That's the key phrase -- don't reinvent the wheel. But is coding "inventing" or "building"? Because sometimes it's quicker to build your own wheel or whittle your own peg than go out and hunt down one the right size for your needs.

I can't -- my doctor requires notice of at least two weeks for non-urgent appointments.

If his dad was a multi-millionaire, he could have got himself a nice little trophy 3rd/4th wife and had some kids when he was about 80. Then at 90, he could have told his young son, preparing to go to high school, about the dark days of his early career...

When the odds are stacked against you, you have to play hardball (and mix your metaphors like the plague).

Paying for downtime is the elephant in the room in terms of "minimum wage". Cleaners, for instance, typically get minimum wage. But they work for two hours in the morning, then another two hours in the early evening. They're working part-time in a job that is as invasive as a full-time job.

Imagine your company was making cutbacks, and they asked you to cut your hours in half, at the same pro-rata salary. But your day was cut in two, with half your hours before 9:30 and half your hours from 4:30 pm onwards. Your days would be ruined by commuting etc, and you would be unhappy... and yet we force that on people whose hourly rate is already pitiful in comparison to ours.

Given the recent flap about it, I think the way to convince the USA to have paid sick leave is to scream "BUT WHAT IF HE HAS EBOLA?!?!?"

What's that damn printer doing making roads in my kitchen?!?

If everyone could get a taxi at peak time, would they get home quicker? No, because you'd have gridlock. This is one of the things that city planners take into account when managing taxi licensing.

Public transport is an efficient solution at peak time. It may not seem like it -- what with waiting times, multiple stops, the need to walk a bit and connect -- but mass transit is the only way to keep that many people moving. 25 years ago New York was famous worldwide for its traffic jams -- you don't want that again.

Taxis are useful at times of lower demand, when public transport becomes inefficient.

Unlimited cars leads to a tragedy-of-the-commons scenario. I'd tell you to stop being so selfish, but even enlightened self-interested says you should just get a damn bus.

If you don't understand something, feel free to ask for clarification. Calling someone stupid to mask your own ignorance is very immature.

Professional drivers need to get peak-time business to account for slack time at off-peak hours. If Uber drivers can cherry pick the fares at peak time, undercutting the full-time drivers, there's no incentive for drivers to make themselves available off-peak.

Licensing incorporates a social contract -- it's much like pubs. Where I live, a pub has to apply for certain hours. They can't shut up early whenever business is slack -- they've been given the license to make sure supply matches demand. The number of licenses is restricted so that the business can survive. Quid pro quo.

Keeping prices high keeps taxis available. Uber lets drivers pick up passengers when the driver wants -- taxis pick up passengers when the passenger wants.

Either. Both. Take your pick.

Not to mention the issue of robbery, assualt and rape. In Scottish cities, there are two types of cars: taxis (black cabs) and private hire cars. A taxi can pick you up off the street, a private hire car can only collect you from a pre-booked address. Outside of cities, there is only generally one category, which is called a taxi, but can only pick up from taxi ranks or pre-booked addresses. Both currently need to have clear markings, but in the old days there was only mandatory marking on black cabs (the ones you can hail from the street).

It wasn't unheard of for unlicensed (or just unscrupulous) operators to use a radio scanner to intercept dispatch messages and steal fares from the licensed companies. It also wasn't unheard of for these firms to be part of crime gangs, so it wasn't unheard of for people to be robbed by the driver. Things took a turn for the sinister when a lone nutter got hold of a radio scanner and started targetting dispatches for women, and when he liked the woman he picked up... well, it doesn't take much to imagine what he did.

That's why we put in laws mandating clear marking for all cars-for-hire. Even if you got picked up by the wrong person, it would still have to be a licensed driver, making the pool of suspects much smaller. Taxi drivers still occassionally go off the rails, but they're easy to track down, as they're all on file.

Exactly -- which is why they should comply with the same registration laws as other taxi companies./p.

Differential pricing is a consequence of income disparity. Our lifestyles are only possible because people in poorer countries are can produce our bananas and electronics at stupidly low prices. If the USA attempted to ban differential pricing, they would be shutting a hell of a lot of people out of the drugs market -- cheap drugs in Africa are profitable in a tokenistic sense -- they are profitable precisely because the costs are already offset in rich countries. If they had a choice between selling only at African prices or only at American ones, they'd stick to American ones, as that's where the profit lies.