The existence of a queue means that people are willing to pay more for the product. So why not let them? Raise the price as the queue gets longer, and lower the price as the queue gets shorter. This stabilizes and even lets you control the length of the queue.

They should do the same at ballparks on game day. Instead of charging a fixed rate for parking, charge to go through the gate according to the number of cars waiting to get in or out. If you get there really early, you could get in practically for free, and if you tailgate after the game, you can get out practically for free. With shorter queues and a greater ability to save money, everybody wins!

By definition, trolling means writing inflammatory comments that excite people to write indignant responses.

That used to be called "heresy," and it also came with consequences. What's old is new again.

There's still a lot of users stuck with lower versions of Android.

That's not google's problem, that's handset manufacturer's problem.

It's also Google's problem if they don't want a lot of users stuck on older versions of Android.

Felonies are also ridiculously easy to get. In the '80s, if two people were caught racing in their cars, it would be a $111 fine. Now, here in Texas, that is a felony.

Rather than a prison sentence followed by automatic eligibility to be re-licensed to be a hazard on the streets again, I think a far more appropriate punishment would be to permanently revoke the person's license until he or she can prove, through a battery of physical and psychological tests, that he or she is no longer a hazard on the road. (This is what they do in Germany.)

But in the USA, for some reason it seems to be considered more humane to make someone a felon and lock them away than to ban them from driving.

Great for private prison profit margins... all paid for on the US taxpayers nickel.

This is why the goals of prisons need to be aligned better with the goals of society. Instead of putting someone away for x years, if private prisons bid against each other on a fixed price to rehabilitate each prisoner, coupled with penalties each time a released prisoner re-offends, private prisons would do their best to rehabilitate each prisoner as quickly, completely, and inexpensively as possible. Isn't this what we all really want?

no housing allowed in the industrial zone

That's a silly law. It should be the other way around: no industry allowed in the residential zone.

Would you like to explain how those zones "keep the poor and minorities out of middle-class and wealthy neighborhoods"?

When you force every house to have parking (which people too poor to own cars don't need), you drive up the cost of housing and drive out the poor from the neighborhood.

You also drive out the poor with limits on dwelling units per acre, minimum liveable square footage, and prohibitions against granny flats, dorms, and boarding houses.

No, it's the victims and the rest of society who seek revenge (called "retribution" by lawyer types) who create the need for imprisonment.

Because the main purpose of prisons is revenge and not rehabilitation, prisoners benefit very little from prisons. And because our society decided that people should pay for things in proportion to the benefit they receive from them, it stands to reason that prisoners should not pay for their own incarceration.

Middle and lower income households absorb the greatest percentage of social programs, so why shouldn't they be the ones that contribute the most to them?

That's like asking prisoners to pay for their imprisonment. Remember, the purpose of the zoning code is to keep the poor and minorities out of middle-class and wealthy neighborhoods, and that in turn restricts economic mobility, keeping the poor dependent on social programs for their livelihood. For example, the market would build more affordable housing if it weren't prevented from building it.

(Side note: this is similar to the way motorists support separated bicycling infrastructure, in order to get bicyclists out of their way. And then they complain that bicyclists aren't paying their fair share for those separated facilities.)

So I think the people who actually want those social programs (the wealthy) that keep the poor poor should be the ones to pay for them.

Not just food, but also don't tax anything else the poor buy such as clothes, furniture, appliances, automobiles, airline tickets, and so on, or your "progressive" tax will still be regressive.

So you can tax yachts and private aircraft. That's about it, I think.

I'm seeing a pattern here.

Somehow, I don't think that the mindset that got us into this mess is capable of getting us out of it.

Comcast may be "a terrible company," but this is still very worrisome.

...when wind varies you need to have other types of power (such as natural gas) ready to pick up the slack.

You're half correct. If you'll recall your demand curve from Econ 101, when demand exceeds supply, there are two ways to reach an equilibrium. Your suggestion, increase supply, is one of those ways. The other, of course, is to reduce demand, as eBay does to prevent too many people from winning the same auction.

Unfortunately, IEEE 754 doesn't provide a way to indicate the level of precision (number of significant figures) of the answer.