The problem is that productivity is much harder to quantify than $/sqft. Most people who want to or succeed in forcing these open floor plans on others prefer to take easy numbers, like that $/sqft, or lines of code/hr, as estimates for what things and people are worth over things like code quality or worker productivity and morale.

I was a big supporter of his 2008 Presidential bid until that happened. I still somewhat supported and voted for him, but I did so in an "eat your vegetables" kind of way.

Then he did a bunch of other stuff and I went "hell no" in 2012 and voted third party (Gary Johnson.)

I'd argue that someone who doesn't own a car still indirectly benefits from the road infrastructure just like I benefit indirectly from our public education system.

The difference between school taxes and a scheme like this is that you can still pay for your share of road usage, even if you rarely or never drive yourself. You probably have packages delivered to you, and a vehicle is needed to deliver them. The vehicle has one of these devices, and gets charged for its road usage. The company won't eat those charges, though; they'll be included in the price that you or someone else paid to have the package shipped.

Ignoring the pitfalls of such a program, this would encourage the delivery service to minimize the number of miles it drives to save on both gas and this road usage tax/fee/whatever.

There's no such indirect method for paying for schools that I'm aware of.

The problem with those parliaments, to my understanding, is that citizens do not vote for a person, they vote for a party. Then the party gets to appoint people to fill their allotted seats. This, in my opinion, removes a layer of accountability between the politicians and the people. Not that America has a great system of accountability, but it's more direct than that system.

I would like us to have some sort of weighted/preferential/rank voting in America. Get rid of the first-past-the-pole thing, but you still vote for specific people. If 50% of people would prefer Candidate A, the other 50% would prefer B, but 80% of both sides would be okay with Candidate C, then Candidate C is the best choice. With first-past-the-pole, though, it turns into A vs B, and few people realize C is even running.

I think that, should we ever see the death of advertising revenue at large (one can only hope), surviving sites will maintain in one four categories:

1) Paywall, as you mention
2) Branded, as we see with Buzzfeed and sponsored articles
3) Fandom, where the site is mainly a labor of love and paid for out of pocket, soliciting donations to help now and then (some webcomics used to do this)
4) Patreon writ smaller

For those who don't know, Patreon is a combination of DeviantArt and Kickstarter: artists, content creators, etc. can get an account, and users can be patrons to that account/artists/whatever for as little as $1/mo. This is usually for more direct interaction with the artist in question than the general viewership might get. I imagine either Patreon itself, or a new, competing service, going into smaller amounts (say, starting at 25c/mo) for supporting websites or groups at large with fewer/smaller patron rewards. What is lost in large monthly donations is made up for with volume. So someone pays Patreon $5/mo, and then can divide that up between their favorite sites. I'm not aware of any sites using Patreon this way, but it would not surprise me at all if some already do.

- Frequently provides a strong incentive for copy-cat content, 0 content websites, click-bait, plagiarized content websites to exist, and to be profitable

I hate these so much. They spam StumbleUpon, and there is one particular site that uses over a dozen different domain names just to get around site blocks on StumbleUpon. I will cackle with glee when they die in flames.

Too bad they didn't extend that out to us living on the bleeding edge of the city limits, right by I-25. :/

The project gets done anyway, but the work gets moved to Canada or India or China

So you've already tried hiring in Iowa, or Colorado, or Montana, or Mississippi? Every American state and territory before looking out of the country?

If not, why not? You complained about time zones, but a time difference of 4-5 hours is better than 11-12. Because they're not in the Bay area? Neither are the folks in Canada or India or China. Are you requiring that folks from other states move to the Bay area? I'm sure there are a lot of people that, even for good money, would not want to move at all. (And, again, neither would the folks in Canada or India or...)

Aside from the usual keys, I have a small flashlight; nothing strong, but could be useful in an emergency. I have this nifty Swiss+Tech Utili-key, also handy in an emergency. One part is a glasses screwdriver, which I've used more than once.

At one point I had a USB drive on the ring with a number of useful things, from PortableApps to virus/malware cleaners, but now it just stays in my pocket.

