The topic is right on. I see it all the time in trading... The Firehouse Effect is a notion attributed to a veteran market trader Marty O’Connell “that firemen with much downtime who talk to each other for too long come to agree on many things that an outside, impartial observer would find ludicrous”. Also Silicon Valley violates the principles of good decision making as outlined in Wisdom of the Crowds by James Surowiecki. Good decision making by groups: Diversity of opinion - Each person should have private information even if it's just an eccentric interpretation of the known facts. Independence - People's opinions aren't determined by the opinions of those around them. Decentralization - People can specialize and draw on local knowledge. Aggregation - Some mechanism exists for turning private judgments into a collective decision. SV has become a hotbed of McCarthyism in reverse.

My thought yesterday when I saw Tagg from Qualcomm was everyone would use it for tracking their wife or husband instead of a dog, which it is intended. At $200 its a much lower cost Lojack but I cant find out how much the subscription is. I heard the FBI versions are several thousands of dollars so this sure looks like a deal if the sub cost is cheap enough. I have seen some places that say that the first year of service is free. Someone told me they had there trailer stolen. Seems like a nice application for tracking all kinds on things. http://www.pettracker.com/pet-gps