Actually, that's not true. The USPS receives no money to deliver the mail that originated in other countries -- the cost to deliver that letter/package comes out of the local budget. They try to make up the amount by charging more for packages that go the other way (e.g. packages from USA to Canada) -- pretty similar to a peering agreement. For most countries, this usually works out, and is the arrangement for a great majority of the countries.

Then enter China. If you've ever had to ship something from China to the USA, you will notice it is crazy cheap -- often less expensive than shipping something from within the USA. This is because China subsidizes products shipped from there to the USA by charging only for postage to their regional export center, rather than trying to recoup the money they use to send stuff back (sending from USA to China is much rarer than the other way around).

Except on my laptop the power button sometimes means sleep. or hibernate. or deep-sleep. Sometimes it shuts down, depending on what Windows thinks it will do that day.. And, yes, this is on Win 8.1...

Not everybody could afford buying the latest and greatest.... When Descent came out, I was running on a 486/66 DX2 Packard Bell. I think I upgraded the processor on that machine to a 486/100 DX4 when D2 came out...

I was being a bit extreme, but you do realize that outside the USA, there are lots of countries that are built with multi-modal designs in mind, including transporting good via train. Although I enjoyed the read on wikipedia on trucks -- I've never heard of those darned things before. bleh.

By the way, the human race did seem to manage just fine before the advent of the semi-trailer. Sure, Wallmart didn't, but seeing that they really only became a thing in the last century, I think there is a good amount of data of how civilization seemed to work without them.

The Uniform Traffic Code has it in there, but many states delegate the responsibility to the municipalities. Michigan, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois, New York, and Ohio are just a few that I know of that address it at the state level (most have exceptions for children under the age of 13 or so). California, Texas, Utah and Oregon for example setup the law so that municipalities can do their own thing, but default that they follow the US-UTC.

http://blogs.findlaw.com/law_a...

If your child is in the street (within 3 feet of the edge, like they are supposed to be), they are much more visible to cars than on the sidewalk, and drivers WILL slow down and be more cautious. The real danger is when your kid is on the sidewalk, going along and a person turns into their driveway, sidestreet or ally. The kid can easily be hidden by other cars, bushes, trees or simply from the fact that drivers are not trained to look at the sidewalks 10 - 20 feet on either direction of where they are turning. http://ccbike.org/articles/is-...

8 might be a bit young for those rules, but there is a reason why many of the accidents that happen with bikes happen on driveways and intersections (of sidewalks). Either way, if you worry about traffic, there is no reason why your child should be in the street unsupervised whether they are on a bike or playing hop-scotch.

Like trains?

Actually, in all but 5 states, it is illegal for bikes to be on the sidewalk. Some municipalities allow it, overriding state law, but generally it is not allowed. It is very rarely enforced since most parents only allow their kids to ride on the sidewalks because they have this notion that it is safer (it is not).

1. 99% of bikers who are of an age that is able to get licensed to drive a car, are licensed.
2. I pay plenty of registration fees for the cars I own, just like the rest of the bike commuters out there. Plus, the taxes I pay more than pay for the use and wear and tear I place on the roads comparative to the cars wear and tear. Hell, if it wouldn't be for the cars, we could have single lane roads that would last 50 years for everything.
3. You mean, the wrecks where you drive your 1-tonne car into something because you weren't paying attention. Unless I actually run my bike into your car (which would cause very little damage, I'm sure), I'd wager that the accident was more than likely caused by you.
4. I think I'm OK with the type of insurance I have. In the area I live, riding a bike is not a high-risk sport.

Wow... Just wow..

"That's because they genuinly believe that they have more rights on the road then others" I'm a biker. And I don't believe I have any more rights to the road than others. In fact, I don't know a single person in my biking community that feels that they do. I am just like any other vehicle on the road -- albeit a vulnerable one, who has to contend with people texting, drunk drivers, distracted drivers, and those with road rage.

"And they today cause more accidents than most vehicles in the traffic" I hate to pull the "citation needed" thing for this, but if you honestly think this, I don't know what to say. According to the NTSB, accidents that involve at least one non-motorized vehicle account for less than 3% of all accidents reported. Now, sure there are a segment of accidents that are not reported, but a 97 - to - 3 is a stat that makes your "out of the butt" statistic unfounded.

"And all these statements about giving bikers more freedom in traffic, they're all coming from people who don't really drive, just ride bikes" I've had a license for 20 years now. I also drive on a regular basis, but I choose to commute via bike whenever I can. I do this for health reasons -- besides the exercise aspect, it also keeps my blood pressure down by being able to do my own thing and take in my surroundings. My choice is my own, and I don't think less of you for because you drive a car.

In the city where there is regular 4-way traffic at stop signs and traffic lights, it makes sense to follow the regular traffic patterns. Where the "Iowa Stop" makes most sense is in suburban areas and rural areas where there is little traffic. Most stop signs in a rural area don't have contention for traffic -- they are often put in place to slow down traffic to make people pay attention (think about it -- if there was a straight way through a neighborhood for 9 or 10 blocks, most people will cruise through at a speed much higher than the posted limit, and will pay less attention to their surroundings). Traffic lights in these less populated areas often will stop cross traffic for many minutes -- many times with no opposing traffic. Even worse, many traffic lights in the 90's were upgraded to be "smart lights" that sense when a car is stopped at the light. These don't trigger for light vehicles like bikes (and in some cases, even motorcycles). Bikers are forced to "break the law" when these lights don't change in a reasonable time. (I run across three of these lights on my normal commute to work).

The fact of the matter is that cars are not the only vehicles that have the right to use the road. Sure, there are some bikers that don't respect the rules of the road, but at the same time, there are just as many drivers that don't (speeding, texting, running lights, etc). We are all a part of the traffic pattern and are responsible for following the same rules. Those that don't should be punished.

Hate to break it to you -- there is no human intervention required to publish to the Google Play Store, unlike the Apple App Store. The time from the last compile to the app being live in the store is about 15 minutes. So, to answer your wonder -- there is a lonely robot rubber stamping the ok on all those apps...

Downloader beware!

Except you, the taxpayer already paid that amount to Verizon to run fiber/HSI to your house back in the 90's and 00's. Verizon already cashed the check a long time ago -- they just didn't provide the service.

Yeah, good luck with that. They give more upgrades to monkeys that use their credit cards than they do people who travel often. As somebody who used to travel > 100k a year of domestic travel (plus international), those would barely qualify for an upgrade to super coach every so often given today's rates.

Then those people can request that option when they purchase their car. I have no need for it -- in fact in a car like a Mini Cooper or a Fiat where you are practically sitting in the back seat anyway it would be closer to look out the back window than the dashboard.

This forces manufacturers to re-design their dash system to be overly complex, have large, hard screen in the middle of the dashboard (which could be an issue during an accident), and add more UI issues to do simple things like put the car into reverse.

But, just like cash, why couldn't you call the cops or "beat him up" when the product is not produced? Nothing with BTC prevents you from doing this.

What you are proposing is similar to eBay or PayPal, and is ripe for abuse just like those methods. You could easily claim you didn't get object X from a BTC transaction and that transaction gets yanked even though you did get object X.

The only way to make it trouble-free is to have a real mediator that can handle disputes. We would all pay to have this mediator (lets call them an escrow), in between each transaction (lets say 3%), and they would be the ones that would mediate the dispute, or take the hit if it can't be resolved.

If that sounds a lot like a CC processor, it is.