Yep. The new system is pretty damn good. The app is great. Here's a basic step through.

1. Press "taxi" icon
2. Press "Send cab"
3. Press "Now" (or enter a time)
4. It asks "at your currently location?" (uses your phones gps)
5. Press "Yes"
6. I think it asks for destination, but I don't remember the details.
7. Responds with "Cab in route. Approximate arrival time is 4 minutes 33 seconds"
8. A few minutes later your phone buzzes and a message shows, "Your cab has arrived".

It doesn't get any simpler than that. The taxi drivers love it (for the reasons you stated). The riders love it because it's faster and easier than the old phone system. The dispatchers hate it because they can no longer skim the drivers' fares. In NYC, I'm sure the cab companies skim from the dispatchers. The thing is, the cab companies probably see increased profits, except it will all be "on the books". The entire taxi infrastructure of NYC is rotten to the core (pun intended). A side note. The cab companies in NYC have hired lobbyists to get Washington, DC to implement a NYC medallion system. The tax drivers are fighting that tooth and nail.

My roommate could have gotten in on the ground floor of the company that makes this system, but he turned it down (he's still kicking himself over that).

ALL sex comes with health risks. I get it though. You're pointing out risky behaviors. And I rather agree with you on this.

People who engage in clinically risky behavior should receive fewer public benefits and not be a burden to the public. I say this while knowing that I too have engaged in risky behaviors -- who hasn't? I have been heavily into bicycling in the Washington DC area -- if that's not risky, I don't know what is.

But I accepted the risk and the possibility that I could get injured or killed. I had no expectation that the world owed me anything.

Reality: We are a society. What people do affects everyone else at some level.

Let's remember that obesity is an unhealthy condition. It is unhealthy and overwhelmingly self-inflicted. Medical students are quite often idealists and are all about the science of medicine. Combine the two and what do you get? What's surprising is the 2 of 5 number isn't 4 of 5 or higher.

Most people in the US could have the IRS prepare their taxes based on income, interest, and other factors that are already reported to the IRS. I know the IRS could prepare most of my taxes with me just adding a few details. The reason this does not happen is that tax preparers pay huge bribes to legislators. An online service would not be that hard. It would also protect low income people from fraudulent loans for money they would have in couple days anyway.

The government grows because the nation grows. A larger more complex nation requires larger services. For instance, there were no need for ultra engineered paved roads in 1776. Post war federal spending as a percent of GDP has been around 20%. Most of the complexity in the tax code is to provide special privileges to special entities. It is, however, correct, for those certain entities will have income that is hard to define. This is why a flat tax would not work. Most of us we would pay about the same, but the special entities would manage to define income so they would pay less. Look at it this way. If I make money by working with my own two hands, my body, that is taxed at a higher rate than if I sit back and earn interest. Income of the wealthy is different differently than income of the working class.

The current deficit situation is probably caused by special entities not paying as much tax as they once did. For instance, federal debt fell rapidly post war, but increased 30 percentage points with respect to GDP during the reagan bush era. There were two reasons for this. First, as mentioned, borrowing is good and the country was not paying the debt down too fast. Second, Reagan cut taxes to below sustainable levels, something with bush realzied and fixe resulting, along with good, policy, the debt falling about 10 percentage points during the Clinton years.

It was attempted. A system that automates the routing of taxicabs via voice calls and cell phone apps is available and works extremely well. The companies that control the taxi business in NYC made sure it couldn't get a foothold. One of the reasons it is disliked by the entrenched powers is it eliminates the dispatcher. Now you'd think that is a good thing since it reduces overhead while increasing efficiency. Except it also eliminates the bribes the taxi drivers need to pay to the dispatchers if they ever want to get work.

As much as I dislike Bloomberg, I hope he is successful in destroying the current taxi business status quo.

No internet, email or smartphone. I'm usuualy outdoors doing something.

I can't tell if you're joking or not. 10 (base 12) == 12 (base 10). 12 (base 10) is divisible by 2 and 3 regardless of what base you use to represent it. FWIW if I were going to change our numeric base, 16 seems like a better choice for the aforementioned digital aspects. Plus there's already widespread use of hex in the computer industry, just as there was widespread use of metric in science before it started spreading to the general public. On sale now! For the low, low, price of just $1FF.FF. LOL, pennies would be worth even less... BTW... I am joking. I have no desire to convert everyday numbers to hex.

Cycling back to the article, the White House response is spot on. If the person behind the counter at In-n-out can take my order in English, and then take the next order in fluent Spanish (I've seen this happen) then there's no reason why we can't have a mix of measures.

