I *really* don't understand the process where they could be stolen. Could someone please explain it?

Someone ran TV ads saying "I run a car exchange. Send me your money and I will send you a car some day. Or send me your car and I will send you some money some day."

People sent their cars and money. At first, the company appeared to be doing business normally, and with an expected markup. People would send them a car worth $10000 and they'd get back a check for $9000. Or they would send $10000 cash and get back a car worth $9000. It looked fairly reasonable as long as you didn't ever read anything that company's founder ever wrote, where he seemed kind of thoughtless or foolish about both money and cars. But hey, life is complicated and it takes all types.

One day, people noticed they would send $10000 cash and instead of getting a $9000 car, they would get a note saying, "oops, your car isn't ready yet. Hang on." Some of those people would say "ok, give me my $10000 back," and the company would say "Um, we're having computer problems. We've sort of forgotten who has sent us money and got a car in return, and who hasn't. Give us a few months to sort it out. You know how computer problems are. Please bear with us!"

Then one day the company closed, while they still had a bunch of peoples' cars and cash, that they never gave back. The cars and cash are somewhere, but not in the possession of the people who sent them. The person who has them, is considered to be a thief.

Then people read the news story and said "See? This proves that car technology doesn't work."

MtGox is a large part of the Bitcoin "brand."

That's entirely subjective and also controversial. It's true that lots of people who have heard of Bitcoin have also heard of Mt Gox, but we have no reason to believe that a significant number of them used Mt Gox, do we?

You might as well say Russia is a large part of the Olympics brand. That's true and also not true, depending on how you're choosing to look at things.

Much of the value attributed to Bitcoin comes from the perception that it can be traded, easily, for traditional currency

I think this is definitely wrong and a large supermajority of Bitcoin users would say that exchanging it for traditional currencies is relatively difficult compared to all other things that can be done with Bitcoin. And they're not saying it starting in late February 2014; they're saying it in 2010. Show me a Bitcoin advocate who has hawked fiat exchange as one of its advantages or being an important aspect of Bitcoin's utility. For the last few years, nearly all I have heard about Bitcoin, has been the exact opposite.

Exchanging with regulated currencies has always been seen as a barrier. Not only that, but it has (and is) always predicted to be a barrier. No one is even saying that exchanging Bitcoins for dollars or euros is likely to become easier some day. It's pretty much exchanging Bitcoin for other things (anything but highly regulated things) that the Bitcoin economy as faith in. "Corrupt" or low-tech fiat currencies are seen as the problem that Bitcoin is intended to solve. (Whether the problems are that its value is disconnected with reality, or that it isn't easily/cheaply transmissable.)

What missing is ability to push back against unreasonable permission requests without having to root your device.

There is a way, and it works with both iOS and Android. I think you just might not ready for it.

Just Say No. When someone offers you crank, or bad software, just say no.

What's the matter, can't do it? Then then problem is with you, not your OS. The sooner we get you to choose to install and run the suicide app, the sooner the problem will be fixed. Don't like that answer? Then use my answer instead: "No."

They argue that their insolvency would destroy bitcoin as a currency and therefore it's in everyone's best interests, Bitcoin exchange and end user alike, to donate to them until they're solvent again.

The irony of that, is that a Mt Gox bailout is what would start to cause people to become suspicious of Bitcoin's legitimacy. Bitcoin is currently under no threat by this exchange closing, but if someone were to throw away money on buying Bitcoins to pay out Mt Gox's customers' balances, I'd ask: "Why are you giving me money for nothin'? This is starting to sound like dollars. What's the catch?"

It doesn't show how Bitcoin is a wonderful idea, any more than having your bicycle stolen shows that bicycles are wonderful ideas. It simply has no bearing. Why would it?

I'm really too old to be in that market, but to me, $2500/semester sounds like an ok deal.

Sticker shock can be subjective, though. Indeed, if it weren't then we would all be doing Leninist five year plans by now. It's ok if our "That's outrageously expensive!" viewpoints are different.

Also, remember that that comparing tuitions (2014 vs 1980) is not the same as comparing costs. I'm arguing that I wish tuitions were closer to actual costs. It's very easy to imagine the 1980 tuition being more subsidized (i.e. cost was actually higher) due to 1980 society/government valuing education more than today's society does.

Indirection just delays the anger and fear, and keeps it from being expressed. People ought to be seeing numbers-right-now in their faces, getting horrified, and yelling back. Just like with loans, this will make people think, "Oh, I pay later when I'm rich," and suppresses the sticker shock.

We NEED the sticker shock. And we all (not just students) need to get shocked by it. Because the problem of education isn't who pays and how they pay, but how much you pay for it. The price is totally unrealistic compared to the capital required to provide the service.

I would love a government to try and build a HV transmission line in my backyard. I should get nearly $8m for my property if history is anything to go by.

