Perhaps it should only outlaw things that we know how to reduce to mathematics. Software is a gimme. Lots of mechanical engineering stuff can be reduced to math; that's how we can simulate it. So maybe not so much need for patents there. Serious biochemistry (e.g. drug research) isn't fully simulatable yet (hence folding@home), and arguably that's the stuff that needs to keep patents. I'm not sure where something like chip fabrication technology falls on that scale, but I think it's closer to the "not quite simulatable yet" side...

Agreed. But what is preventing them from doing it in a way that costs less but does degrade the service sold to others?

I will cheerfully support this. Any function that should work for a driver in motion should not be touchscreen. You can put a touchscreen in front of any/all passengers if you want.

Maybe this is the solution to the GPS issue too. The passenger seat can program at speed (if there is a passenger in the seat who is buckled up), the driver seat can only program while stopped.

And (infrequently) a stuffed rabbit.

They'll probably just attach all traffic associated with your login to your account, whether it's on your cablemodem or on the wifi (if the wifi is comcast-customer-only, they'll have to have some way to authenticate that you're a comcast customer). Which will suck if/when someone gets your credentials (either by sniffing the radio or setting up a fake hotspot).

It's true, though. Security _plus_ obscurity is great, but if obscurity is an _important_ part of your security system, there's a problem.

I use my nav system mostly to see which of three or four routes that I know is least bogged by traffic.

No, but I do think years ago Yahoo and AOL had a lot more interest in customer happiness than Comcast does now.

If it's implemented as you imply, I'd be fine with fast lanes too. I just don't think it will be.

I think the term you want is 'apalled'

indeed, they claim to not have heard from a citizen ("we have received no complaints")

even in a quantized universe, 2 still doesn't have a rational square root.

And then there's folks like me, for whom the tablet is the "computer you can drag between the living room and bedroom". I use mine to read, play solitaire, play other games, do web searches, remote control the cable box, read email... pretty much all my day to day computer usage except listening to music (phone, in car), make phone calls (phone), and Quicken (laptop in office).

Ah, gotcha. You appeared to be comparing 0.08 to 0.007 and I missed the e vs a part.

Or, going the other way, 0.08542455 ^ 2 => .007297353742, and 1/0.007297353742 => 137.035977061724