As soon as money changes hands it is no longer a "private arrangement". When you charge for a place to stay you are now a hotel unless it is on a month to month basis then you have a roommate. If you are providing the same service as a hotel you are operating a hotel. It is not a "public safety" issue.

This summary is inaccurate - it is a "public safety" issue. In the Nigel Warren case where he rented out his room on Airbnb in NYC, the judge levied a fine of fine of $2,400 after ruling that they were operating an unlicensed hotel.

The law on which the decision was based, Bill S6873B-2009 states:-

JUSTIFICATION:

The Multiple Dwelling Law and local Building, Fire and Housing Maintenance Codes establish stricter fire safety standards for dwellings such as hotels that rent rooms on a day to day (transient) basis than the standards for dwellings intended for month to month (permanent) residence. There are substantial penalties for owners who use dwellings constructed for permanent occupancy (Class A) as illegal hotels. However, the economic incentive for this unlawful and dangerous practice has increased, while it is easier than ever to advertise illegal hotel rooms for rent to tourists over the internet ... It endangers both the legal and illegal occupants of the building because it does not comply with fire and safety codes for transient use.

I.e. The reasoning given for the law was to protect public safety, specifically to ensure compliance with fire and safety codes.

This, so much. Unless he is a big name with a sweet record deal, the average musician doesn't really earn much from his record sales.

Every contract is different, but the average high-end royalty deal with a record company will pay musicians $1 for every $10 retail album sale. And it can be a lot worse than that; a low-end royalty deal only pays 30 cents per album sale -- amazingly small for a CD purchase, especially considering that bands may have to divide that among several members.

Some musicians have already adapted with the times to seek income alternatives. And apparently some if not most of these income streams are far more lucrative than royalties.
 

While I broadly agree with your ideal that fair competition is good for customers and specifically with the example you gave, there is more to cheap prices than meets the eye. For example, not that long ago Walmart got into trouble for predatory pricing.

The complaint accused Wal-Mart of selling butter, milk, laundry detergent, and other staple goods below cost at stores in Beloit, Oshkosh, Racine, Tomah, and West Bend. A bottle of laundry detergent that cost Wal-Mart $6.51, for example, was sold for less than $5 at several stores> . The company’s intention, according to the complaint, was to force competitors out of business, gain a monopoly in local markets, and ultimately recoup its losses through higher prices.

I think most people will agree this kind of competition is bad from the consumer's point of view. The problem is, it is very hard to prove intention. That very same marketing tactic, i.e. selling products at or below their cost price, is also a popular marketing tactic known as loss leading.

It’s a classic retail technique: Attract shoppers by lowering prices on certain items, with the idea that once customers are in the store, they’ll buy full-priced items as well.

From the merchant's point of view, he is willing to take a loss on some items to earn traffic for his other goods. To his competitors selling the same loss leader items however, this is unfair competition. My point is, it is a very thorny issue deciding when certain competitive strategies are fair or unfair and much depends on the facts of each case.

Since no one answered this question, I did a simple google search which threw up these results :-

Nimrod: A New Systems Programming Language
Category:Nimrod
Consider the Nimrod Programming Language
What I like about the Nimrod programming language
Araq/Nimrod
Nimrod: A New Approach to Metaprogramming
Nimrod: A new statically typed, compiled programming language which supports metaprogramming

I am just a layman when it comes to Wikipedia editing, but it looks pretty substantial to me. It would appear that the complaint that notability requirements are too strict has just cause.

I had vaguely known there was some other historical use, but like cretin , imbecile and moron, it's become a common derogatory word. I suspect that it is a regional thing. English speaking nations all have their unique slang terms after all.

The derogatory meaning associated with nimrod appears to be an exclusively American slang .

I find it highly amusing that this form of usage likely originates from Bugs Bunny cartoons!

Let met know when Apple allows other Os's can use Imessage. That is when they get it fixed.

I don't currently use any Apple products, but even I can tell there is a difference between a messaging system that was built right from the start to be locked out of its competitor's OS and one which originally was platform independent, but had that feature removed.

To use a simple car analogy, if I bought a car knowing from the start it only ran on fuel brand X, so be it. If I bought a car which could run on all types of fuel, and during routine maintenance at the shop they changed a part so that it only ran on fuel brand Y, I would be mightily pissed.

Surely you can appreciate the difference.

