Congrats on provoking so much vacuous ire?

Not disagreeing with you on the substance, but seems increasingly pointless to me to worry about it. Not just out of my pay grade, but these days all of the crucial decisions are being made by selfish a-holes for stupid and shortsighted reasons. Can't even imagine why they are so concerned about dying with the most toys, but...

Mod parent up? Deserves more visibility than -1, even though I disagree about Liu Cixin. Good, but I wouldn't rate him that highly. Really hard to pick a favorite... Possibly Iain M Banks? The Culture is such an optimistic view of the future, notwithstanding all the gruesome deaths?

But mostly I've been disappointed by most of the current SF authors. Too much rehashing of old themes... Currently reading Hyperion by Dan Simmons. Pretty goo, but again I wouldn't rate it at the top.

These years I'm losing faith in the value of catharsis. So what even if it makes someone feel better? Too many crucial decisions are being made by selfish a-holes for stupid shortsighted reasons.

Addressed in my other reply on the branch that started out more politely. But the short summary is that most of the honest businesses are basically using tested business models and in those cases the google is usually in a privileged position to confirm the general conformance to the claim.

I've actually written about this topic in the past, but my pie-in-the-sky vision is a two part tab that wannabe downloaders could look at. The top part would be the claims of the developer. Perhaps going beyond the money to motivations. The lower part would be under the google's control and would most often say "Yes, we have evidence to support the above claims" or "This business model is out of our scope and we know nothing". Maybe the google response will go farther in some cases, something like "This business model seems questionable and we caution you about using this app and want to remind you that we are not liable if you do it anyway."

I'm not disagreeing, but I would still prefer to seek solutions.

Most of the time the paths to legitimate profitability are well known. Those paths can be presented as options from a list. In those cases where the google is involved in handling the money, then the google is also in a position to say more about what is going on. I specified that there should be room for "other", but pushing the developers to clarify their plans will at least make it easier for potential downloaders of the app to have a more informed judgement of the risks.

Seems to be a fairly typical response these days. No, your interpretation is not what I wrote or intended and you didn't ask for any clarification or help in understanding my poor writing. I also think your writing is not of the best, but my sadly too typical response is to discount your opinion. Or perhaps I should react defensively and try to explain what I was trying to say?

However I suspect you have some axe to grind (as do I) and therefore there is no reason for me to make so much effort--and the discussion will time out and die in a day or two anyway.

Fairness is a weak sauce problem. Much larger problem is incentives in favor of criminals. How many Android apps are really trustworthy? "Fairness" for crooks doesn't help.

I'm increasingly convinced it's a waste of time to speculate about solutions, but I still think a "business model" tab could help a little bit. Most of the time the developer would just select from the main options, and in most of those cases the google could say yay or nay without revealing too many details. Of course there also needs to be room for new ideas and innovations, but saying what is going on would let you decide what to watch out for and also help predict how long the app will be around...

I was going to quote it, but looking at the continuation of the FP branch it apparently deserves negative moderation. (Notwithstanding the lack of clarity.) I was also going to ask for clarification about the stupid typo, but now I don't care.

One appropriate question might be "What part of the Constitution can't you understand?" Apparently all of it. Or "When did you lose your marbles?" Or even "What have you done with the real person who created that identity?"

I'd guess that it's the senility thing, but I might be projecting from my age. I was already getting up there when I registered on Slashdot, but you might have been a mere child in those years.

Thanks, but even looking at the full context and with that definition, I'm missing the joke. So why haven't the moderators rated it Funny already?

I have to disagree regarding the human cloning. However I think it is being hidden quite carefully because it is illegal.

Having said that, I think the most interesting clone candidate would actually be John Henry. I'm sure there are some gene samples available since he didn't die until 2007.

Pretty sure "gyre" is intended as a joke, but websearch failed me [just] now. Care to clarify the joke?

The "future shape" I was thinking of actually involved smartphone-enhanced clothing. Still don't understand why no one (that I know of) is making clothing with suitable adaptations for smartphones. Also shower proof pouches for people who worry about missing a message when they are in the shower...

ACK, and I was also probably wrong about the location. I had just had my first look at a tiny map and I didn't realize how much farther north the tsunami zone was. Only about a three-meter tsunami, which is quite small compared to March 11th.

Mod parent funny.

And Ponzi schemes are sure to collapse.

Thanks for the heads up. Middle of the night here, but if you want to follow it in English, https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworl... has a live feed. I'm watching it now. Haven't seen the epicenter, but the tsunami warning zone indicates the same area as the quake in 2011 that killed 20 thousand people and led to the Fukushima #1 fiasco.