Outsourcing is bad, but as an Indian who renewed his passport recently, I have to say the process was smooth.
The document verification/IT/software/hardware part of the Indian passport application/renewal operation is now handled by TCS. You make an appointment online - for both fast track and slow track - and arrive at the local passport center with your documents. The TCS grunts allot a token, make sure documents are in order - if they are not you are sent back to get them corrected, take your fingerprints, photo and for final verification you meet an Indian government employee. He/she either says YES, or says YES with police verification.
In my case it was the latter as my passport had some damage - usual wear and tear, but visible.
A few days later a policewoman came home after fixing an appointment over phone, verified my documents/address and in two weeks I got a fresh passport.
I was impressed by the whole process. AFAIK Indian government and TCS is doing everything right as far as passport renewal goes...it was better than getting my experience in getting a drivers license/immigration papers in Toronto/Chicago/San Francisco.
May be US government should indeed outsource the operation to TCS...if they can do a good show in an anarchic chaotic mess like India, I am sure they can do the same in US.

Publishers ARE evil, but they do more than being middlemen.
Even good writers need good editors. Look at the complaints on Slashdot summaries...the issue is poor editing, and that's a skill different from being a good writer. Editing is more than correcting spelling mistakes/grammar. On many occasions a book becomes much more enjoyable when a good editor spends time and energy on the manuscript.
Fringe benefits like an advance on an upcoming book. Even if they take the rights perpetually, and the advance is too low, an advance is important.
The books they reject may not be worth much even they got published. Look at the all the books in Amazon...a majority of books are worthless, they were made/published only because they could be published. For every example of a good book being rejected by publishers there are hundreds of examples of a bad book being rightly rejected.
A writers job is to write. In the world of Amazon he/she will have to wear different hats...the marketing person, the editor (or find the editor), do the cheer leading to make his/her work standout etc. I have no idea how a real talent can emerge out of this madness.
But the world will adapt and evolve and my fears are misplaced. For every publisher who closes shop, there will be people announcing their skills for a fee. In the end a new publishing order will appear, which is probably going to be the old itself, but working on smaller margins.

Saudi Arabia is ISIS, the only difference...Americans think "they are bastards, but they are our bastards".

What most of us - including the politicos - forget is the fact that the "idea of being the POTUS" is attractive, not actually "being the POTUS."
BO was sure he is going to create history. And he did create history being the first black prez and all that. But then the actual job sucks. I have no idea how sane people willingly fight for this!
Still its better the illusion remains. Else the top decision makers will be much more worse than what we have now.

Amazon is the worlds best organization for packing and shipping stuff. If they expect the money they can spend will give them an advantage in creating an exciting phone...its called hubris. A smartphone is a piece of jewelry. Its not like a book reader.
Amazon's smartphone breakfast, lunch and dinner will be eaten by companies like Xiaomi http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2014-07-22/the-latest-slick-cheap-smartphone-from-xiaomi-chinas-rising-mobile-power?google_editors_picks=true. They do only one thing...and they do it well.

Not black holes, nor galaxies, but da chicken came first.

When the current generation who grew up on Star Wars go away, will it remain in public memory like paintings or music, or even cinema? And that too at Chicago, home to excellent museums.
Me thinks there is no permanence to Star Wars. Its already looking dated and silly.
Meanwhile '2012 A Space Odyssey' still feels fresh.

I am a web developer, now working on Android.
I use Android Studio (far better than Eclipse). With HAX - hw accelerated execution - enabled and emulator running in fast virtual mode I don't notice much difference between any run/debug on any virtual device and debug/run on a Weblogic/Websphere/Tomcat server on top of some CMS/Commerce Engines.
Both are slow, but not unreasonably slow.
May be when the apps get complex there might be a difference.
I don't see how a simulator will make a huge difference, but I can see how upgrading from my current i3 processor to an i7 and running the whole shebang on some type of RAM DISK might make a difference.

In real life scenario, your produce reaching "another market in another city/town" is remote and you making a profit from all that effort is even more remote.
This is why I said you are spouting nonsense from some text book which makes sense in some make belief world.

Lets not debate on "real world understanding".
The scenario you described is from some text book.
In real life its not usually the above...if there are brokers then they usually collude on price, or fix the price. So any benefit of reaching broker X or broker Y is not there.
The situation will be better if there are no brokers. But that's not going to happen.

Read what I wrote...I did not say it was "not useful"...I said the benefits as far as finding better prices for produce is hyped up.
Of course, better communication is overall better.

I think the above benefit is overrated.
In practical terms if you have produce to sell, especially perishable items you have to worry about shelf life more than a better price at a market far away from you.
For non-perishable items - I am from a state which is the largest producer of rubber - even before internet and smartphones the farmers used to get the market prices from newspapers. And you don't need to check the prices more than once a day, you are not playing high frequency trading with your crop.
Now, powerpoint presentations from clueless MBAs will always show "farmers fetching higher prices from smartphones" as a reason for technology. I think smartphones are a great way to communicate, but you need not add "better prices for poor farmers" to the mix.

True, but Amazon is getting into an area where it has no core-competency. Its expertise is stocking and selling stuff.
The Amazon E-Reader worked because no other serious electronics company made a decent device - my first E-Reader was a Sony PRS, back in 2005, it sucked, but it sucked less. And E-Readers are for only reading. Still, even if Microsoft took that market seriously - for that you needed someone who is capable of throwing more than chair at the helm - Amazon would have found their Kindle a hard-sell.
A smartphone is a different animal. I understand Amazon needs one of their own, running some flavor of Android, but I don't see any reason they will create something different, a device we want to carry around with us, almost our primary identity as far as devices go. Will it be a good phone, yes. But you need to create a great phone - at least a Xiaomi or a Moto G.
This will be like the Facebook phone or the Facebook home screen...I don't think even the unwashed masses working at Facebook, the true believers themselves cared for that phone.

May not be President, but he deserves the Nobel (way more than most, including your current guy holding one for who knows what!)

Marissa Mayer is the same class as Carly Fiorina, Meg Whitman and others. They are going to remembered for blowing up their own organizations. What all these nincompoops have in common is a "severe lack of imagination". There is no cure for that.
She's is right about the bubble...she's in one.
The cheapest car in the world - TATA NANO - failed to make a mark. The other bubble car - Mercedes Smart is a failure in every sense of the word.
And the Google bubble car will be as popular as Segway.