Ummm...
Netflix doesn't get a free ride, they have to pay for outbound bandwidth on their side. You pay for inbound bandwidth on your side.

Slow clap starting...now

On the car analogy... Imagine that same road system requires a specific type of car to drive on it.

Actually, many toll roads are privately owned (For example: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I... and to a lesser extent http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T... ).
What's funny about the I-185 toll road is how absolutely bad things are:
1) There is almost no mileage/time savings vs the primary highways
2) The tolls have skyrocketed over the past few years because it's basically a useless road (It now costs $6 cash to go end-to-end to save no time and no miles)
3) They chose their own transponder system, not compatible with EZPass, so pretty much the only people who buy the passes are people who live right off the exits

Private roads at their finest.

That's true, but there's something else at play here.

Many people in the Atlanta area get 3-season tires (aka Summer tires, not to be confused with Ultra High Performance Summer tires) because they tend to be FAR better in the rain than all-seasons.

See:http://www.popularmechanics.com/cars/how-to/products/know-your-tires-all-season-vs-summer-9647443
http://www.tirereview.com/arti...
http://www.edmunds.com/car-rev...

So, here's the decision: Buy all-seasons to be safe for the 3 days every 3 years you need them, or buy summer tires to be safe for the 345 days every 3 years you need them. (Source: http://www.sercc.com/climatein...)

Fuel economy and price aren't the only concerns here. You may like the fact that your old Ford has tank armor for body panels when you lean against them, but you wouldn't want them in a crash. Those era vehicles, all the way until the mid 90's, where death-on-wheels. Now a days to meet crash specs a vehicle needs to be soft, lots of crumple zones. And body panels contribute to that.

What's funny is that modern sports cars use the same design theory and are generally considered to be better than ever. Sure, they weigh more and a larger, but the chassis are the stiffest they've ever been allowing for incredible consistency. Put a roll cage in an older car (70's, 80's, 90's) and you'll see how much flex there is in the chassis. Put a roll cage in a new car and your jaw will drop, there is so little flex in the new cars....all while being safer than ever.

All that being said, this has got to be a boon for people in the rust belt...

Patents who's ideas are poorly implemented doesn't make the patent a "failed idea", just a poor implementation.

I clock a lot of time on track in my basic mid-80's RWD sports car and I'll tell you what, I'll take electronic driver aides on the road. I bought a new car a few years ago with stability control and thought "why do all new cars have this?" All it took was one night when I was driving and the water on the road froze into black ice WHILE I was driving. I was in a warm driver seat and had left my house a few hours earlier in 50 degree weather. Stability control reacts much faster than a human can and do many things a human can't do (like braking individual wheels).

That being said, the Carrera GT was manufactured in 2004, when car electronics where simply not that good. I completely understand why it wasn't included. On new cars, it should really only be an option. But if it was an option, I would select it every time on a road car. You simply cannot predict what will happen when you're driving home on a cold night and maybe a little tired.

CDMA Galaxy Nexus...
All you had to do was get the GSM GNex car dock and so a VERY slight modification with a utility knife and then it works perfectly. Took me about 10 minutes...7 of those where watching a howto on Youtube.

Supported for 5 years, not 3. But your point is valid. Mir can be rolled out in 14.10 (the next non-LTS release) and have a year and half of testing before the next LTS.

To continue your thought...

It actually makes sense for an entity like the postal service to be losing money. While not a guarantee, it does at least help to make sure that the money coming in is going to the right places and is not spent on extraneous expenditures. Remember, the management folks are really good at finding uses for any excess money in the budget.

....On 0.1% of Chrome users.

Mining bitcoins takes real equipment and energy, not so dissimilar from mining gold. What makes gold worth money? Because we (as a global community) all got together and said "Gold is worth $X". Is it really worth $X? Yes, because that's what someone will pay for it.

What is a dollar worth? That value changes all the time, it is in reference to something else (gold, other currency, real material goods). The dollar is something that is made up that we all agree has value. Bitcoin is something made up that we all agree has value.

The big difference between gold, dollars and Bitcoin is this:
-Dollars can be printed at will by the government, so is theoretically infinite.
-Gold you have to dig out of the ground, so is finite, but we don't know how much is really out there.
-Bitcoin needs to be "mined", so it is finite (mathematically limited). We know the total quantity and how fast it will get mined.

Is this how the FIA is going to limit Red Bull Racing next year? "The only computer you can use is this one" (Adrian Newey will still make it work)

Right now it's fashionable to hate Unity/Canonical.

I use Unity on all of my desktops/laptops and find it fast, stable and productive. Incremental updates is what you want from a mature, well designed product, not massive changes every single release.

Think of a car analogy: We're not all driving F1 cars around, but the technology used in F1 trickles down to the real world over time. 20 years ago only a few production cars used carbon fiber, but now it's becoming common in high end cars (mostly because of the advancements achieved in F1) and will eventually become commonplace.

Breakthroughs like this are exciting because it means we are progressing. I'd be worried if we weren't hearing news about record breaking efficiency.