Ah, ColdSam, you are a barrel of laughs. Everyone is supposed to know the exact amount of traction their car will have on a given day in a given location so that they can make sure their car doesn't slide an inch or two past a line which is ALWAYS put at such a distance as to allow for a foot or more of sliding before a pedestrian or another vehicle would be at risk, and you are perfectly fine if they are penalized for that. Yet, when a law is enacted for your safety and the convenience of everyone around you that says you can be fined for not crossing in clearly marked locations, that's the law that isn't useful.

Another item to note. Without the contract, Boeing will have less for their employees, which means they will have less to spend on whatever they like. This means, to some degree, any market that is supported by a typical employee, from farmers to hair stylists to fast food employees to airplane parts manufacturers are affected, to a greater or lesser degree. Of course, for those who understand, this is what the concept of "the economy" means...

And there's your mistake. He's a writer, not an editor. He gets paid for conveying his ideas, not for using proper grammar and spelling.

Yes, many science fiction stories touch upon this. The one concern I have is the use of artificial scarcity as a means of control. With this weapon, one can direct masses of people whereas otherwise you would have no ability to do so, for good or bad. And, of course, having that power runs the risk of it corrupting the wielder...

Only on slashdot would this be given as an alternative to a camera and LED being set on a single circuit during a discussion involving the KISS principle.

As another responder said, no, I'm not always confident I made the right choice. Yes, there might be other solutions. Some may be too expensive to try out, some just may not be an option given my circumstances. But I am confident I made the best decision I could, and continue to hope that, if it wasn't the right one, it was good enough to at least have a beneficial outcome.

And what exactly would you be doing in your response? There's a reason most of the speeding cameras don't trigger until you've done some percentage above the speed limit. How many judges do you think would throw out a speeding ticket if you were doing 50.5 km/h in a 50 km/h zone? Would you even be able to tell if you were going 1% over the speed limit? Shall we also have police start handing out fines for jaywalking on empty streets?

I would more call it well-adjusted, which I consider to be a subset of sanity. If you're a drug dealer, know you sell poison (pick the "really bad drug" of your choice), never use it yourself, are happy with the money and relative ease it takes to acquire it (a debatable point, I'm sure), and have no qualms letting people be responsible for their own actions, would that be considered sane by the definition above? I'd think not. You know your actions are harmful, and choose not to change them, and are not empathizing with your clients and their further harm that you facilitate. OTOH, I'd still consider them sane by conventional standards, just not very well-adjusted.

This is not to say that the above definition isn't a laudable standard to strive for, and people who meet it would be very easy to interact with.

Quoting the grandparent:

Did you notice the relevant part of that comment this time?

So, for you non-obvious is the combination of a flat power connector and a child-safe lock. Yes, I'm sure there are minor differences, much like there are between a state-of-the-art tumbler lock and one from ancient history, but that doesn't make it unrecognizable or non-obvious to an expert in the field.

Well, to be fair, McAfee and Norton are constrained by false advertising laws. The NSA doesn't have such constraints, not being in a position to sell us anything. They just force their work down our throats.

I personally can't stop thinking that the critical infrastructure that they corrected that would have crippled the economy had it not been stopped was the Clipper Chip. So, I guess they aren't really lying!

This is totally broken logic. Had you said, "They do work, they get paid for part of the value of the resulting good or service (if they got paid the full value of the resulting good or service, it wouldn't be profitable for their employer to hire them)," that would be a valid statement. As it stands, your statement is the equivalent of, "The only way an employer is able to make a profit is by screwing his employees." Note that I assume that the employer also brings something to the table, such as marketing, locating better suppliers, allowing economies of scale, and finding more efficient ways of producing the good or service. You know, the difference between working for yourself versus working as part of an organization (besides the ability to screw its employees).

I pity you your worldview.

Well, I suppose welfare and jails are cheaper than police and prisons...seems to me you pay either way.

There are a number of things to consider, though.

There is now a precedent. Screw up too badly, and the government might bail you out. Fuck them over in the process, and well, maybe they won't.

Politicians are a quantity that GM has to consider. Certainly, there is no evidence that politicians care if they spend money poorly. However, leave them with egg on their faces, and it might take more "campaign contributions" to make them forget that.

Taxpayers are also consumers. People rarely feel brand loyalty towards companies that screw them and their friends over. Even if it is only about $35 per person.

These are some other things that need to be weighed, rather than just what the next quarter will look like.