Now it seems we're happy if you just use camel-case.

I'm not happy with that fscked up naming scheme. The one right way to do it is to put an underscore in between each word.

int the_ultimate_answer = 42;

At least, until programming languages evolve further, spaces can be used in variable names, and those variable names are case-insensitive as they should be.

As in...
PROCEDURE [Get The Answer] IS
[Question] : Integer
DECLARE
[Answer] : Integer;
BEGIN
If [Question] = [The Ultimate Question] then
Answer := 42
Else
raise [The Answer is Unknown]
End
END

You actually run the risk, even asking the question, of implying you have an idea for a product on your current companies time, that you may be thinking about (even if not implementing), so if you leave they may claim that work was done on this project on their time, and you're in violation of their agreement

Possibly. It's also possible you will move to a different state, or country, to implement your idea, or incorporate the company in a different state. You may not advertise to the former employer the name of the new company, or what exactly you are working on.

I don't think they will chase ghosts. There's likely little to worry about there, at least unless/until your idea is actually successful, and generates income for you.

Downside is of course that your future business model would have to build around an OSS core

Then don't use the GPL for this. There are plenty of free software licenses this could be licensed under that would enable you to sublicense.

For example: You could have them retain copyright, but grant you an irrevokable write to modify, redistribute, sublicense, and produce derivative works.

Or use the BSD license / Academic Software License / Mozilla Public License.

Anyway in general I think it is a great idea for making the tax system far more fair.

It doesn't make the tax system more fair. Mark to market penalizes saving money by creating an artificial reason to force investors into paying taxes based on the theoretical amount they might get if they had sold the asset.

It devalues a great many type of assets -- if you have to get that painting appraised every year for mark to market, are you really going to risk buying a $500 piece of art? Now not only can you not have a nice decoration for your home (due to the burdensome costs of appraisal and accounting paperwork burdens), but now the seller cannot dispose of that piece, so economic value is lost, and lots of people are hurt.

Mark to market is also incompatible with the conditions under which Congress can lay taxes. The constitution doesn't allow the Federal government to tax property. The US congress can lay duties, excise taxes, tax commerce, etc, actual transactions, but not the condition of ownership of property which is protected under the 5th amendment of the constitution.
For the same reason that the US government does not have the power to assess a tax based on home ownership, for example , there is no power of taxation that permits requiring property owned to be appraised and "marking owned property to market", until commerce is actually conducted.

In a mark-to-market system if people don't want or can't afford the taxes, then they have to sell the asset to cover the tax, which means they lose capital, and therefore resources required to fuel economic growth.

The government is the worst possible hands for lost capital to fall into ( they are among the least efficient at spending money, and it's basically like burning the money), in other words -- the overall economy suffers greatly.

That creates a great disincentive to maintaining long term investment in the US, and creates inventive for moving money to countries that don't have asset taxes, which is ultimately a situation that is unfair to the people.

The other problem for investors is the risk of paying mark to market tax based on a market overvaluation of an asset, actually creates an unfair situation, a double loss when selling - loss in capital value, and loss due to taxes paid, since the government never refunds capital gains taxes, when they are later cancelled out by a greater equal loss.

IF the tax system were actually fair, every penny of investment loss would be fully refundable against every penny of tax paid in the past based on supposed gain.
And an anticipatory refund would have to issued based on 'losses marked to market', if the investor overall had a negative market treatment for the year.

But as with mark to market, there would be a serious deflationary effect which would likely cause what's left of the economy to implode.

Now Jobs' widow can sell those shares without paying any income tax on the appreciation before his death

That's because if those shares are all in Jobs' estate, they will count against Jobs' estate tax exclusion, once the tax excluded amount is exceeded, all the rest of the value of the estate is subject to estate tax, even if there was no appreciation on it.

we would have to cover nearly 100% of our continental land mass with this stuff to replace our current energy sources. Seems to me like smoking the other kind of grass really is a better deal.

We need our land. Something tells me, we'd be better off with vertically-oriented towers collecting solar energy on all surfaces or reflecting light onto point targets, and floating collectors in the oceans.

But towers have the advantage that if they're tall enough, wind collectors can be added on some of the higher floors, to reduce loss of production during overcast days, and there are more hours of daylight at higher altitudes.

Just because it's "green" doesn't mean it's safe to let just any yahoo install an electric generator on his hut. Methinks it might be wise to let the village electrician do the installing.

Nice thinking.... this is how you create jobs, and dig villages out of poverty. Now everyone who wants this solar electricity mat is forbidden from doing it themselves, so they'll have to hire a member of the union of village electricians, who will have to be trained by someone with the proper certifications, giving rise to a whole new training industry as well. Since a chemical expert is required to actually put the mat together, the electrician is only allowed to install it, and some other kind of worker is the only type of worker allowed to transport it after assembly, to the install site.

Even though the voltage and current output will be so small that you can barely power a small LED array.

Now if you really want to help solidify the village economies, you just need to get litigation in; perhaps a team of sue-happy lawyers could volunteer to go on a good-will mission expidition, to help build the ecosystem and bureaucracies required for lawyers to thrive, and spur an entire sector of their economies around that.

There are really own two certs I respect: Cisco's CCIE and Oracle's OCM. Both require hands-on lab demonstrations of skill. (Is RedHat doing that now, too?)

Microsoft MCM certifications require hands-on lab demonstrations of skill. And there are plenty of other IT certs with similar requirements, that are not simple "pass a test, get the cert".

Have you seen the requirements for the VMware VCDX and Cisco Certified Architect certifications that require prospectives to submit an application, have suitable experience shown, be accepted, build a design to certain requirements, and then defend their design choices in front of a panel?

They kind of make Oracle OCM and IE look like like 'easy' certs by comparison.

There are also things like CISSP-ISSMP, where applicants actually must have 2 years of job experience specifically related to the knowledge base and positive references to certify, in addition to passing tests, and they must show a fair number of hours of continuing education every year to stay certified; so holding the papers there takes a lot more than just passing a test too.

And a $1 (or so) charge for reserving a spot and then not parking there, or some douche will walk around the city reserving spots on his smart phone.

I would say the sensible thing is that you be required to pre-pay for the first hour of parking in order to reserve. Also, your paid up time remaining to park there should start ticking as soon as the reservation is open (not as soon as you park there).

For every complete hour you have the spot reserved, but haven't physically shown up, an additional convenience fee on top of the hourly parking charge should also be assessed for holding the place with no car in it.

That those rates can go up to $18/hr

That's really nasty.... so you can park to go to work, pay your parking $144 for 8 hours....

Your $30/hour wage, is effectively reduced to a $12/hour wage just by parking, before you have even added taxes.

You earn less than $25/hr you might as well just quit your job, because you'll be in the hole for parking at those unconscionable parking rates.