All the more incentive to go back to paper money.

Use debit / credit cards and open yourself to fraud and tracking, use cash and open yourself to robbery.

Either way, we lost the war. The corporations won.

The Public didn't even know there was a war on.

The fucking thing hasn't ever worked for me, not once, not ever. Always blaming the server side. Win!

This. We need more like this. But I fear even Tesla will fall to greed one day, when Musk cashes out and the MBAs take over and visualize, strategize, conceptualize and monetize every ounce of life out of that company.

You say that now.

Get back to us 20 years from now.

I can make sense of it at an intellectual level, it's just my gut reaction to go "WTF" -- it's a bit counter-intuitive.

The news is welcome, I just wish American companies would start making things in USA again. I know we can do it. I suppose in time, we will.

I was thinking some years ago "If all the jobs went to China because no one in the US wants the factory worker life, who is gonna build Chinese doohickeys when *they* get tired of the factory life?"

I was thinking India. Or Malaysia, or Chile or something..

But not the USA. I never even considered that possibility.

WTF. This world no longer makes any sense to me.

Mr. Lessig,

Yours is the first effort I've heard about revamping Government that makes any sense whatsoever. A hearty thank you to you and your staff!

In your estimation, does MaydayPAC have a decades-long plan, to replace as much of Congress as possible, and even reach for the Presidency?

I'm all for it. Even if it takes 30 years.

A glass of single-malt and a Puerto Rican cigar. Puro Indio FTW!

But, not every night. This is too easy to overdo.

For some reason, I find the idea of having a shot of real, hot espresso in space heartwarming.

A little bit of home, when you're up so very high above it..

..is for picking up freshly-released movies. Don't have to wait for the postman. Just drive up, park in the mostly empty parking lot, go into the mostly-empty store, pay your monies, go home, stick in player, relax.

With all that empty, though, I can't think BB will be around much longer..

It is a gimmick, and a welcome one. Makes the car feel like it turns like a plane or bike: by banking. Completely artificial but I'm tellin' ya, if I feel it I'll probably buy it.

I don't like how cars and boats go about bends. I live with it, I choose my cars to make short work of the bends and have fun doing so, but I'd much rather feel a turn like in a plane or bike.

Benz has been toying with this for at least 15 years, Some tv show had it, they also had a benz bike with four wheels which kinda scissored leaning you into the turn. But they also had a small four-wheel car doing it. Both got my attention... but now here's the car for-reals.

I miss Brethead as well.

If there was ever a decade that needed Watterson's whim and Brethead's grit, it is this one.

One thing is to have financial information about individuals and their families scattered across multiple entities with defined boundaries and different search mechanisms -- it's another thing entirely to have the same financial info in one nice, convenient, easy-to-search, easy-to-abuse place.

A convenient central financial info database with intimate detail. What could *possibly* go wrong, right?

Now that I've had some time to chew on the news and my post, it occurs to me that this is also a profiling tool. Perhaps predictive uses could also be found for it?

The ranting will continue, by the way, by myself and others, until either we're dead, or a dramatic change of course happens to this country. And yes, I remember the ranting 30 years ago. Vividly. Along with images of Carter and Shah, Reagan and Ayatollah, Bush and Noriega, Bush II and Saddam, Obama and bin-Laden, brought to us by talking heads and punctuated by the nodding of a million muggles' heads.

No one. Fucking. Listened. Now we're playing the same songbook again, only the music is much more sinister, faster and more intense.

Wake the fuck up, people.

According to TFA:

Late car payment? It'll be recorded.

Late creditcard payment? Skipped a child support payment? Forgot to pay the water bill? It'll be recorded. Or so TFA says.

Really?! "high account balances?!"

The composition of your family? Feast your eyes on this little nugget FTFA:

Folks.. it *is* big brother. People are focusing on only the mortgage aspect, but if TFA is to be believed, it's a financial dragnet.

What the fuck are they looking for? People spending large sums on strange things?

It won't be for bureaucratic purposes. This will get tied in with law enforcement somehow. That's just my gut feeling, folks... but I do really think LEOs will want in on this.

"Mr Smith, we'd like to have a word with you.. every two weeks you withdraw $100 cash, then as you can see in these pictures, the city's automated license plate readers catch you visiting the address of a known marijuana dealer every time you make that withdrawal. Please step into the van, sir."

It's coming. Maybe not for a bag of sweet leaf, but surely for other things.

2001 was the year the US ended. We sold out to the Gov't and did so willingly; because Terrorism!, because Think of the Children, because War on Drugs! But mainly because Terrorism.

To hell with the federal government, might as well call it the Reich now.

but after much thinking I got an iPad Air instead. A full-out tablet sounds like what you want, actually.

So what if it was a lot more $ than I planned to spend (vs an e-ink reader) -- the "day" mode on iBooks can be set to a beautiful sepia / light creme (like fine paper), and the night mode is really cool. Not to mention the iPad runs apps that work better in a large screen (vs. a phone). Like realtime doppler radar and photo work.

iBooks will synch my books, bookmarks and notes so I can stop reading at home on the ipad, and pick up on the same page on my phone and have all my notes, etc. THen return home and resume on the ipad like it never happened.

I don't know if the Kindle app will do that. Frankly I'd rather give my book money to Apple instead of Amazon. Just like I go out of my way to find/buy books at a local mom/pop shop instead of B&N and Amazon.

At first I thought "Reading on an ipad is going to suck" but you know what? After countless hours, at home and in cars, I can read just fine without any ill effects like headaches, etc. The retina screen makes a book on it look almost like paper.. but not as convincingly as e-ink. If I had to quantify it, the ipad w retina is 99% of how nice an e-ink reader is.

I recognize e-ink has advantages, I've used my friend's Nook many times and the quality of the print never ceases to amaze me. I just don't see the need for it if one has a tablet with a bonkers screen.