To elaborate a bit, since you mentioned the Golden Gate Bridge:

As far as I can find on Google, it's thought that 46 people committed suicide via the Golden Gate in 2013. That number is probably low, because the combination of the fog and swift outgoing currents make it quite possible to do so unseen. That's ONE method of suicide in a city with a population of about 800,000.

What a lot of people don't get is the sheer scale of Foxconn's factories. According to Cnet, their Shenzhen factory alone employs 500,000 workers. Obviously, that's more than half of San Francisco's population. But to add a little more perspective: Take your pick of Atlanta, Miami, Oakland, Cleveland, or Pittsburgh. That ONE factory employs more people than *live* in any of those (considered fairly major) cities. And that is just one of Foxconn's factories.

Sure, they have other issues. But by the standards of any city... and let's not kid ourselves, Foxconn operates entire cities... their suicide rate is fantastically low.

One good "Internet Tough Guy" deserves another. Or have you not seen any of the threats to assault Google Glass wearers that have been posted on various forums?

Personally, I'm going to take a fair bit of delight once Glass or it's successor is built into prescription frames & lenses, some Luddite ogre of a bar manager kicks someone wearing them out, and the patron's vision turns out to have been bad enough to bring the ADA into play.

Maybe after that happens a few times, the anti-technology brigade will get the clue that "nerds get out" just doesn't fly anymore.

So what?

You are confusing (probably deliberately) the difference between the baker (a person) and the bakery (a business). Even if the baker is the owner or operator of the bakery, they are two different legal entities, and for good reason. As a society, we routinely hold businesses to different, sometimes higher and sometimes lower, standards than we do individuals.

The bakery, as a business, is for example almost certainly required to hold to standards of cleanliness and sanitation, and subject to inspections to verify same, that the baker is free to ignore at home. Do health codes and inspections infringe on the baker's personal right to be a slob if he wants? Of course not. They regulate a separate entity: the bakery... the business.

I've been told by a lawyer (not getting legal advice, just chatting with a friend a couple of weeks before a Super Bowl one year) that if those sorts of shenanigans ever went through a trial all the way to a judgement that they wouldn't hold up. And according to the actual letter of the law, Joe Schmoe grocer could legally go ahead and sell beer and chips to you for your Super Bowl party instead of echoing the "big game day party" nonsense.

The problem is that there are very few companies that have the resources to see a conflict with the NFL, NBA, IOC, or whoever, all the way through a trial to judgement. Joe Schmoe is not one of those and would just be crushed under the sheer weight of the lawyers that would be brought to bear against him.

Rotting for a year or two in jail before being packed off to be tortured and murdered by the CIA is still a year or two when he's not being tortured and murdered by the CIA.

A lot can happen in a year or two. Administrations can change on either side of the pond. Rendition could be ended for reasons of scandal or people in general finding their moral compass. Public opinion could swing in his favor after more government malfeasance is exposed. He could die peacefully and painlessly of natural causes. The horse, as the story goes, may even learn to sing.

Proving malfeasance after the fact is all well and good. But it doesn't solve the fundamental problem: Even "just" an arrest still results in the loss of your freedom. The fact that you're being held at the police station or jail instead of prison makes no difference. If he did not, in fact, rape those women, and they are trying to frame him for a crime he did not commit; he still faces a loss of freedom, and the actions being taken against him are an abuse of governmental power of the highest and most intolerable order. The problem is, that those sorts of people are tolerated. Have you ever heard of an officer or prosecutor who falsely arrested or charged someone being prosecuted themselves; or even fired as unfit to serve the public?

Why would or should he cooperate, in any way whatsoever, with corrupt government officials who have broken their trust with the public in the worst way possible, and are trying to frame and imprison him for a crime that he didn't commit? Why would anyone? Would you happily take that fall? I wouldn't.

And, on the other hand, he did, in fact, rape a bunch of women; then he is a scumbag of scumbags; and why would it surprise you that he's doing everything he can to get out of it?

Either way, from his perspective, it doesn't make a lick of sense for him to help them out.

Yes, I assume you've read about the recent creation of NaCl3, NaCl7, Na3Cl2, Na2Cl, and Na3Cl at high pressures, compounds not possible in standard chemistry.

‘Impossible’ Sodium Chlorides Challenge Foundation of Chemistry

Do you confront anyone who sits across from you on the subway and has the back of his phone pointed in your general direction while he surfs the web or plays Angry Birds? How about the people who are engrossed in texting as they walk down the street and wind up point their phones at you briefly? The people at the gym using their iPhone to listen to watch a movie while they work out and wind up with the camera waving about as they walk from machine to machine? Do you think that every iPhone suction-cupped on someone's car window to is actually recording you and not just there for GPS?

No? Congratulations. You understand that an iPhone is not a recording device; it's a general-purpose device that happens to have the ability to record. Now, why is it so hard to understand the same about Google Glass?

As others have mentioned... eliminating the camera eliminates any possible augmented-reality applications. That is very far from ideal.

What I think Google needs to do, is quit being coy with the invites and the "why I want to be allowed to buy Glass" nonsense; and get the technology into as many regular prescription frames as they can as quickly as possible. Then what are the anti-Glass types going to do, have a contact-lens only policy? Forbid anyone from entering who's wearing any kind of glasses? It simply won't be tenable. And if they try, eventually they'll do it to someone whose eyesight is bad enough that their antics will bring the ADA into play. That will result in a massive and well-deserved lawsuit that the businesses *will* lose.

And no, I don't want to follow strangers around and surreptitiously record and upload them. I barely think to pull out my iPhone and record the interesting bits of my own life; and I've no interest in yours. I want the augmented-reality aspects. And the sooner the luddite brigade is slapped down, the sooner I can get my frikkin-terminator-vision.

According to this document linked to from your page world production of gold has increased by a factor of almost 7 over the last century, which is a significant increase, especially since as you say, price has not changed really at all (ignoring the large increase in the last five years, the price/ton in 1900 was the same as in 2005). This seems to indicate price is set by the demand side; also it seems to show consumption has increased by a similar factor, so more gold mined means more gold used.

The last few years however show a huge increase in price without any increase in production or usage, which does indicate to me that speculation was driving the price - the recent crash supports this.

It surprised me to be honest - here is the page I saw, and it's 1967, not 1969.This article backs up the data and discusses the gold supply in general - it does seem as though most people assume that gold mining is much less prevalent than it actually is.

Half of all of the gold in the world was mined after 1969. I wouldn't be surprised if it was similar for silver. And while that obviously hasn't affected the price massively, the supply of gold is increasing rapidly - which I would say indicates the price has nothing to do with supply or utility.

When institutions no less esteemed than the BBC and the New York Times have done "reviews" of Tesla that were somewhere between contrived and falsified (Depending on how polite you care to be.) to make the cars look as bad as possible, I think one can forgive Musk for getting a bit defensive and even coming out swinging when under attack.

Yes, they *are* out to get him (Or at least TSLA.).

> Given this is the first arrest, you have to wonder how
> the courts might view a law making it a felony to alter
> a person's own property for reasons that have
> nothing to do with actual public safety.

Some fairly massive parts of the vehicle and traffic codes have nothing at all to do with public safety; and are often even counterproductive to public safety and even the environment (Window tint laws, for example.). They're just there to give the cops a way to raise revenue by writing tickets or as an excuse to pull you over if they decide they don't like the looks of you.