Regarding the authority "issue" - the City of London Police seizing a domain name is no different to the Metropolitan Police seizing it, the jurisdictional "issues" are the same. The reason the City of London Police are doing this a lot is because they are highly specialised in economic crime detection, investigation and enforcement, so combating criminal level copyright infringement is in fact one of their specialities.

The problem however is the legality of the very act of the police in seizing domain names. Apparently, they do not have the power to do so. Instead, they request the "cooperation" of registrars who are threatened with possible legal sanctions in the same breath. Here is an excerpt of one of their letters :-

“Suspension of the domain(s) is intended to prevent further crime. Where possible we request that domain suspension(s) are made within 48 hours of receipt of this Alert. In respect of the information provided by us, we respectfully ask you to consider your liability and the wider public interest should those services be allowed to continue.”

I don't think you should be comfortable with the police making threats to force registrars to shut down online services in the absence of any court orders, findings of liability or any judgment that the online service is in fact against the law.

They're probably getting away with it because nobody is challenging them AFAIK.

They gotta narrow down the choices of who to inject the super soldier serum into, ya know. Save the taxpayer's money.

They ain't gonna find him on Capitol Hill, that's for sure.

Now that so many people have mobile phones it makes perfect sense to print less banknotes and use phones as digital wallets.

Perfect sense to the currency issuers and banks, who stand to save on costs associated with the production, transportation and security of physical cash, but less so to the actual users themselves. There are still numerous situations where using physical cash is still superior to digital wallets such as-

Ease of use- there is literally nothing simpler than me handing you the money, you handing me the goods. No fiddling with passwords and praying that the authenticating servers are online. Or worrying about batteries going flat in mobile phones.

Secure medium of storage- Paper money stored properly can last for on average 15 years. I have doubts whether any electronic wallet are as long lasting, not to mention the associated difficulties of maintaining your device, the apps or encountering the horror of corrupted wallets.

Easily divisible- Say my kid needs 10 bucks to buy ice-cream. I peel off a bill and hand it to him. You can't do that with an electronic wallet AFAIK.

My point being that at least in the near future, I see physical cash still playing a major part in our lives.

I hope the coins are produced somehow coupled to productive capacity. Something along the lines of open and observable ammeters on their main power plants could suffice. Of course, it'd have to be a bit more complicated than that, but it's the general idea I'm talking about

Unlikely. Even you yourself admit that you can only describe the idea in general terms. That is because "productive capacity" is a amorphous concept which cannot be quantified or measured or even defined without some controversy. Whatever standard you choose to define "productive capacity" as can and will be gamed by the countries involved since the stakes are so high- that standard will literally determine the size of their economy/wealth. Taking your example, if we link "productive capacity" to power production, expect to see a proliferation of power plants of various types and sizes all over the world as countries race to boost their share of the coins, which equate to wealth. The side effect is that excess power/energy which no one wants will be produced.

p.s. I think you mean production capacity instead of "productive capacity" but for the sake of argument have adopted your nomenclature.

Take for example, in Kenya the M-Pesa, the leading form of mobile payment system is widely adopted and mobile phones are used to pay for things such as public transport, school fees, rent, money transfers, to get loans etc. It is so successful that it was launched in other countries like Tanzania, Afghanistan and India.

And M-Pesa is private owned, not a government project.

Oh, and M-Pesa is apparently now going into the digital currency market proper by integrating with bitcoin.

There is no reason why Ecuador cannot do the same.

Thanks for sharing.

I was intrigued enough to look up the reasons why Ecuador made the switch to USD.

For those who are interested, TLDR, in 1999 their economy tanked, their local currency sucre was losing value every day and the locals were converting the sucre they had to the more stable USD. The announcement only made official what was already happening anyway.

Sources:-
On A Roll: Ecuador's gamble with the U.S. Dollar
The effect of dollarization in Ecuador

You are using the wrong measure.

The cast of BBT are not being paid that much because they are good at acting.
They are being paid that much because collectively, they enable the BBT show to continue being produced, which show generates substantial amounts of income for their corporate overlords through advertising, merchandising, syndication and whatnot.

The "hundreds of thousands" of other better actors you allude to sadly do not have this earning potential and hence, do not have this kind of paycheck.

Quality of acting is irrelevant.

This is by far the most rational explanation of why the parent post's anger at the "exorbitant salaries" is unjustified.

When you buy product, you buy it as is. Whether its costs were bumped up by advertising or otherwise is beyond the control of the buyer.