In theory, that's true. In practice, that's false.

By investing Sun Corporation in making Java the standard programming language of computer science courses in India at the same time that the H-1b program expanded to take over the Fortune 500, Vinod Khosla managed to set the software industry back more than a decade.

You might consider giving Garmin some money, then. They have a product with offline maps which apparently lets you buy map data and indeed basic functionality piecemeal. It's a dollar right now, but it's supposed to remain cheap. I guess they are or were also offering deals on content. Linked article complains about spending a hundred bucks, but if that were lifetime that would be well worth it. The big problem with buying a Garmin GPS is that the hardware pretty well sucks unless you spend a lot, and your updates are tied to the device so you could get into a situation where you're motivated to give them money to repair a device that was kind of lame (hardware-wise) when you bought it. But if I can take their app to a new phone when I upgrade, then I can let that unit go to a friend and just use my phone, which has a much nicer screen overall. In particular, text input on my Garmin is horrible. I forget what model it is ATM or I'd include that info. Suffice to say it was a cheap refurb.

Well, there were really two reasons why it died. First, it required a windows machine to run, and until recently none of them have really been that nice to use in the car. You need a combination of battery life (in case you forget the charger, you won't be able to get another cheaply and you're depending on this thing, remember?) and form factor that just wasn't there. Second, even when it was brand new it was out of date, so why buy it new? If you bought one a year old you could get it for $20 with the GPS dongle. If they had actually put in the effort necessary to keep it up-to-date, then I'd have paid for it when it came out, rather than when it got old. I've bought it twice now, a couple years old both times. It would fall on its ass anywhere around new construction, but it was pretty sweet for route planning and it was a cheap way to get an adequate GPS dongle.

I also bought Delorme's software a couple years aged on the same basis. It was better at turn-by-turn but the interface was atrocious and that made it worse at everything else. The GPS dongle is bright yellow, so I suggest the Microsoft package instead. Either one is adequate as a time source :)

Too bad Microsoft didn't have any synchronization between their automotive platform and streets and trips. If you could plot a route on your PC and then load it into your car (why isn't the key also a USB key?) then both Microsoft automotive bullshit and S&T might have received a boost.

Well, to be fair, Libertarians also often suggest the dissolution of borders. Everything which was not necessary for the function of the minimally-sized government would be private property, and you could sell it to anyone you liked. But they'd be motivated not to move to certain places because they'd be exposed to prejudice; under such a system, you cannot be forced to trade with someone. It's a sort of choose-your-own-feudalism-adventure.

Don't be. If it is ever decided that thou shalt be tracked, they will simply install Accelerometer/GPS-based black boxes in all of the vehicles, and your engine will be irrelevant. They'll know how you were driving, and when you were doing it.

Yep. Anything which is mandatory and not fully transparent is guaranteed to be a scam.

It only hasn't killed anyone in this country due to luck. We have the same shitty reactors as Fukushima, sitting on fault lines and so on, with spent fuel sitting around in pools dependent on backup power which is on-site. Only the Tsunami risk is absent, but a big enough 'quake will do the job and is feasible at a number of sites.

I am for it in places which seem to be able to manage it, and not in places which are just piling up their waste and finding more and more excuses for not dealing with it.

I only care about the number of people killed by plane crashes, less the number of people killed in plane crashes. You can choose whether or not to get on a plane.

You assume that these companies would operate on objective and reasonable standards - that's so cute...

No, really, it is. Remember when everyone said that butter was bad for you and you had to eat margarine instead? Now it's the other way 'round (or looking to go that way). So - how would you feel about having to pay for all those times you bought real butter all those years?

Oh, even better - let's talk diets! Not like recommendations for those don't ever change from, say, the old four food groups to pyramid to tetrahedron, to... - oh, wait.

No thanks - I prefer to not put my eating habits and health in the hands of some corporate asshats.

Mind you, I'm 6' tall and weigh 170 lbs, and I play outdoors for fun. I also eat good food in moderation, but occasionally I love a big steak or a big ol' bowl of ice cream. This brings up another thing - no two people are alike. Some can wolf down a metric ton of crap food (I used to) with no ill effects, but you want them to be lumped in with a bunch of folks who gain 15 lbs just from the mere scent of caramel candy? Screw that.

