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Comment Re: Good? (Score 1) 273

Yeah, because the private companies that benefit from this had nothing to do with it, right? It's all the government's fault and only the government's fault.

You are missing the point. When legislators decide to regulate buying and selling, the first things bought are legislators. Taxi cartels are prime examples of this.

Comment Re:Good? (Score 3, Informative) 273

I live in San Francisco and you won't be getting a ride from the cabbies who are hypothetically required to take you. Dispatch will accept the call, but no one will ever show up.

Very true. I once tried to get a cab from one part of downtown to another, in the middle of a workday. No cab ever showed up. I've heard they don't want to miss out on a more lucrative run to the airport.

Comment Re:Anyone else remember... (Score 5, Informative) 126

Exactly. That's why a modular PCs were never created. There's no way you can get high performance when the user can pick their own RAM, CPU, motherboard, video card, hard drives, etc.

Oh, wait.

Size matters. Desktop PCs are easy to make modular (unless you want an iMac). Laptops are harder, and besides removable batteries, only a few had any modular components (like a DVD drive swappable for an extra battery). Phones are much more space-constrained. Every millimeter counts, and modularity takes up quite a bit of space at that scale, because each part needs to be enclosed, securely attach to the others, etc.

In short, a modular phone is possible, but the trade-offs will be severe, and you'll be able to pick one or two things (e.g. speed, battery life, extra features, small size, etc.) but not all at the same time. And the prices won't be good, because manufacturer(s) will lose economies of scale: it'll be hard to compete with Apple and Samsung making millions and tens of millions of identical units.

Government

NYC Loses Appeal To Ban Large Sugary Drinks 532

mpicpp writes with good news for every New Yorker who needs 44oz of soft drink to be refreshed. New York's Court of Appeals ruled Thursday that New York City's ban on large sugary drinks, which was previously blocked by lower courts, is illegal. "We hold that the New York City Board of Health, in adopting the 'Sugary Drinks Portion Cap Rule,' exceeded the scope of its regulatory authority," the ruling said. Former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg had pushed for the ban on sugary drinks larger than 16 ounces as a way to fight obesity and other health problems.

Comment Re:They hate our freedom (Score 2) 404

It occurs to me that knowing where a parking space is available would reduce time spent driving around, itself reducing pollution, excess expenditure on additional fuel, the clogging of streets, and other issues associated with tons of traffic driving in circles throughout the city.

Ah, but you are being logical and not ecological. It has been official policy in SF for years to "get people out of their cars" by any means. This includes intentionally removing parking places (more, more), and even preventing new construction from having more than one parking space per unit.

Comment Some Public Records ... You Know ... Just in Case (Score 5, Informative) 448

So a whois.net domain name lookup on their site yielded nothing. And there are suspiciously no patents mentioning "wetag" or "ifind" and the names they listed (Dr. Paul McArthur) are in patents but for cold fusion BS in California.

Surely, though, they must have registered the "iFind" trademark? And if you search on TESS we find:

Owner (APPLICANT) WeTag, Inc. CORPORATION TEXAS 3309 San Mateo Drive Plano TEXAS 75023

With an attorney listed as "Richard G. Eldredge" which corresponds to a local attorney. Before you deploy the door kickers to lynch somebody, that address is just somebody's $200,000 house and could possibly be a random address used by a jerk. Remember that it's entirely possible that this is all a front by some other actor and someone was paid western union/bitcoin to register this trademark through this attorney without realizing they were just being used by literally anyone in the world ... of course, kickstarter should have even better transaction details (hopefully).

Comment Now listen, Woz. . . (Score 0) 209

I love ya, and I believe you to be one of the greatest Polish-Americans who ever lived, if not the Greatest, but stupid is as stupid does, and Lessig is another covert neocon for Wall Street, who is misleading people by wasting their time (and money, fer crissakes), in a completely futile (and purposely by design "futile") endeavor which will accomplish nothing but end up making more and more active people frustrated and demoralized.

Comment Re:Good! (Score 1) 619

If you make travel by road artificially cheap (which it is - at least 1/3 of road budgets come from general taxation) then people will drive more rather than looking for public transit alternatives.

Your point is pretty much self-refuting, because public transit is heavily subsidized, perhaps even more than automobiles are.

Comment Re:Good! (Score 1) 619

Of course, I'm sure we could afford to pave all of our roads with gold, have diamond-studded bike lanes, and solid titanium sidewalks if we didn't spend half our budget on wars, but hey, I'm not holding my breath.

We don't come anywhere close to spending "half our budget on wars." The military (plus veterans' benefits) only accounts for about 22% of total federal spending.

Government

IRS Recycled Lerner Hard Drive 682

phrackthat (2602661) writes The Senate Finance Committee has been informed that the IRS recycled the hard drive of Lois Lerner, which will deprive investigators of the ability to forensically retrieve emails which were supposedly deleted or lost in a "crash." This news comes after the IRS revealed that it had lost the emails of Lois Lerner and six other employees who were being investigated regarding the targeting of conservative groups and donors.

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