I was making a joke too (at Sony's expense)

I doubt anyone has forgotten.

A stubbed toe can be more important than a war, when it's YOUR toe that's been stubbed.

In related news, home rental is increasing, while home ownership is decreasing, despite the fact that a mortgage is cheaper than rent.

If there was a companion video game to go along with the movie, there would be some mention of it in the leaked Sony emails.

Warm, dry, clean, well-fed, not being hunted, sex partners shipped in from all over the world....

Sounds like a luxury hotel when compared to a rainforest.

I watched the video, and what he shows is physically impossible.

It is simply not possible to get a full-wave 20kHz signal out of a standard 44kHz sample rate, unless the equipment is literally "making up" parts of the curve on the fly.

Throughout the video, at no point does he mention WHICH sample rate he is using. He could be using something significantly higher than CD audio's 44kHz sample rate, which WOULD give a smooth curve on a 20kHz signal (but it would also be cheating)

It's like taking someone running at 10 footsteps per second, filming them at 5 frames per second, and yet still somehow capturing all 10 footsteps (even though some of the footsteps MUST have occurred BETWEEN frames)

Depending on how it is taxed when being returned (as a gift), vs. when it was originally awarded (as an award), he may actually end up owing MORE taxes.

For example, if the original award was estimated to be worth $1 million, he will have "donated" $1 million worth of assets, however it is now worth $4.7 million, which means he will have received $4.7 million in "gift income" that he has to pay taxes on.

This doesn't even take into account the possible difference in tax rates between gifts and awards.

I would argue that the internet itself has caused a dramatic change. The only reason we don't notice it yet is because we are at the very beginning of that change.

It allows a collective level of thinking never before possible at any point in human history. Never before has it been possible for a large group of very smart people scattered all over the world to collaborate on an idea in real-time without ever meeting face-to-face.

It is social interaction that has driven changes in human society, and if you accelerate the social interaction, it will accelerate the social change.

We have seen smaller examples of "jumps" in social interaction speed before, like the invention of the written word, followed by the printing press, the radio, and the TV. Each one of these inventions accelerated the rate of social change even faster than it was before, and as long as we continue to advance in technology, we will continue to increase the speed of social interaction (which also accelerates the rate of technological advancement, creating a feed-back loop).

I predict that the world 100 years in the future will be FAR more different than 100 years in the past. We are already seeing signs of it within a single generation (Millennials, vs. Gen Xers vs. Boomers) with each generation being progressively more different in their way of thinking than the previous generation. If you go back more than 300 years ago however, you don't see very much difference in thinking between generations.

What is COG?

Quitting is usually not an option, because there are bills to pay. It's called "wage slavery". Sure, you are "allowed" to quit a job whenever you want, but it could mean losing your home and all your worldly possessions.
Being homeless and starving might be preferable to being bull-whipped by your owner, but it's still not happy times.

There is a difference between creating a sustainable business based on toll roads, and simply taking advantage of a temporary wrinkle in the supply/demand curve.

  Just because you can take advantage of a temporary situation, and make some quick cash, doesn't mean it's a profitable endeavor under normal circumstances.

You don't have to tear down skyscrapers, and build a massive piece of infrastructure costing millions of dollars, in order to open a pizzeria.

It's called "barrier to entry" and the higher the barrier is, the easier it is to establish and maintain a monopoly.

This is why there are millions of independent pizzerias, and only a small handful of cable/cell/broadband/media companies (in the US)

Minnesota and Wisconsin (and other states too, I assume) already charge a yearly road tax based on the value, age, and type of vehicle you drive.

In Minnesota, the tax for my 97 Dodge Neon is $45 per year.

He built a shorter detour around construction, as soon as the construction ends, his road will be worthless.

OK, so you want to build a competing bridge?
Where do you put it? You are going to have to buy the land, and there is no guarantee that the landowners on both sides will sell. (and you don't have eminent-domain to force them to sell)
Even if you do mange to buy the land, and build the bridge, what is to stop your competitors (assuming all bridges are private) from lowering their toll low enough to drive you bankrupt?
And once you are bankrupt, what stops them from buying your bridge (using asset-based bank loans, not with cash-on-hand) and then raising all the tolls back to the original level?

Ever since it became possible for a company to buy it's competitors using nothing more than a bank loan, there has been no such thing as a "free market"

This was thought up LONG ago. Except the idea was to propel hydrogen plasma, not water.

There was too much backlash against the idea of nuclear rockets, due to the possibility of launch failure (turning the launch zone into a radioactive nuclear wasteland)