Actually, I think I got early leakage of this when I talked to local reps the other day. Something that sounds in retrospect a lot like it, anyway.

From what I've seen so far, the price quoted is indeed the price.

The catch is that this kind of service isn't delivered to residential areas. You have to be in a business district where their infrastructure can handle it.

No it doesn't.

Which is why I switched to Cinammon.

To get back the stuff that Gnome3 thought wasn't worth carrying over from Gnome2 but just happened to be critical daily functions to me.

Scarcity is only part of the equation. Once you have a few million in the bank, "scarce" isn't generally meaningful. So why do the millionaires struggle so to become billionaires? Because at that point, money is the way of keeping score and everyone wants the high score, whether it's dollars, "whuffie" or gold-pressed Latium.

Conversely, Communism failed because A) the Party were hypocrites, living the high life while refusing to share with the masses. Regular capitalists, in effect. B) there wasn't any meaningful way to keep score. Medals were meaningless - akin to the "gold star for participating", and money was off the table. To say nothing of the very idea of elevating oneself above the others was counter to the philosophy.

We really do need some way to feel special, however, regardless of how you measure it. Money has been the primary way to do so throughout much of history, but post-scarcity is descending even on the lower classes now. So it may be time to find other metrics.

Incidentally, playing the geek for a moment, we'll have to presume that gold-pressed latium is a substance whose expense to replicate is more than its assumed value or the Ferengi were complete idiots. Then again, being obsessed with acquisitions, maybe they were.

And even geekier consideration: If, in fact gold-pressed latium cannot be economically be synthesized, does that also imply that you'd have to manually ship it instead of using transporter beams? After all, if I was to create a synthesizer, the transporter seems like the logical starting mechanism.

Nonononono. This is the 21st Century. We've moved beyond the nuances on non-Aristotelian logic. Everything now must be binary and absolute, you barbarian!

And when do they start creating triple-stranded DNA? Hmmm?

Maltese Falcon?

Heretic. There are ONLY two choices. You're either With us or you're Against us. You must side with the party that eats their own babies of the party that eats other people's babies. Everything is exactly opposite and anyone who would dare to suggest otherwise is obviously Not One of Us. Hail the 21st Century!

China is run by the Chinese Communist Party. You are a member of the Party before you can even begin to be a member of the government. When the Cold War was at its height, we weren't told that the Russians weren't really Commies, so that was all right. We were told the Godless Commies were going to come and conquer us and take away our Freedom, fluoridate our water, confiscate our guns and Bibles, re-educate our kids and make us undergo intense scrutiny every time we went to the airport or applied for a job.

And the Chinese Commies were different than the Russian Commies, but they were still Commies and against everything we stood for.

Except, apparently, if if got you Always the Low Price at Wal-Mart.

Just because the Chinese Communist government has exploited Capitalist business concepts doesn't mean that they've forever abandoned the precepts that they once held paramount. The Cultural Revolution came and went, but the Party remained. So, too it may be with their latest experiments. There's been no talk I've ever heard that they intend to so much as remove the name "Communist" from their ruling party, much less rewrite their basic beliefs.

It's true, that no communist part of any scale has truly been "communist" any more than America is the "democracy" we used to proudly proclaim we were until the Republicans got nervous that calling ourselves a "democracy" sounded too much like an endorsement of the Democrat (sic) Party and started insisting on saying "democratic REPUBLIC". But that's quibbling over words.

China is a country that for millenia has been based on the concept of central control. The Communist Party just provided a way to define it in modern terms. Call it what you will - they'll continue to do what they like regardless.

As long as there are statistics, there will be lies.

Ahem. The Communist Chinese Government.

People seem to have forgotten that at their roots, they're not a capitalist society. They only play at being one.

You should IMMEDIATELY be suspicious of any legislation whose title includes "Children", "Homeland", "Security", "Safety", "Protect", "Patriot", "Freedom", "Motherhood" or "Kittens".

I've got an idea. Let's enlist the children to report suspicious activities!

Well, you could give the master keys to the NSA, who certainly has the storage capacity. But not everyone who works there is as selfless as Snowden, so expect them to be clandestinely for sale.

We all know the Government Can't Do Anything Right anyway. How about instead giving custody to a professional security company. How about these guys? http://it.slashdot.org/story/1...

Grandparents manufacture the meth. Sell it to friends.

I am neither a machine-minder nor a clerk. I cannot get things done effectively simply by switching on and off like a light. I need to sit down, do stuff, then take a rest to recuperate and meditate what I did so I can come back and make sure that they're done better.

Over the years, I've observed that my most productive workday consists of 2-3 sprints with recovery times of about 2 hours between them.

This is not a good match for the factory-style roll-in at 8, work until noon, roll-out at 5 that's the accepted norm around here. If I'm really going to get that important rest time, I need to get away from the office, and ideally have someplace for a power nap and my commute times mean that it's unrealistic to go home and come back. And for the benefit of those who yammer that I should live closer to work, I would like to point out that residential and commercial areas in my state tend to be widely separated, sprawl is the norm and public transportation is virtually non-existent.

So, you can put me to work under the traditional factory-inspired conditions and get about 60% of my productivity. Or, you can allow me to work in a framework that gets more out of me. And, as a bonus, doesn't require me to relocate to your city. Which I have no intention of doing. I work to be able to enjoy my life where I am.