have a promise to meet all your demonstrated financial need with grants. Of course, their acceptance rate is only about 10%, so it's extremely competitive. The state university is almost a come-one, come-all sort of gig.

Are you saying that having more money to spend doing more things you enjoy with your free time is not a good trade-off for less fulfilling work? I am genuinely asking, it's a question I've rolled around a lot in my own head, and I like to hear others' opinions about it.

This is exactly how it works. The laws are such that almost anyone can be found to be breaking some kind of law. So then you give up your rights, such as against search and seizure, in order to avoid being charged. If you are charged, you don't go to a jury of your peers because if you plea bargain out of it, you get a much lighter sentence. Unless it's something high-profile like murder, the judge always sides with the cops in the hearing -- if you want to go past a hearing to a real jury trial, you have to pony up a ton of court costs first, and hire a lawyer.

It's the same story: You get pulled over. The cop tells you were speeding, failed to use a signal, or something even more vague like "careless driving". You may or may not have been, it's doesn't matter at this point, because if he writes the ticket, you are guilty unless you can prove beyond a reasonable doubt you were innocent. So he will bully you into letting him search your car for no reason, in the hopes that if you kowtow to his sense of authority, he may deem you a good citizen and let you off on the ticket.

I guess my point is, if the laws are so broad that everyone is guilty of something, then the people who enforce the laws have all the power. Even if the judicial system weren't corrupt at the lowest levels, the cost of hiring a proper defense attorney is easily a thousand bucks -- and you can't get that back, even if the charges are completely and totally absurd, and laughed out of court.

Of course, if you have a really nice car and are driving in a really nice neighborhood, this is less likely to happen. You know, if you can actually afford legal representation. If you happen not to be so well off, you're screwed. It's blatant class warfare.

In the case of Amazon, then, you're exactly right.

This affected me when newegg setup a warehouse in Memphis. I live in Nashville. Suddenly, they had to collect our state's 9.25% sales tax on all my orders. You can imagine what my response was.

It could be more profitable to Amazon to completely withdraw from California, to avoid a loss of business. I am sure they have already worked up all those numbers, so who knows.

Realistically, though, most of the untaxed revenue is internet purchases. It might be better to call it an "internet sales tax". Even though it might affect mail order, too, it's primarily aimed at the internet.

I think the idea is that, since the seller has no presence in the buyer's state, that state cannot legally require the seller to do anything. It's a matter of jurisdiction. If California does pass the law, out-of-state companies could ignore it, and then California would sue the companies, and they could go to court and argue California has no jurisdiction over them. This is really an issue of what the federal courts would decide to do about it. I don't know much about existing case law, but I suspect they would rule that regulating interstate commerce is a Power given only to the federal government. In other words, they could pass the law, but they have no way to enforce it except the courts, and they likely won't play ball.

The current law of Use Tax is that you're supposed to submit the tax for all such purchases to the state at the end of the year, or some such, as the state CAN require its citizens to pay a tax.

Most of the batteries I've seen measure their capacity in amp hours, not watt hours.

The formula is... F = (A*s) / V
1 Farad is Amps per second divided by voltage.

If my math is correct, 100,000 F/Kg is 100 F/g, so to compared to an AA battery, you'd get 100 = (A*3600)/1.5. 3600 for the seconds in an hour, and 1.5 for the voltage. That's about 41.67 mAh/g. A typical AA battery is 23g and have ~2700 mAh. So for an ultracap of 23g, that's ~958 mAh. About a third the capacity of an alkaline battery per weight. Unless I've totally screwed up the math, which is entirely possible.

Funny, but most of the people I know with desk jobs can get on facebook pretty handily, yet the ones who work hands-on in the service industry, like servers, only have the time to do that kind of thing on their breaks.