I've always thought that the trouble with both systems is that they rely on altruistic people being in charge, but provide pathways for sociopaths to take the reigns and steer the ship into an iceburg. This is why Plato's Republic calls for Philosopher King's instead of natural born royalty or corruptible elected officials. Only when the leaders can prevent individuals from gaining too much power will either system work fine.

Trouble is with Capitalism, though, that taking as much power as possible is the goal of the economy. The *hope* here is that power balances over time and today's top dogs will be tomorrow's chumps. This works to some degree.

However, with Communism there's the *hope* that the leaders can treat themselves on par with the proles and put in comparable work-weeks and provide themselves with comparable vacation accommodations and personal resources.

Neither of these "hopes" pan out in reality, though.

So funny... I read that as "I use Verizon Ass-to-Mouth".

What about using that money to give tax write-offs to businesses who encourage their employees to work from home to reduce traffic? I personally make it a point to live as close to work as is affordable (currently 20-25 minutes with no time on major highways) but my understanding is that *most* people have 45-75 minute commutes to and from work everyday.

I declare: 2015 will be the year of the Linux video game console!

With games like networked FreeCiv, custom content versions based on the open source Quake II engine, and Snake who needs the evil, proprietary XBox Live?

On the other hand... for anybody who didn't realize that Microsoft *invested* $4-8 Billion on the original Xbox to claim the $40-80 Billion "home entertainment market" in the future... shame on you.

This isn't always possible. Often, there are people in the right hand lane going 70-75 mph and passing the speed limiters in the left lane who are traveling 65 mph. Just because you want to go 85 mph doesn't mean the slower motorists should automatically bow to your speedy abilities. This would, in my opinion, mean that *you* are driving like an asshole.

This is *most* evident when two tractor trailers are passing each other on a major two or three lane highway. But basic congestion causes it too... and whenever you drive like an asshole when there is already congestion... you are only going to make it worse.

Corollary: I've always thought cops should actively seek to give tickets to motorists who get passed on the left by drivers who are traveling at a legal speed limit. That behavior is just a dangerous as the asshole who weaves in and out of traffic. So, slow drivers in right-hand and middle lanes are assholes, too.

That was my first thought. In practice, going 85 mph and changing lanes erratically can get you to your destination faster, but it also increases the chance that you'll delay one or two thousand people for an hour or more while they peal your mangled corpse off the pavement.

In my opinion, getting to work 10 minutes earlier doesn't justify the (albeit small) potential risk of causing thousands of people to be an hour late and spending the rest of my life peeing into a tube.

No, perfect markets balance optimal quantities and costs to best suit the needs of both the sellers and buyers. If you look at a Supply/Demand curve the market is settled at the intersection of the two curves. For the stock scheme you discussed, the sellers are gaming the buyers by selling at the price point of the buyers who value the shares at a price above what the "perfect market" would bear.

You're correct.... as long as there are there are no negative circumstances (or even a perception of negative circumstances) to doing immoral or unethical acts people will do them.

We fight pretty hard when there are things we don't think should be considered immoral or unethical (such as jail time for smoking marijuana), but I think what's lacking is a fight to make the negative circumstances of truly immoral and unethical acts more visible.

In real science, you need a control group as well as an experimental group to make statements like that. I like the rest of the description in your story, but without evidence of a situation with a harmed baby and a shredded face, I think this part sticks out like a sore thumb as "wishful thinking" on your part.

Since intricate knowledge of orbital mechanics is one-step beyond the expertise of normal "news for nerds", I'd like to thank you for the clarification. I was just throwing an idea out there. My point wasn't "make it a space elevator", but rather "there might be some other use".

Fuck... here's another non-thought-out idea... if it's really not worth continuing to fund, why not try selling it to Disney for pennies on the dollar and let them commercialize it as a movie location or extension of their earth bound theme parks.

The crew would die after about 6 month because they'd run out of food.

I know NASA (and inherently the USA) has put more money than all the other nations involved (possibly combined) into the ISS.

Nonetheless, I think this is an example of a political maneuver to get those in charge of the money to wake up and realize that NASA has two huge projects on it's hands that need funding. Between ISS and Constellation, the NASA budget needs a bump or both of these will end up in the doldrums because of underfunding.

Remember at the end of Apollo when missions 18, 19, and 20 transitioned to Project Skylab? I think resolving what to do with ISS will be a matter of figuring out a new function for it to serve in the 20's and 30's. Hell... I'd like to see them tether it to a geosynchronous orbit and convert the thing into a space elevator to reduce the cost of energy needed to send 1 kg of material into space to less than $10k.

So now the MSFT has embraced a Flash-like technology, does this count as "extending" it?

I trust Adobe slightly less than I trust Microsoft, but it seems like there is an "extinguish" in store for the near future.

Are there any Open Source vector-based web-development tools that could replace or compete with either of these formats/tools?