and i think this is the whole point of it. These companies (Facebook, Apple, WhatsApp, Google, etc), all want you to use their dumbed down, one-size-fits-all product. There are no options to customize anything. Everything else is not available to the user, or is hidden. Firefox is also jumping in on this idea that people don't want any buttons, and that you should just remove everything from the UI. Now you can't even turn off JS from the GUI without a plugin (sorry, an add-on).

So, facebook comes in boring blue. All images are the same size. all text is the same color. You get out of your 9-to-5 work at a cubicle and go into your facebook cubicle.

But the thing is: a lot of people want to customize things. Guys just loooove slick blue-on-black. Girls love iOS omg white with cute handwritten font. But no. These companies don't let you take that decision. It's not up to you. Do people suck at "theming" their computers? GOD YES, "menu bar" background images are just horrible. but some people like it. Even if it's horrible, it looks good to them, and guess what? Just let it be. Let the user be able to skin their stuff. Why go all soviet on them?

So people find ways to do this with "alternative" apps that do more harm than good (like those facebook "plugins" that let you add emoticons and shit - guess what! Facebook had to incorporate that. )

And yes. I remember MySpace. I remember what a pain it was. how truly AWFUL those profiles looked like. Completely unreadable, just garbage. But that's how the owner of the profile liked it. So, let it be. What's next? Municipalities telling people what color they should paint their house? (oh yes, that already exists in some "communities" in the US)

The gag is that the seriously wealthy aren't worried about Obama's new tax policies, because they can afford a tax lawyer who can prove that they earn nothing.

If you haven't been paying attention for the past few millennia, the purpose of government is to transfer resources from the masses to the few. I know, they don't tell that to the masses in their indoctrination centers, but if you look at all available evidence, it's pretty clear.

Sure, they throw a few bones to the dogs to make sure they don't turn on their owners, but look at every available trend and analyze the data.

Let's just enforce existing laws and get dangerous drivers off the road.

Correct.

THERE IS NO RIGHT TO DRIVE.

Stop acting brainwashed. The Right to Travel is a fundamental human right. Go check out the Universal Declaration of Human Rights that your government probably signed on to if you don't believe me. It does not mean that humans have a right to crawl through the muddy forests to get from place to place - it means all humans have the fundamental right to travel in the common manner of a society. Whether that's a donkey cart or an SUV with DVD Entertainment System or an Airbus A340.

There are even places where automobile travel is the only allowed method of travel - we have an area around here where the local road was taken over for an Interstate and the only way in or out is an exit.

If you are a dangerous driver you can and should be taken off the road.

Correct. There's a mechanism for that.

No person shall ... be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law

The Right to Travel is a fundamental liberty and we have a way to deal with taking away liberties for the protection of society. It doesn't require parroting some bullshit statist rhetoric your phys ed. teacher told you in high school.

Now your insurance company - they ought to have a lot to say about your competency as a driver. Sadly, they almost never do, except in aggregate, such as very high insurance rates in MA where the passing grade on a DMV test is 60%. You ought to be able to save $400 a year if you score 95% or better, but no ... that wouldn't be _fair_. Regulators gotta regulate, whether it does harm or not, so everybody pays high rates and the incentives to improve are eliminated.

Long before those things ever existed people weren't buying SkyMall's useless, overpriced crap.

Obviously false, since people don't stay in a business for decades just to piss away money.

However, the economy is the worst it's been in 60 years (vis-a-vis age-discounted labor participation rates) and so there's just less of a pool of money to waste.

Skymall took some cream off the top but we're down to whole milk now.

Smartphones might have helped it along, but there are people posting here about reading the catalog for entertainment because they couldn't figure out how to bring a book with them on the airplane. Those people aren't planning ahead on their phones either.

And if anyone thinks they should be, let them and their loved ones be the first victims, for "their cause".

That's certainly a risk. Not a huge one, but a real one. One in a million is not zero.

This is why freedom requires courage and bravery, and an acceptance of personal responsibility. To be sure, such concepts are anathema to many individuals.

Then perhaps the rest of us in the world can then live better lives.

You mean to say 'safer' lives. A life without freedom is never better for people who value it.

It may be that we'll all be happiest if people who do not value freedom separate themselves from those who do. If only there were a Natural Rights Republic somewhere that the freedom-loving people could flock to ... maybe China will take those who want a centrally-planned society.

He used an euphemism, and he's right. You're being a pedantic idiot. peering, management, power and data centers are STILL THERE. It doesn't cost more money to transfer more data. Capital costs and operational costs are THE SAME wether you transfer 400 terabytes or 400 megabytes. In the end there's just consumers paying a monthly fee for a service wether they use it or not.
And you want to serve those clients for PEAK demand. Just like you do with power.
That kid downloading torrents really is just a drop in the ocean compared to the thousands of people NOT torrenting but still paying for their service.

That's right. There is no social contract. I'm free to do whatever I want. I can kill you if I want. Now give me all your money or I'll shoot you.

That's what manufacturers advertise, and that's the deal they have to uphold. Something like 1/1,000 people who get two doses will not get immunity. If everybody got two doses of MMR, the viruses wouldn't propagate, and those 1/1,000 people would be safe because of herd immunity. If some stupid, selfish people refuse to get vaccinated, they're putting those 1/1,000 people at risk. Those stupid, selfish people are responsible for the deaths of those 1/1,000 people. They should be forced to choose between getting vaccinated, or being quarantined all their lives like Typhoid Mary. The law on that goes back hundreds of years, to European law.

90% of statistics, including yours, are bullshit.

In the UK, doctors work for the government, and NICE reviews the scientific evidence behind every treatment for effectiveness. No effectiveness, no treatment. I've read the NICE studies and they do a pretty good job.

In the US, Medicare, Medicaid and the private insurance companies also review medical treatments for effectiveness, although politics has more influence here. Also doctors who are making money in the free market are more likely to do things just because they can make money out of them. And consumers are mostly stupid. So they give antibiotics to everybody who comes in with a cold.

which due to tachyon flux has evolved into a catch-phrase spewing mascot with the power to float just out of reach.

How many tabs did you take?

yes, it would be. Good thing that nobody did it. Do you always stretch so far in order to save your fantasy from reality?

Not true. From the Lancet article:

Not quite. According to the article:

The significant word is might.

Yes, more grants for chemists!

Don't get confused by the marketdroids calling this 'hollographic'. It's nice stereo, but it's stereo. Holograms require no headgear.

Words having distinct meanings is a useful feature of language.

nominating for AC first-post hall of fame.