I would also add to this list audible.com which restricts certain books to US only. I am a platinum subscriber to audible, however, I couldn't get my hands on Stephen King's Under The Dome. So I got it from the thepiratebay pretty much on the next day. I did buy other King's books on audible though.

listening podcasts and audiobooks on normal speed => listening at 2x speed

The nice thing about markets is that people can put their money where their mouth is. I wonder if DHH, assuming he had an opportunity, would short facebook at $50 billion valuation. Investment banks have talented people working for them, and they have excellent knowledge on how different assets are priced, they may be wrong but it's very hard to tell exactly when they are wrong. I guess betting against them would be rational if DHH had some unique insight as to why $50B is too much. However a claim about the bubble 2.0 or frothy markets is not something unique -- I'm sure they have already priced this public sentiment into the deal.

Well, his whole point is that Goldman isn't value investing, but hoping to profit as a market maker. Goldman may believe the stock is basically worthless but still think they can make big profits on the deal.

As for "people can put their money where their mouth is" and shorting:

"Markets can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent." -Keynes

shorting means you have to also be able to stomach the upside pain. Maybe it'll end low, but you have to have enough capital to float against margin calls while it climbs. I know people that got eaten alive for shorting yahoo back around 2000 - they were certain it was overvalued and rode short positions from $40 till over $100. Then their wives made them liquidate the positions; if they'd held out a little longer they would have won... shorting isn't all about being right - you also have to have enough capital.

The above quote is very apt. Even if I didn't believe in FB's valuation, I wouldn't short it because I doubt I have the financial fortitude to take the pain.

Wait till they bring the economy down again and the smart talented people at GS ask for a bailout.

Besides how would you short shares in a privately held company?

By trading securities that derive from a private vehicle that owns shares.

they would just multiply the number of downloads by the average ticket price and ask for the compensation for the lost revenues caused by piracy.

What if those downloads were by people who already paid to see the movie in theaters and downloaded it later to watch it again?

If they waited for the DVD or Blueray to be released they could watch it an unlimited number of times after paying once. Should each time they watch it at home on a legally purchased DVD be considered a lost theater sale?

Well, actually, from what we've all seen, MPAA and RIAA like to ask for much larger penalties than that; sometimes thousands or tens of thousands of dollars, per violation.

No, that would be much closer to a reasonable penalty than they attempt to incur.

Since goals change every 4 years and that is a major problem, let's just privatize the whole thing.

Because the chief goal of educating children should be profit.

Because the profit component makes any system more efficient.

At making a profit.

and at providing the service.

Only if all of the following conditions are met:

1. There are multiple options for the customer.

2. The customer is able to accurately asses the quality of different offerings.

3. The cost to switch providers is negligible.

Otherwise, you will either get a monopoly or a lemon market.

1. at least in the urban areas, there are always just as many schools to choose form as grocery stores (so check)

2. easy, just select schools with good graduation, low crime etc. - just as people are selecting good schools now by relocating to a different(better) neighborhood. (check)

3. people switch schools all the time just as they switch jobs, granted you may have difficulties to do it in mid semester but this is not a serious obstacle. (check)

So, all the conditions are met, can we open the market to competition now?

Maybe instead of comparing military and education in terms of why unions are allowed in one and not in the other, he should just make a comparison between education and any private sector with functioning competition. I'd say the benchmark for education should not be the military but rather retail. Imagine schools as efficient as Walmart or Starbucks.

if school was a Walmart, would teachers be shipped from China in Panamax container ships?

If they did a better job, they would.

> "Due to Armadillo Aerospace, in the last decade I have observed and interacted with a lot of different agencies, civil servants, and congressmen, and I have collected enough data points to form some opinions."

I think this is very important part of his argument. A person who has just graduated from high school has very little first hand knowledge about how things work and can only parrot stuff learned mostly from media sometimes from books. You can dismiss Carmack's arguments only if you think that Carmack:

a) has a political agenda and is lying about his experience with government

b) has a low IQ and is incapable of seeing how things "really work"

c) has significantly less experience than you and your experience with government has been very much different.

If you just graduated high school a year ago and everything you needed to know about politics you learned from the Daily Show, at least give Carmack the benefit of the doubt. Maybe he's on to something.

To see what the most advanced futurists, namely Jules Verne, were thinking about the far out future, take a few minutes and read this interesting piece published in 1889. The story is titled In the Year 2889, here's the link http://wondersmith.com/scifi/2889.htm

I had the same problem and then I switched on Safari's Reader feature -- problem solved.

According to The Invisible Gorilla (very interesting book btw) there have been other experiments done with gamers that supposedly found improved cognitive abilities resulting from intense FPS gameplay. However, the authors of the book did more digging and concluded that some of those experiments on gamers were never independently confirmed by other experimenters. Here's an article on the subject: http://theinvisiblegorilla.com/blog/2010/04/20/the-limits-of...

That sentence is not entirely clear to me.

Did it imply that the experiments were never repeated or that the experiments were repeated and the results were negative?

results were negative.