I also use a small carabiner to clip the keys to my belt loop; while jangly, it's also much easier to know if I've forgotten my keys and gives me more pocket room.

how many people would rather watch porn than have sex

I doubt that any would rather; I know I wouldn't. But it's about risk/investment/reward outcomes.
Porn:
- Risk: None (unless your fetish happens to be illegal)
- Investment: very minor (typing "boobies" into Google)
- Reward: minor-to-moderate reward (depending on how good you are at "solo" and your mood)

Interacting with the gender of choice:
- Risk: moderate to high, depending on how emotional you are
- Investment: moderate to extremely-high, depending on how willing the other side is to have sex and how attracted you are to them
- Reward: minor to high, depending on how well the other party performs

So I can just go home, turn on my computer, load some good material and have a go, or I can spend time searching for women who interest me physically and mentally, court them, convince them to have sex with me, and at any point along that I could be devastated if a woman turns me down or breaks up if I become too emotionally invested in her. (This is not even including other personal complications, like anxiety, self-image, and depression.)

Now, let's throw a new option in the mix: Legalized prostitution
- Risk: Low, assuming you go through a reputable, authorized service that does regular STD checks; moderate otherwise
- Investment: Whatever the cost is, and the time to set up/arrive (the rarer the kink, the higher the cost)
- Reward: Moderate to high; you're dealing with a "professional" who will cater to any whims agreed upon ahead of time

porn wasn't a prerequisite for masturbation the last time I checked

Correct, but after time you get desensitized to it so you need a new "high", so to speak. If you have a great imagination you might be able to run with that for a while, but for most they'll need new material.

Personally, I'm wondering what will be the thing that my generation uses as a scapegoat, rather than accepting the blame for failing in their parenting or realization that they might not have been able to improve it. We've grown up with video games and rock and roll, so those are out. What's on the horizon that we might find hard to understand? Wearable tech (far beyond watches)? Internet of Things? Virtual Reality? Bionic augmentation? Self-driving vehicles? Amazon delivery drones? ISIS? Legal marijuana?

"Kids these days are corrupted by their talking refrigerators and Amazon scheduled deliveries of pot and Doritos!"

Insurance companies are not huge bureaucracies? Color me surprised.

being mostly spared from WW1 and WW2.

This is the big thing that a lot of people don't understand. Not only did we "win" WW2, ours was the only country involved that didn't suffer huge infrastructure or human losses and already had a large manufacturing industry. Once WW2 was over, most of the "first world" at the time needed to rebuild and America was able and ready to provide tools, materials, engineers, etc. We also lent a lot of money and supplied to our allies that had to be paid back over time, as well as reparations from the losing countries.

If other countries didn't have the crap bombed out of them, but everything else came out the same, we likely would have had a small boon but nothing like the surge in quality of life we did see.

Oh ho, didn't know about the whole series thing, thanks! That's nice, as I've bought base games on Steam while they were on sale and later wanted the DLC, and it was as cheap to buy the base+DLC/GoTY Edition as it was just the DLC. Always a small annoyance of mine.

While I don't have many games from GOG (I have no qualms with Steam and a huge backlog already), this could be worthwhile, especially if they beat out Origin and UPlay in the quality department. Doubly so if they can match Steam Sales. I put my name in for a beta invite and hope it goes well.

I can't find it in the announcement, but I read somewhere else that part of GOG Galaxy will be downloading the installers for games to your computer, so you can install them outside Galaxy or if the service ever terminates.

The major difference, and the problem with Nerval's Lobster, is that prior to being purchased by Dice all submissions for their prior owners and sister sub-properties (GeekNet/Andover/SourceForge) would have a disclaimer attached to it so long as I can recall. This is no longer the case; the only way to know that this is a bought-and-paid-for placement ('cause Dice bought Slashdot) is that they're always "submitted" by Nerval's Lobster. Newer visitors won't know about the potential conflict of interest because it's no longer acknowledged.

It would be nice if they just made Nerval's Lobster an editor account so the robot could post itself, but they won't because they know that thousands of regular /. users will just block that editor; rightfully so, IMO.