Taxes need to go up, not down. The constant slashing of taxes is what got us into this mess in the first place.

Yeah, yeah, I know, nobody likes to hear that. But the lower the tax, the more the poor are at a disadvantage.

Because of its fucked up labour laws maybe?

4 weeks vacation or we needn't even start talking.

Working 40 hours a week and telling your boss he can stick it if he thinks that's not enough.

Gotta love living in a country with a social security system worth its name!

A link about the car pressure sensor legislation.

The point is that you CAN if you WANT to. You still can grow your own food if you so choose. I don't know how to grow my own food and frankly, I don't care about it. And the same is true for my car. But I do not like that trend that we get more and more dependent on the whims of corporations. And this leads to monopolies, something that is by its very definition anathema to the creed of the free market. Only if there is someone who CAN offer an alternative you really have a choice. If you can only get your car serviced by a mechanic who has the blessing from the car manufacturer, the manufacturer essentially dictates how, when and most of all how long you may use your car. Because he can simply refuse to produce spare parts anymore while at the same time making it essentially illegal and impossible to get them anywhere else, or finding someone who is able to fit them to your car.

The point is not whether I or you can do it. The point is whether the maker of an item can dictate its use. It's already bad enough with computers and content, I really don't need that crap everywhere else.

Do you really think your voters are so stupid? Do you really think they still believe your bull about "protection from terrrrrists"? Or do you even drink your own cool aid?

Tell me, do you think we're stupid, or are you? And bluntly, it's not a false dichotomy. There are really only these two options.

Whoever loses
We win

Never before I caught myself rooting for the MPAA. If only just a tiny little bit.

Agreed. It's worse than looking for The Who (which Google, btw, finally realized can be more than two words to be omitted from a search because they're too common).

With C you at least have C++ (also something Google realized is a search term that people might want to look for), but R (and S) are very obviously not interesting enough for enough people to warrant some kind of preferential treatment.

Sadly no. The technology for that is here already. Has been for a long time. When you look around your office, I'm fairly sure you will not encounter any kind of "telepresence" technology that has not been available 15 years ago. Maybe not as refined and maybe not as easy to use, but everything that is actually in use in offices today has been available at least for 15 years. So I guess it is safe to assume that the telepresence technology that will be an office staple in the 2030s will be technology that we already have today. Maybe much more refined and more user friendly, but the technology is here.

The problem here is managers who are so in love with micromanagement. If they don't let you work from home because they don't get that feeling of power over you today, they won't let you do the same in 15 years. Maybe when this generation is gone we'll have a shot at it.

is that companies don't want to make stuff that benefits the customer, they want to make what benefits them. So, in a nutshell, here's the core features of the car of the future.

- Can only be in any way maintained or even repaired by a garage that has some kind of adhesion contract with the car maker. You can't do jack yourself, be glad you can still start it without paying someone through your nose.
- Every part, even the most insignificant one, will have some patented chip that needs to be "married" to your car to ensure you only use original parts, not some knock offs or (heaven forbid!) stuff you 3d-printed yourself.
- Every kind of electronics will be on a lease, good for a year, then it has to be reactivated or "renewed", of course by a licensed mechanic in one of the aforementioned adhesive contracted garages.
- Your engine could easily do 60+ miles on the gallon, if it didn't have to lug around a metric ton of various "security" and "safety" stuff that became mandatory over the course of the next years.
- It will have sensors pretty much everywhere, including an air pressure sensor in the tires so you can't even switch them yourself anymore (think I'm kidding? The EU is doing that right as we're talking).

And that's just what I came up with without pondering.

Like you get any say in that. Your car will be so locked down that you can't even change the oil yourself, let alone make decisions about its electronic makeup.

It's also easier to do. To get an idea what it would be like, take a liter of vodka...

...that the patent system is fubar.

You might want to find out whether you can tilt them by 90.

I always thought it's odd that monitors are wider than they are tall. Isn't it far more convenient to use them, well, like we used to use paper?