Or can afford to take it to the track and do their fast driving there. I've done this a couple of times, and it's not cheap - $1k+ once you factor in entry fee, tire wear, gas, travel, hotel, insurance, etc.

Also, if you have a good sports car, you can have plenty of fun without ever exceeding the speed limit - corners are a lot more fun than just going fast in a straight line, especially if you do it right and get one with a manual transmission set up well for heel/toe.

This is the important bit. The cheaper "fun" cars are the ones that the younger, less responsible drivers can buy. I was extremely surprised when I bought a used Boxster S a few years ago (probably one of the best cars around for, umm, "enthusiastic" driving), and the liability insurance was LESS than for my 14 year old Camry.

To make things worse for the WRX, the STI version comes stock with a ridiculous wing on the trunk that just screams "stupid rice rocket driver."

You wastrel... At least my Ferrari is only 50% empty!

I find it's worth carrying two phones solely to avoid having to deal with Byzantine expense reporting systems once a month. :P

Yes... The congressmen should be held accountable to taxpayers for allowing themselves to be bought by the existing bloated contractors.

Which is why I know where the good sports bars are. They're easier to get to, free parking, the food is better, the beer is better, and on game days, they're usually packed with other fans. You have multiple large screens with the better TV viewpoint, too, and they have cable, in case the game isn't on broadcast TV (which is all I have at home).

By that argument, everyone in a union belongs in jail, too.

And building an abacus really isn't THAT hard.

It's not the companies sponsoring the test that somehow try to pick this demographic. It's the people themselves. Most of the tests pay the panelists, but it's not all that much. For someone with a stable job, the small amount usually isn't worth the hassle (have to be at the test location during business hours several times a week sometimes, keeping logs, or whatever). Not to mention not worth the possible health risks. For homeless/unemployed/etc., that's their electric bill for this month. It's enough money to them that they routinely lie about health conditions, drug use, etc. on the consent forms.

Only way to fix it is to offer substantially more money to panelists.

(Source: girlfriend who works as a clinical test manager)

It sounds like they're only doing this when the network is congested in a specific location. Like they're basically prioritizing slowing down the heavy users when things get busy, rather than everyone. I have a much harder time getting worked up about that, especially when they're waiting until people are out of contract and can easily switch carriers.

Not to mention that even if you have "nothing to hide," what about when you piss the wrong person off, and suddenly there's child porn on your encrypted drive that obviously only you could ever have had access to.

It sounds like every single individual like you needs to start filing small-claims cases against MS. Let them deal with several thousand of those, where the money imbalance won't matter so much.

I agree that what you describe makes "consent" useless, but you don't necessarily need to outlaw it.

Just require that:
- any commercial entity that stores information on individuals (with NO exceptions whatsoever) has to provide said individuals a full dump of the data once per some time period upon request, with no conditions or cost attached, along with a list of everyone they've given it to.
- the entity must correct any incorrect information, and can't distribute any information regarding an individual until the errors are corrected.

Not perfect, but it would be a start.

Actually, if you're mailing passwords, send the FUTURE passwords. Then once you've verified that the copies have reached the recipients unmolested, change the passwords to what you sent.

Overcharging for maintenance, and conveniently collecting large numbers of scummy sales droids into one location where they can normally be avoided.