Why would we need a more in-depth description? We already got our car metaphor!

You have the compact file size of a lossless codec with the crystal clear playback of a lossy one! Everybody wins!

I'm curious how damage is being done to the company in loss of good will. I certainly wouldn't be surprised if the outrage caused by this lawsuit alone didn't cost them much more than $300M. I'm not sure whether the whole fiasco will cost them more than $200B, probably not, but I know many people who won't do business with AIG ever again if they can help it. Sometimes money grubbing is a bad business move.

Yes, yes the observer has free will. The alternative is boring, goes against every shred of observable evidence and makes the very question of whether we have free will immaterial. Can we move on as a society now?

Did they just ask /. that?

FairTax would fix a whole lot of things, that's for sure. But the stimulus is such an absurd blank check for pork barrel politicians that I'd be truly amazed if this doesn't cripple the economy for years longer that it need be. It's just like when the Bush administration pushed through all it's agenda after 9/11 on the pretense of "national security", now the Dems are pushing through everything on the pretense "economic stimulus". I'm convinced that if they just stopped doing shit all the time, the American people, hard working and innovative as they are, would find a way to thrive in the new state of things. It's the constant flux and the uncertainty it breeds that's holding us back now.

Why not give some level of tax breaks to corporations who open source their code. They're essentially donating their code, and we give tax breaks for donations all the time (so long as it's to an applicable entity). Valuing the code for the tax break would be difficult, as it probably should be measured by how much use comes from the code, but it might be easier to work off of how much income the code generates for the company, maybe 5% off taxes for incomes generated from the project or something. But it'd provide a really nice incentive for sharing innovation.

The thing is huge, look at the size of the person's hand: http://www.informationweek.com/galleries/showImage.jhtml?galleryID=297&imageID=2&articleID=202103424

Now you're just bragging. I have only one phone, but it's a banana phone. Ring, ring, ring, ring...

+5 funny? I'd have given it insightful. He's exactly right in his analogy, the flexibility of paper as a writing surface over more rigid surfaces adds a great deal to it's usefulness. An ultra thin and flexible screen would add just as much over these comparably huge and cumbersome LCDs we're using now.

The flaw in your argument you seemed to have missed is that there are no beautiful intelligent women. SeePage87 1, MBraynard 0.

+5 informative for a commonly know fact, eh? Let me give it a try:

Cats are mammals. Mod points, please!

To be fair, if you're allowed to drop the emotion and irrationality card, you just aren't going to find a philosophy that holds merit. You're best bet is a system that leverages the devils we know and can reasonably mitigate it's weak spots.

Communism doesn't work because it's trying to leverage non-universal human characteristics. Capitalism, while certainly not perfect, has the good sense at least to leverage greed into something productive. It's the mitigation of it's weak spots at which it doesn't do very well (at least in the US's current implementation); greed, instead of just encouraging productivity, also encourages absurd amounts of special interest group lobbying and rent-seeking behavior. I'd say this marks the main difference between objectivism's version of capitalism and reality; e.g. in Atlas Shrugged, those who seek success through regulation instead of by their own merits are the antagonists. I'm inclined to agree, since I believe farm subsidies, ethanol mandates, sugar import quotas and their ilk are tantamount to theft.

A system that leverages greed into a productive force is a good start. If we could create one that did the same for laziness, covetousness and the rest of the deadly se7en we'd be all set.

No, I'm pretty sure greed is the ultimate success of objectivism, or rather, what I call "moral" greed. So long as you constrain yourself as often as possible to Pareto improvements, acts that benefit you without harming others, greed is a tremendously powerful and productive force. You're right that humans are greedy, it's fact. Objectivism recognizes this and only seeks to guide that greed, just as laws against theft and fraud are designed to do.

I do. It amazes me how long it takes some people to catch on.