Federal government isn't spending your money either. Federal government is not revenue constrained.

"Taxes for revenue is obsolete."

Hmm, interesting. It might be worth pointing out that Skype was originally based on a decentralized service pushed through the Kazaa network:

http://arxiv.org/abs/cs/041201...

Like its file sharing predecessor KaZaa, Skype is an overlay peer-to-peer network. There are two types of nodes in this overlay network, ordinary hosts and super nodes (SN). An ordinary host is a Skype application that can be used to place voice calls and send text messages. A super node is an ordinary host’s end-point on the Skype network

Of course, the problem with the Skype system (as it was when that paper was written) is that the decentralised nature of the network means that your video call could be routed through any number of Skype network nodes (i.e. computers) before it arrives at its destination. I think now Microsoft has replaced most of the supernodes with microsoft servers, so replace "any number of Skype network nodes" with "any number of Microsoft servers".

Presumably Tox is doing something similar to going back to the roots of Skype, with maybe a bit more encryption thrown in.

The Ayatollah speaks the truth. Just look at America. Everywhere there is broadband, heathens have flourished, while is REAL America, where dial-up reigns, people are living nobly under god's laws and the Bible. Preach it Brother Ayatollah! AMEN!

I don't get the context of your comment. What are you commenting on?

Man! Aliens would invade and most people wouldn't even know!

I did public finance and Econ in grad school...post Keynesian bent. :)

No one I know says this. It should pretty cleanse that telecoms, cable, are not functioning in any Market. As you correctly say they are local government monopolies whic are further protected by the states, for stupid and nonsensical reasons.

I'm waiting for a 'true Scotsman' comment :)

As mentioned over many years of slashdot posts, x86 as a hardware instruction no longer truly exists and represents a fraction of the overall die space. The real bread and butter of CPU architecture and trade secrets rests in the microcode that is unique in every generation or edition of a processor. Today all intel processors are practically RISC.

Can't wait to see how the market for chargers batteries and charge stations take off. There everyone is so use to 10 day standby.

I'm pretty sure a 25tb synology NAS setup by a certified and audited by a law enforcement watchdog would suffice. The hardware costs are TINY! It's the governance of the system might require extra people. Last I checked unemployment is up :)

I was implying the MMT sectoral balance equation. But for clarity.

For the US we are likely to be a net importer for decades to come short of china and India blowing up.

US Federal government is never revenue constrained. Federal taxes are not for the purposes of revenue. Ricardian equivalence doesn't apply to federal spending. The fact that current politician believe that federal appropriations need to be "paid" speaks to their ignorance. While I hate to say it, Dick Cheney was right, "deficits don't matter."

I was about to moderate but I couldn't resist to say that Slashdot moderators should be given a new mod tag called, "GOML" or "Get off My Lawn" because that's what this is lol.

Nothing is stopping people writing desktop applications. Are you just annoyed that people are choosing cloud services out of convenience?

Then I thought, well perhaps designer spends years designing a game with all sorts of clever ideas then copiers use them all a few days after release. I have to ask, though, is this what happens? Surely a game must spend some time before becoming popular enough to copy, during which it builds a following and has first mover advantage.

Flappy bird is certainly not a good example of the ideas being the expensive part. Here's just one example of an earlier game that is similar in nature:

http://www2.sunflat.net/en/gam...