Funny indeed - it's drop-easy to fake out a supermarket club card.

Driver's license details and SSN on the other hand? Well, not so easy to fake (unless you're an illegal alien, I guess).

(I know, I know - in most states you don't have to update your DL info when you move, but in Oregon you're required to update your DL address within 30 days of moving, or you face a rather huge fine in addition to any other citations, should the cop discover that you haven't done so.)

Bullshit. Auto and Health insurance are now mandatory by force of law. That is where abuse comes in. A free market (without the coercion-by-government) would have insurance companies charging lower premiums for two reasons; first, because competition would kick in to keep prices low, and second, they would do so knowing that w/o the force of law, individuals wouldn't have to buy their products in the first place.

So no - auto and health insurance are no longer "free" markets in the true sense - governments (federal for the latter, state for the former) have made damn certain of that.

...ever put in that car insurance fob into your auto's computer port? (e.g. Progressive's Snapshot, where they treat it as a cute little device that aggressively records everything your car is doing when you drive.) People (not corporations, *individuals*) go out of their way to use these stupid things, not fully realizing (or caring) that they're willingly allowing an insurance company to monitor everything they do.

But you know, it's okay because they get a discount and it's not the government doing it (*eyeroll*).

In all seriousness, if you want to whore yourself out for "discounts", I'd normally say that's your problem, not mine - but then I realize that the rest of us will get dinged for NOT opting-in, so damnit, stop that you idiots!

1) If you think a job is a right, you're wrong.

2) If you think any one company has to create jobs, you're wrong. In fact, they are legally bound to provide shareholder value in most cases, which usually trumps any kind of inefficient workforce.

3) I, certainly, am not obliged to create a job for you either.

Thus, translating that to "poverty isn't my problem" is a bit facetious and misleading.

And the guys throwing rocks, they'll be wondering why no employer will touch them in a year's time. The Luddites may have had cause to be upset, but they were pretty much gone shortly after - because there's only so long you can protest about not having a job before you have to go find another, or before the law steps on you.

Nobody is claiming that this solves world poverty - what we're saying is that automation is an inevitable, and fairly logical, consequence of simple economics. Nobody hand-makes clothes any more, nobody fires their own bricks or builds their own stone-walling, nobody bakes their own bread, or keeps their own animals - not on anything but a hobbyist scale. There's a reason for that, and to deny that is to not see simple logic.

If you work in any kind of production industry currently reliant on human input which isn't specialised, but where you can easily imagine a robot doing the same job, then you will lose your job eventually. Anything else is actually quite stupid to conceive.

The trick is to not be restricted to jobs that are unskilled. Go to school, learn a trade, work your arse off, or be prepared to be obsoleted repeatedly over time. Robot plumbers and robot electricians are a long way off. Robot box-packers? Already here. Hell, robot pizza deliveries aren't a massive leap of the imagination (especially if these automated cars ever come to fruition).

And in a year's time after your obsoletion from a particular job, nobody will remember anyone whining about it, except the whiners. If your grandfather was a gas lamp-lighter, he knew there was no way that was going to last forever, even before electric light came along. And then there was plenty of warning. But to suggest that we shouldn't move on just because someone might fall into poverty along the way? That keeps us all poor - financially and intellectually.

Yes, and how are they doing that? Because you're using easily-tapped electronic forms of communication. If you were sending your messages via sealed scroll (presumably with something more modern than wax) you might have greater informational security. And indeed, when corporations or even simply savvy humans want to communicate, that's precisely what they do. The data gets bundled up and handed to a courier, and if security is sufficiently important, they will literally drive it to the airport, get on the plane with it, take it to another country, and hand-deliver it so that you have a reasonable expectation that there has been no eavesdropping.

Or, you know, you could just use encryption. But they'll still gather metadata. But then, they can do that regarding the travel related to your package. There's always going to be some kind of wrapper, even if the only one they get to read is your itinerary, gathered retroactively.

Move out of the country, become a citizen of another nation (tricky if there's not a baby on the way) and renounce your US citizenship. Then, don't use electronic communications :)

You only know if you get to see their code, and/or if they are a public figure.