Unfortunately for resource conservation, that's about the gist of it. Modern capitalist economies require growth to survive. Once they go into deflation, investment stops and they fall into a downward spiral that's very difficult to escape (although massive public investment in global war has worked in the past). If you don't believe that deflation knocks out investment, I know some petroleum exploration companies that will eagerly take your money at the value they commanded when crude was still selling at $120/barrel.

If you want stability with a deflating fixed-supply currency like gold or bitcoin, you're going to have to consider a planned economy where production, prices, and wages are managed in fine detail, and hope that nothing unexpected happens to upset the five-year plans. The experience with these isn't very promising, however. Feudalism is another option that seems more acceptable (and maybe even desirable) to libertarians, or at least the ones that think they'll be living in the castle at top of the hill.

That's actually happened. Back in the 90s, before cell phones were widespread, you typically made calls using a phone card. The hotel I was staying at (in San Diego) would block these calls, trying to force guests to pay their insane long-distance fees instead. They released the block the first time I complained, but when it happened again the next day I packed my bags and changed hotels. A hassle for sure, but the new hotel was cheaper and nicer (right on Pacific Beach), and didn't block my calls.

Also, a lot of highly-cited papers are methodological in nature, and the "Big 3" tend not to publish many of those.

It seems that wrinkling may be the price we pay for clearing potentially cancerous UV-damaged cells from the skin. It might be a bargain.

Whether you're sympathetic or not, this is an act of civil disobedience to protest what they consider to be a mortal threat to their livelihood. Civil disobedience has never been about getting people to like you; it's about getting in the public's collective face to the point where you can't be ignored.

"Wrapped up like a douche and then I'll roll her in the night" - Drove me nuts for years. I couldn't hear it any other way.

I did that a few weeks ago, after being bugged to upgrade from my old DOCSIS2 modem. I wasn't about to pay $8/mo. for $60 modem (and I wanted control over the router), so I bought my own, a Motorola SB6121 listed as compatible on their website. I spent an entire evening on the phone with three different reps, none of whom could activate it (despite a lot of time spent trying) because of some problem with the "provisioning department". Finally, I was told I'd have to physically take the modem to a customer service center. I did that the next morning, took a number, and patiently waited behind about 40 people waiting for 3 service reps. About an hour later it was my turn, and the rep just scanned the box with a barcode reader and I was done.

I don't know if my experience was typical, but it didn't seem that they were going out of their way to make the process easy.

It's always a good idea to have a rough map of where you think you're going, but be careful about getting too carried away with formal business plans. You'll meet lots of people educated in business who will tell you that you need to sweat blood over a comprehensive plan - to the neglect of everything else - and then tour the country with a finely polished road show pitching it to potential investors. They tell you this because it shines the spotlight on their own training and talents. In reality, successful software business development almost never works this way, unless you have a stellar track record with several big hits behind you already (in which case they're investing more in you than the specifics of your plan). As others here have pointed out, what matters most is your rapidly growing list of happy, paying customers. Don't let your focus get diverted too far from that.

The essential tension of adolescence through young adulthood (and maybe some old adulthood too) is between the need for acceptance (i.e., to "fit in") and the competing need to distinguish oneself (to be seen as special or unique in some way). It explains a lot of what goes on during those years.

To divide ice cream equally between two kids, have one dish it out and the other choose. My parents did this with my brother and me, and there was never anything to fight about afterwards. You'll never see more precise measurement in your life, though.

You can tell a lot about a person (or political party) by whom they choose to ridicule, and why. Gore never said he invented the Internet, but rather that he was instrumental in its creation. And it was quite true. This is what Robert Kahn and Vinton Cerf had to say about the matter:

So the kids in the back of the class are laughing and shooting spitballs at the smart kid. It's Junior High all over again.

Because this will be its biggest consumer market. Just imagine: I can surround myself with icons of the glorious figure that is me, and they will make great gifts (suitable for worship) for all of my friends and followers as well. And who on this Earth wouldn't be interested in an ultra-realistic 3-D model of what I ate for lunch? You could almost recreate the experience of what it is like to be me, looking at my lunch.

It's not just regulation and consumer acceptance that limits the pace of technological change: it's also the need to amortize development costs over shorter and shorter product lifecycles (before being leapfrogged by competition). Does this imply that technology-driven markets will increasingly become "natural monopolies"? Not because of patent laws as we all fear, but because a monopolistic company can set the pace of innovation in its market such that a desired minimum ROI is achieved.

I know very little about them or where they came from, but I do know that the continued flow of hundreds of billions of dollars per year to who-knows-who depends on the inability of the US to extricate itself from this quagmire. And so now we have these public decapitations, clearly designed to inflame the public and create a political environment guaranteeing that the torrent of war money continues for years to come. And when that finally starts to slow, who doubts that some other convenient outrage will be perpetrated to start the cycle all over again?

I'd argue that the capacity to become interested in a subject to the point where you're motivated to spend a lot of time learning the hell out of it is a big part of what "intelligence" is all about. And yes, the top schools do select people who have this fire.