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Comment Re:I am planning to move to NC (Score 1) 1167

The "Tragedy of the Commons" occurs because of a lack of private property rights. Quite the opposite: If there were no public land, and every parcel was owned by someone (roads included) you would find that the owners would keep up after their property. I encourage you to at least read a few pages from this abstract on the Privatization of Roads and Highways, by Walter Block.

Comment Re:I am planning to move to NC (Score 1) 1167

"The driving force behind a private service's price is what they believe the maximum amount you will be willing to pay for their service."

Well, no. Not exactly. The driving force is supply and demand. That's why you see gas prices skyrocket during natural disasters -- it's the market's way of compensating for the fact that there's less of it available. If you want gas, you can get it, but only if you're willing to pay higher prices. In that way, you keep people from hoarding precious goods when they don't need to.

That's also why when you see government enact price controls to 'protect' the consumers, the words 'shortage' inevitably appears shortly thereafter. The price controls keep the prices artificially low, so more people buy. So much more that the 'supply' of that good or service isn't enough to handle the increased demand, and there's a shortage. That shortage otherwise wouldn't be there (or would be very, very minimal) if the market were allowed to set prices according to the situation. That's also the inherent problem with government: They're a monopoly, and they can't respond to changing situations like the private sector can. That's why you have problems of rationing during droughts. The government says to ration because that's the only way to handle the fact that there's a decreased supply of water but the same demand. If the price were to go up, people would naturally curb their desire to water their lawns as often as they otherwise would, all without the threat of imprisonment or force. The other problem with your statement is, "How do they know how much it costs?" There's no inherent 'right price' for a gallon of water. It all depends on a collection of factors -- factors that no one person can possibly know (see also: Why central economic planning fails); and that collection of factors is what you take into account when you have multiple producers competing to provide a product or service.

Comment Re:Encrypted? Hashed? (Score 1, Insightful) 207

This has all happened before, and it will all happen again.

Hashed passwords provide a degree of protection, so long as you salt the hash, and store a different salt for each password (for maximum protection).

Any programmer that doesn't understand salts, hashing, and encrypting should not bother making software that handles logins, period.
The Internet

MySpace to Offer Spyware for Parents 282

mrspin writes "Following continuing pressure from politicians (and parts of the media), MySpace is planning to offer parents the chance to download software which will monitor aspects of their children's activities on the social networking site. From a business point of view, the move appears to be a highly risky one. The young users of social networking sites are notorious for their lack of loyalty — and history suggests that a change like this could tempt many to abandon MySpace for the 'next cool thing'."
User Journal

Journal Journal: Penalized for being a Good Consumer

I *just* got off of the phone with two member of Chase Credit Card's finest, a customer service care representative, and an Account supervisor by the name of 'Jason'.

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