I live in Cleveland, where our motto is... "At least we're not Detroit"

I'm also on Verizon and even though I am no longer unlimited, I was still really hoping for another LTE nexus. I guess I will probably be hanging on to my galaxy nexus for awhile longer. If anyone wants to go ahead and say it's not a nexus, that's fine, I really don't care too much. At least it's something with stock Android. I'm happy enough with it.

There is a huge difference in monthly price for a tablet data plan. I have the latest iPad on Verizon LTE for the $30/month 2gb data plan. I used to have my galaxy nexus on a smartphone plan which ran over $80/month for the cheapest voice/texting/data. I had Verizon transfer my data plan over to my iPad and it was MUCH cheaper. Plus both devices use a micro sim. I put the iPad sim in my phone, and now my galaxy nexus is now basically a data only smartphone using google voice.

That is good to hear. I worked as a developer at a couple different software companies in the past, where people were constantly there past 6 or bringing their work home the entire evening. Now that I work in the IT department of a large corporate headquarters, most everyone is gone by 5. Sometimes I even work through lunch and leave at 4 and nobody seems to care as long as I get work done. I find I enjoy programming much more under these conditions.

It's not my salary, just a number I picked. The going rate for a senior developer in my area seems to be hovering around 85-90.

Frankly, I would rather earn 90k, work less, and have more free time to spend with my family.

I know you're sarcastic, but I used to spend way more than 8 minutes a month tagging mp3s and renaming music files... That is hours of my time saved in exchange for that 8 minutes.

I pay for a music streaming service even though I could download or rip almost everything I want to listen to. Why? Because it is too damn convenient. I have no desire to mess with poor quality torrents or organizing my own music collection anymore. Hell, I used to spend more than $10 a month just buying CDs. And some of those I would get tired of pretty quickly. If you have a decent programming job/salary, $10 a month is not all that much.

It would seem the history of state and federal spending since 1956 disagrees with you. As you can see in figure 2 on page 9 of this paper, there is a clear upward trend in the majority of years. http://www.cbo.gov/sites/default/files/cbofiles/ftpdocs/121xx/doc12173/05-17-highwayfunding.pdf

Yes, I admit that some of the literary references in the article are outdated, but the arguments presented therein are just as relevant today as 30 years ago. As to whether it is tendentious or rhetorically flat, well, that is a matter of opinion.

What reasons are there for advocating the free market approach for the highway industry? First and foremost is the fact that the present government ownership and management has failed. The death toll, the suffocation during urban rush hours, and the poor state of repair of the highway stock, are all eloquent testimony to the lack of success which has marked the reign of government control. Second, and perhaps even more important, is a reason for this state of affairs. It is by no means an accident that government operation has proven to be a debacle, and that private enterprise can succeed where government has failed.

Just as in other businesses, there would be facets peculiar to this particular industry. The road entrepreneur would have to try to contain congestion, reduce traffic accidents, plan and design new facilities in coordination with already existing highways, as well as with the plans of others for new expansion. He would have to set up the "rules of the road" so as best to accomplish these and other goals. The road industry would be expected to carry on each and every one of the tasks now undertaken by public roads authorities: fill potholes, install road signs, guard rails, maintain lane markings, repair traffic signals, and so on for the myriad of "road furniture" that keeps traffic moving.

Applying the concepts of profit and loss to the road industry, we can see why privatization would almost certainly mean a gain compared to the present nationalized system of road management.

Government is the reason we don't have more efficient transportation. Our politicians decided that everyone should drive, so they took our money and built lots of congested highways. Here is what we really need:

FREE MARKET TRANSPORTATION: DENATIONALIZING THE ROADS* by Walter Block. Department of Economics. Rutgers University, Newark.

Government regulation is the direct CAUSE of our telecom monopolies in the first place. That didn't work out so well, so they try to apply band-aid after band-aid. Talk about breaking your leg and giving you crutches. "See, without us you wouldn't be able to walk!"

This is what I have already done. I was in the mode of upgrading my smartphone, and got the galaxy nexus when that first came out. I ultimately decided to sell it and buy an iPad instead. I am back to using my older Droid 2 as a prepay phone on page plus without much of a data plan. I have the new LTE iPad which is only $30 a month for 2GB. That is a LOT cheaper than the $80 I was paying for voice and data on my galaxy nexus. I'm happy just using my Droid 2 mostly as a phone and doing my mobile internet on an iPad. I carry it with me on the train to work and read my news feeds every day.

I have Apple's keyboard dock and their Digital AV Adapter. You bet your ass I would work on some iOS apps directly on my iPad if I could. My laptop and desktop are both windows. I don't own a mac. Why should I have to buy a mac just to develop apps for my tablet?