...but I still have a USB 3.5 floppy drive.

Nary a 3.5 floppy disk in the house, but I just can't bring myself to throw it in the trash :)

...let's do Mars first, and *then* take those lessons back to earth.

The law of unintended consequences for well intentioned human interventions into natural systems is legend. Diurnal mongoose introduced to Hawaii to eat nocturnal rats, ended up attacking the same endangered bird species as rats.

you just have to be so annoying that random moderators decide to go into your post history and find enough other pissy/whiny posts to mod down

If these are random moderators it seems like they are finding something so annoying that they not only mod the offending post down, but then go through post history and mod *everything* down as further punishment...that seems contradictory to the spirit of moderation which should, even for someone who is occasionally really, really annoying, give an honest mod to each post on its merits.

Of course, then again, maybe the moderation system is designed to allow for blanket punishment when you're really offended by someone's single comment...

For what it's worth, there is a limit to how many times you can moderate the same account.

What is that number?

Also, don't waste your time with Funny posts

Interesting...didn't know that, thanks!

Monopolies, in and of themselves, aren't anathema to customer satisfaction at all. The only real damage a monopoly can do is to create a climate (almost exclusively with government regulations and controls) that prevents competitors from its space.

About the only way that a monopoly can do harm without government is if they're sitting on such a pile of cash that they can undercut new competitors to drive them out of business...which, isn't a sustainable model for a monopoly - eventually they run out of money and competition makes it in. The undercutting the competitor model also ends up benefitting consumers, in a sick and twisted way.

That being said, Facebook isn't a monopoly unless you consider "Facebook" some single industry. It's certainly a shitty company, but that's another item entirely :)

Mod parent up - government regulated monopolies (de facto or de jure), create corporations whose success isn't predicated on customer satisfaction or customer value, but on their ability to manipulate the government to preserve their power.

Corporations tend to have a hard time dealing with diversity of thought - pandering using something superficial like internal or external genitalia or melanin content of the skin is the easiest thing to do to hit the "diversity" buzzword.

That being said, there is something to be said about having *some* similarity of thought in corporate culture. I mean, obviously it's not easy to have pro-fracking people work for the Sierra Club, or atheists working for Catholic Charities...there are some corporations out there that rightfully screen (and perhaps unfortunately screen) for a specific type of thinker.

I think the problem Apple has is that it's having mission creep - they're a technology company delving into social issues. I might appreciate some of their corporate choices, and decry others, but their forays into these kinds of topics are generally cynical marketing tools to shape brand image, or more disturbingly, arbitrary displays of power by leadership for their own personal convictions.

Your critique seems to tilt in favor of eliminating government schools entirely, and allowing responsible individuals decide exactly how and when, and if they send their kids to school. The fact that government schools have become de facto babysitting centers leads me to believe that if we're going to run them that way, we should just build them to that specification - eliminate any pretense at curriculum, and just hire babysitters to keep law and order amongst the inmates.

A compelling illusion, but an illusion nonetheless. The metadata generated by even the most privacy conscious individual leaves a mark, and given the resources of an interested government, only the most dedicated living off the grid can escape their view.

The only thing we have going for us, is that the vast majority of us won't raise the eyebrows of any government employees in our lifetimes. The sad part is that a lonely few will, and they'll be dealt with unfairly and harshly.

The general masses don't have much to fear, but anyone who raises the ire of a nameless bureaucrat will.

...doesn't really seem like a tangible promise :)

That *definitely* sounds like "because I say so".

"full faith and credit" is not the same as "gold, silver, oil, sheep"

Fiat is backed by something imaginary ("full faith and credit").

Non-fiat is backed by something real (gold, silver, oil, sheep).

Ecuador has neither.

Depends on what those liquid assets are. Backed by another fiat currency? Still a fiat currency. Backed by a gold backed currency? Sure, it's not a fiat currency anymore.

That being said, I'm not convinced Ecuador has either.

EPS, I get - like you said, there are already banks using phones like credit cards. Centralized banking, based on existing currencies, using cell phones for electronic payment is trivial and common.

The "digital currency" device - that's something a bit tricker, especially given the double (or more) spend problem from truly decentralized digital cash.

That being said, the whole "digital currency" bit being sold here is just the buzzword on top of "we're offering a new fiat currency".

You're mistaken.

If it is backed by a government with real assets (gold, silver, oil, sheep), it's not a fiat currency.

If it is backed by a government "full faith and credit", it's a fiat currency.

Ecuador cannot possibly hope to convince the world of *either*.

Because, of course, every last man, woman, and child in Ecuador has a PC or other digital currency device, right?

Ignoring the red herring of "digital", this is a bankrupt country trying to build a fiat currency that nobody is going to trust.

...heavily regulated/subsidized/driven by municipalities?

LA DWP, for example, essentially has the backstop of ratepayers/taxpayers for whatever financial missteps or misfortunes they might suffer.

Hard to go out of business when you're not driven by market forces.