You really think you can get a tech worker for $4k/year? Hell, for that price, I could hire a staff for myself to, um do something.

Japan has better transit, so you could, for instance, spend most of your travel time on a train, and it's possible that japanese people largely use cars for weekend trips (far out modders also push the average down - if you've added a 10 foot fiberglass rear bumper to your van (no lie!), you probably don't drive it much).

I'd like to look at it as a holistic transport problem - how do you move people in volume with the minimum time per passenger? This is different from GM's thing, as cars are not required, and really, good subway networks in cities and mid distance trains could give an 80% solution. Hell, even a 50% solution that means we don't need to build bigger roads is probably a financial win.

Forget that - buy high end stuff (for durability, quality) and just buy slower; you'll spend less over time because you won't replace what you buy, and you'll find that you really don't need half of it in the first place.

Europeans do compressed cities just fine, and since you're in DC, i'll say that Ballston and Courthouse are a really good example of high density living.

and a lot of it is fraud detection (say, at Visa) and large internet sites deciding what sorts of products to show you when you log in based on your purchase history/similar users' history.

Check out the amazon listing. Apparently, they changed some of the look and feel under pressure from rolex.

You just haven't met the right girls. Plenty of hot geek girls, and some of them dig vinyl.

If you go to amazon, you should be able to get an automatic self winder Invicta with a japanese movement that looks like a Rolex Submariner for about $90. Would that count as a fake rolex?

Some of us have friends that suck at spelling.

You know, the baseball bat thing is a good idea, but it's missing details: buy the bat with cash, wait a week or two, keep it in a plastic bag, and wear cheap gloves. When you're done, leave the bat and dispose of the gloves later on - use the plastic bag and a public trash can somewhere you don't buy anything. It's the little things that are so important.

If the lecture wasn't 3 hours long, I wouldn't fall asleep. I use a laptop because it's less annoying than me snoring.

And how does this solve the problem, exactly?

I leave my browser open for weeks at a time. Allowing some other app to close it would be... unwise. Practically speaking, this is what VMs are for.

Actually, making the last mile a local utility has a lot to recommend it - no locked in monopoly, easier entry for competitors, and better services for consumers. You can also conceivably run servers at home without jumping through insane hoops. Comcast et al. would still exist as service providers of various stripes.

How do you propose setting up a network so that you can lose any switch without impacting any users?