It is not about the pump, as the hose is long enough to allow filling cars on both sides of the isle, but about the driver being able to check what is being done to his car on gas stations with full service.

No, it is not possible to "hash a retina scan", because just like fingerprint scans, the matching process for retina scans is based on feature comparisons. One can say that a retinal feature table is "a kind of a hash", but I disagree: it is quite easy to generate an artificial retina "clone" image from a list of features, just like it is easy to create a fake fingerprint from a list of fingerprint minutiae.

But database hackings are not the big issue here. If fingerprint or retina readers ever go maistream, you'll be simply sharing your password everywhere, from the gym to your job's access system.

If living at a poor neighborhood costs more, then people will start thinking about moving to better places that are still cheap. And that goes on and on and on. Most systems interact and housing prices are not exempt from that kind of price increase propagation.

In fact, most housing bubbles are created when credit lines are offered for low-income housing, just like the US Housing Bubble was created by subprime lending. People start thinking "If it costs X to live AT THAT UGLY PLACE, then my house is worth X + Y" and then the price goes up everywhere.

So why they just don't raise their prices right now, without giving any wage increases to their employees? If things are that simple, why are they avoiding an increase in revenue that would double their net income?

Are they stupid? No. Things are not that simple. They can't raise prices because that would lower the sales volume and also their net income. They probably employ dozens of people at their marketing department just to find that sweet spot.

So they could "OMG OMG DOUBLE" their wages and completely not pay for any of it because of simple market dynamics. But what if "OMG MAGIC" and we mandate that every single retailer in the food sector must DOUBLE wages right now? Inflation will be the answer. It's when people earn more money but buy less stuff, even after getting large wage increases.

You're not comparing just the weight of the energy storage element, but also the weight of the casing. And that has changed a lot in the last 10 years.

Apple have since day one insisted that everything in their computers be usable with single-button mice. Why? Because of user friendliness towards people who aren't comfortable with computers.

As a result Apple brought the world the double-click.. which is far more confusing to users than a second button.

I agree.

Spreading viruses via abandoned USB thumbdrives is probably the *least effective* and *most expensive* way to do it... it's just not happening in real life.

If you find a thumbdrive, it's going be the result of someone losing their thumbdrive. The odds that it has been rigged to infect your computer are so small as to be non-existent.

My sister had no idea there was a second man hiding in the back seat, and just wanted to be nice

I love these stories that have details that, if the story were actually true, no one would actually know.

Except that Apple is definitely looking to change the port with the iPhone 5.

Because neither will last forever. We could sit around until it's gone and then react to the catastrophe that follows (like we do with bridges and levies and education) or we could try some new things at relatively minimal cost in the meantime.

Hydrogen, being only a storage medium, is not a replacement for neither also. So the problem that "they will not last forever" is not being solved by those "new things".

You completely ignored his message.

(Some guy in 1960: "Why build this Internet thing when we already have phones and telegraphs and cans with string? We already have plenty of ways to communicate, why do we need one more?")

Not a valid comparison.

Apple requires the publishers do a 30/70 split if they want to be on iBooks... Apple also requires that publishers do the same 30/70 split with any competitors.

So, that's why they give away XCode (and a zillion tutorials, examples, etc.) for FREE?

It's not free anymore.

there is nothing stopping anyone from having a webstore too

Except you must charge the same on the webstore as you do in-app.. and you are NOT allowed a webstore if you don't have in-app purchases.

That means that the only way we can make any money at all is to ramp our price up to substantially higher than the recommended retail

You can't even do that.. Apple forbids you from charging more than anyone else.

So you have to charge the same amount as Apple does in iBooks.. but Apple gets 30% of your income.