Whether it's security theater or real safety improvements.... I'm waiting for a POTUS who has some attention directed at shrinking the gap highlighted by this List of countries by military expenditures page.

Not to mention the people who see a long line of cars waiting to exit a highway and think it's okay for them to stay in normal traffic until the last possible minute before merging into the exit lane.

This is a great idea... I've frequently searched through one application or game after the other searching for acceptable permissions. A "Yelp" App might have a reason for knowing my Coarse GPS location and will obviously need an Internet Connection. Many games with ads obviously need an Internet Connection... but what they hell are they doing trying to plot my location? While I'd except that a lot of Paid Games shouldn't be pinging servers for anything... so No Internet Connection.

I'd be curious is this shifted the market closer towards "Programs that Cost Money that Respect Our Privacy".

There is a special place in Hell for games that cost $0.00 but allow you to add charges during normal usage.

I think this approach gives judges the freedom to apply a basic test on any attempt to enforce a patent... "Is the dispute based on the implementation of a software product and does the software product run on a generic platform where many hundreds of different development shops target for their own products?" If both of these questions can be answered with "Yes" then the dispute is spurious.

With this, I think iPods and Servers remains novel but Smartphones, Tablets, Laptops, and Desktop software will be freed from worrying about patent attacks.

A hurricane hit the eastern coast of the United States yesterday. News and government made pervasive use of Twitter and Facebook to keep people informed of critical information such as school and transit system cancellations. I found myself wondering briefly why they would use these Free, but Externally controlled mechanisms. The answer is blindingly simple... these Free systems are much cheaper than homegrown solutions of communication to a vast number of people. Do they reach everybody? No. Of course not. But the goal of communication is rarely to reach everybody. They message do, however, reach people who seek out this information.

So, generally, I agree that centralization is bad. But there are distinct examples where centralization is beneficial and critical.

It's complicated... maybe I got the 100% inflation example a bit backwards. In that situation "buying" is what you don't want to do. If you could "sell" it would be great -- but a market where buyers who buy are labeled as "stupid fools" isn't going to be a very stable market (e.g. 2005-2007). For the -10% inflation hypothetical example there is another thread where I talked about how being underwater on your mortgage causes people to do irrational things like choosing to be Foreclosed on for the purpose of personal financial gains (e.g. 2008-2010).

Exiting the [homeownership] market => become a renter (for less than your mortgage). If you're 20 years into a mortgage, exiting doesn't make sense. If you're 2 years into a mortgage and prices are crashing the idea of paying your mortgage becomes silly. A lot of people a few years ago exited the market by deciding not to pay their mortgage and waiting for Foreclosure. If it takes 9 months for foreclosure and your mortgage was $500/month (as it would be using my silly $100,000 house example) that's probably enough to pay rent for a significant amount of time (8-10 months?) after the eviction. So, hypothetically if you're underwater you can live basically for free for a year and a half... assuming that having a Foreclosure on your credit score for a bunch of years doesn't bother you (which it wouldn't if you're happy being a renter).

If you bought your house for $100,000 and currently owe $80,000...

Inflation = 4%... Next year your house is worth $104,000 and the Present Value owed to the bank is $81,000k
81,000 < 100,000.... so continuing to pay the loan is logical.

Inflation = 100%... Next year your house is worth $200,000 and the Present Value owed to the bank is $160,000k
160,000 > 200,000.... so continuing to pay the loan is not logical... because waiting for the crash is logical.

Inflation = -10%... Next year your house is worth $90,000 and the Present Value owed to the bank is $72,000k
72,000 < 80,000.... so continuing to pay the loan is not logical.... because exiting the market and waiting for the rebound in logical.

IANAE (I am not an economist) but a completely "free market" would be a barter'n'trade marketplace where non-fiat goods (food, jewelery, clothing) are exchanged or services (medical, furniture making, sex) are bargained. With all due respect, having a government controlled fiat system (paper money) where goods and services have reasonably transparent values would seem to be free as long as sellers/buyers each have some choice on the fiat value of their trades.

But the hand-wave explanation used in Jurassic Park was DNA from dinosaurs extracted from blood stored in the stomach of mosquito's that had been preserved in amber. So why it remains an interesting question to ask regarding the effect of tar pits... TFS seems to glaze over the effect of mosquito/amber preservation that would specifically address whether Jurassic Park is possible. A similar article about why mosquito/amber preservation is bunk would also be relevant... because I assume we've never found amber entombed mosquito's from the Jurassic Period.

War is Peace, Freedom is Slavery, Ignorance is Strength.

Just to nit pick... you don't need power to make coffee. Water+pot+fire, coffeebeans+mortar/pestle, and a frenchpress will do the trick quite effectively.

Doubling miles would double pollution... but your point about unintended consequences is a good one.

On the flip side, when sprawl happens businesses open up in the sprawl. Given the cost of square footage in developed "urban" and "suburban" areas an expanding area of civilized sprawl might make middle class living more affordable for more people (which has its own advantages). Myself... I pay a buttload of money on a condo mortgage and live 7 miles from work. I recently (last month) realized that running to work was feasible... so I've been doing a bit of that for a fitness benefit. Aside from access to more convenient commute options, the short distance between house and work doesn't provide much other benefits.

Will an auto-car be able to distinguish hazards like pot holes, road kill, live animals (and people) in the road, swerving drivers, construction zones, and any situation where crossing the double yellow line is necessary?

Will an auto-car be able to be directly safely by a police officer controlling a traffic situation? Will an auto-car be able to navigate toll booth plazas? Will an auto-car be able to navigate roads when traffic signals aren't working because of a power outage?

Here's my test for auto-car road-worthiness... Have the car find parking in a crowded suburban mall parking lot on a weekend in December. If it can safely enter the lot, find a spot, and exit the lot ten times then it gets approval for everyday life.

Developers (myself included) are self-assured of their work to the point where they can't be expected to test things thoroughly between the critical points in the timeline when (a) it's done, and (b) it's being used by customers.

The exception to this rule is when a customer has discovered a problem and it requesting a fix because the service "is broken". In cases like this there is a strong desire to minimize the timeline between (a) and (b) so having a short-list of developers who can circumvent/expedite the formal test/release process in these cases is a good thing.

But yeah... for scheduled upgrades of software that "must work" you've got to put QA barriers between the development team and the team who takes care of the systems that customers use.