So here is my problem. When kids join the military, they think that it is all free. That they get the free money, free training, free room and board, a pension, healthcare, all at taxpayer expense, for free. You don't. When in the military you boss is the POTUS, and you don't get to argue. You agreed with that when you accepted the above minimum wage paycheck for training. Also, according to what I read, you accept to be inactive duty for a number of years. I would also add that if you go around saying you are a decorated veteran, there is some responsibility to not act like a fool and disgrace that work.

This is true to some extent for any taxpayer funded job. If you are a teacher you can be let go for your facebook page. If you are a politician you can be forced to resign for your tweets. Taxpayer funded jobs are not like private jobs. They come with strings.

In this light let look at this case. This guy is a retired Marine, which means that he volunteered to serve his country, follow the chain of command, and accepted a pay check to do so. He is 26-27 so he is probably still on active duty. He is quoted as saying "I'm starting the Revolution. I'm done waiting." I don't know about you, but when a person trained in war says that they are going to start a revolution, that would make a little worried.

Note that such a thing is the basis for treason..."Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort. No Person shall be convicted of Treason unless on the Testimony of two Witnesses to the same overt Act, or on Confession in open Court."

My understanding he is being treated with kid gloves. He was held in a mental facility, instead of being charged with treason. If he is suffering from PSTD this is a good thing. Many vets do not get the help they need, and listening for these cries for help is something that the government should be doing.

In the end Facebook, despite what we want to believe, is a public venue and we should not be plotting revolutions using it. Everyone knows Twitter is where all the cool revolutionaries go. The government has some responsibility to monitor public communications to keep the country safe. This is one of the few enumerated roles of government, and is why this kid did not have to go out and find a real job. In this case, he many only be crazy as opposed to someone who would go into Time Square a shoot a dozen people. In either case, be it prevention or help, I don't see how this is a bad thing. If nothing else it is an example to kids that the military is not just playing soldier, it has some lifelong responsibilities.

AFAIK, every car sold in the US has a dual readout speedometer. When I got a car with digital display I found that this was accomplished with a toggle-button. This leads to a trick that gets old quickly. "Hey this car has a button that makes it go 120 in an instant" /me toggles to kph. Hardee-har-har.

5280 feet in a mile

Care to foot the bill (no pun intended) for all the land records that would have to change? Aside from the problem of changing, that 5280 feet is very convenient. How?

A square mile is a "section", which is 640 acres. Now 640 acres ought to be enough for anybody (heheh). You could be the "section boss"--a familiar phrase from the Old West. Take that section and cut it into 16 equal squares. You get 16 40-acre plots. You could have "40 acres and a mule" if you bought one--another familiar phrase with deep meaning to African-Americans. The 40 acres are conveniently divided again into 10 acres plots, then in half for a five acre lot. Five acre lots were common mini-estate sizes where I grew up for this reason.

OK fine, by all means define the foot in terms of metric; but remove it from all records and from the culture? No. Just. No.

Aside from that, the Metric system is no less arbitrary than our customary units. The only reason 10 matters is because we have 10 digits on our hands. An alien race might not. If you want something truly universal, consider Planck units. Otherwise, all the metric arguments just boil down to "my arbitrary system is better than yours".

If anything, a system where things are commonly divided into two is more "ready for the digital age" than one that uses base-10 everywhere.

All that aside, I've gotten used to some metric units over the years. Liters are nice enough; but Celcius? Fuggedaboutit. Each decade of the Fahrenheit scale has a readily associated "feel" that Celcius can't match. They're both arbitrary systems, so it's really just one person's preferance vs. another.

I don't have any problem with making that definition. Wilful denial of access to information which can save lives is far more important than money -- any amount of money. And we need some laws on the books that will enforce this notion. It's truly sickening how far people will go.

But you know, I also consider war to be murder. Leaders who risk nothing send people to other places to kill other people and get killed. All the while, telling people lies about "freedom" and crap like that.

The IQ of the dog is inversely proportional to how far it runs when you throw an imaginary stick.

We need additional measurements... not just IQ and intelligence. We need maturity, wisdom and sociopathy measurments as well.

These days we put a lot of weight behind a person's "success" however that may be measured (most often in dollars) and presume it is a sign of superiority -- ostensibly intelligence or ability. But then I see those same people and often see them as failures as they lack some truly important qualities that would make them great people.

Oh that's an insulting conclusion.

The fact is, when I use a glossy laptop screen, all I see is myself. It's annoying. Also, I see whatever is going on behind me which is also annoying at times. Being distracted by random events is a sign of lower intelligence? I don't know about that. I tend to be a bit hyper-aware... especially of tiny details. I can't STAND to see a mobile phone with cracks in the the display, for example, while other people seem to have no problem with it as long as it works.

You're right... I'll just go back to studying my Cisco and Microsoft exam books...