And everyone lived happily ever after. Take the $8M if that's what everyone insists upon shoving in your face. The people who paid it, feel good. I'd add "comma chump sucker" to the end of that, but everyone (including you) is laughing their asses off, so it's hard to type. That is how appropriate the "everyone lived happily ever after" thing is.

My algorithm for NIMBY is "I'll let this be in _my_ backyard, for n dollars/euros," where you set n to zero and slowly increase it until you get a combination of bids that can be assembled into a working solution. Then you charge the NIMBYers whatever cost that is, to pay the bids. You wanna pay an extra 7 cents per KWh to have the lines be somewhere else? Ok. You don't want to pay it? Ok, you get the lines, and lower energy costs than your stuck-up neighbors.

How does everyone not win (or at least break even) in such a scenario?

(Thanks.) Not surprising; I've just been lazy, I guess. So... yeeeah. I probably wouldn't miss Google much. Their cooperation really does look totally optional and expendible, from the PoV of a user of the platform. Not that I'm ungrateful for commodotizing mobile OSes (thanks, Google). But anti-trust? Oh, please. The people getting their panties in a bunch about these agreements, need to take a chill pill.

I use Android. I think the Maps app is pretty good. I like it. That's the one I would miss.

Other than that.. nothing. There just aren't any Google apps or services(*) which matter. I think OEMs are over-agonizing on this. Just don't sign the contract, and your phone will be nearly as good as all your competitors in most ways, and better in other ways.

When people say "Android isn't really free, because..." please don't finish your sentence with a list of pretty much worthless (or trivially-replaced) stuff-that-isn't-free. That's almost like complaining "I tried switching my uranium enrichment plant to ReactOS but it wasn't compatible with Stuxnet, so I switched back to Windows."

Except for that Maps thing. But maybe someone else has a mapping (native, not web) app that uses OSM by now. Haven't looked. That'd be hilarious if the list of precious Google apps was zero items long instead of one.

* Services: well ok, of course I still do use Google for searching the web. They are definitely still best (and by a wide margin, it's not even close) whenever I do the blind test. But my computer's maker didn't need any license for that. Any web browser will do. That's my (the user's) problem, not the phone maker's problem.

I don't want to have to uproot my family, find a new job, and start a new life in another state just because the state I happen to live in wants to push religious beliefs onto my kids through the public school system.

That's easy to say when someone is defending states' right to be wrong. What if we were defending states' right to be right? If the feds were insisting that science be removed from curriculums and the state wanted to teach it, then you might damn well start to care about states rights.

The stupidity of the decision has no bearing on whose decision it is to make.

You're probably right that it's illegal for any public school (whether state or federal) per the first amendment, but in a sense, isn't "evidencism" a religion too? The only reason you think looking-at-evidence works to reveal how the world works, is that you looked at the evidence. That same argument could be used to confirm mysticism. "I made up a neat idea in my head. The way I know it's true, is that the voice in my head says 'Yep, it really is true.'"

So, if a State chooses to not teach their children what is accepted in the scientific community, should this be their prerogative?

Probably, but Republicrats have built up many decades of precedent that it would fall under "Interstate Commerce" and can therefore be a federal power, if the feds want it.

Who would oppose it falling under Interstate Commerce? Libertarians? In the voting booth, 99% of people say they strongly disagree with Libertarians.

I know a total nontechie who wanted to show me something on her laptop. I walked over expecting to see Finder of Explorer, and was surprised to find myself looking at Unity. I'm sure some "rocket scientist" installed that for her, but for day-to-day use, it's very clear that the people who say Linux isn't "ready" don't know WTF they're talking about. Icons and menus and windows, are icons and menus and windows.

Right of first sale applies to distribution of copyrighted products.

Right of first sale applies to sold objects ("goods"). If you buy a hammer or buy a copy of a movie, you own that thing. There may be some some laws saying what you're allowed to do with your thing (the state government says you're not allowed to use the hammer to hit people in the head, the fed government says all kinds of complicated things you're not allowed to do with the movie) but the seller has absolutely no say at all.

If they really need to have a say, then they can try to use purchasing contracts, but purchasing contracts tend to result in most customers saying "fuck that" and walking away. Generally, the desire to do business outweighs the desire to have a say in what becomes of the item, so these things tend to be rare and only used for infrequently-acquired or expensive goods. And then even then these contracts of adhesion tend to have limits.

(There's a lot of possible digression here, various schemes have been tried where sellers have their cake and eat it too. Some have been successful, though they all smack of illegitimacy. e.g. shrinkwrap EULAs, Human Centipad, etc.)

When you get to services, people are able to make a stronger case that there isn't a "good" for first sale doctrine to apply to. BART will say they didn't sell you a ticket; they sold you a ride. The ticket is just an authorization token. That's different from a hammer or movie disc, where the item itself is what you wanted. Nobody wants a ticket nor does the piece of paper have much value in itself; people want rides, not tickets.