sipior's comments

Thanks, chubot, I think I see the point now.

Could I trouble you to elaborate on that a bit? I'm not sure I understand why XML would be better than JSON in that case.

I used to think this as well, until I moved across an ocean. I'm a big fan of packing light nowadays.

Yes, I believe you are still obligated to file. Not sure how rigidly that's policed, though.

Yes, although there is a high deductible (~$80k, as I recall). It's never been something I needed to worry about, but FATCA most definitely will be. I don't know the answer to your last question, but I've never personally heard of another nation with similar policies.

I don't disagree with your last statement, but I also wish to point out that there are, believe it or not, other reasons to encrypt email that do not involve the NSA.

Actually, I don't believe you when you say you have no desire to solve the problem. Your referenced comment suggests otherwise.

Taking the piss out of the mailpile folks is probably professionally satisfying, on some level, but I think you have to admit that, once your done, we're still left with a fundamental problem. Your objections are perfectly correct, but surely you can appreciate the frustration when folks who should know what they're doing can only contribute a, "well, someone else should design a new email system with these features." Thanks for the help.

Yes, it is not perfect. Yes, traffic analysis is still a problem. Yes, it has not yet been vetted (because it doesn't really exist yet, which I think you have to admit is a pretty good reason). Still, it's better than flapping your arms about, helpfully declaring, "THE PROBLEM IS UNSOLVABLE!!"

Yes gioele, I know. But we're not talking about flaws in the mailpile cryptosystem. Obviously their implementation of GPG will have to be professionally vetted. The other flaws (vulnerability to traffic analysis, reliance upon the recipient to store the message contents securely), are, to put it mildly, very hard to solve with email in its current incarnation. Taking the piss out of the mailpile folks because they don't solve these issues seems churlish at best.

With luck, they'll deliver a good, self-hosted gmail replacement with a secure mail store that's easy for folks to install on their own. That's surely a step forward.

Okay, Harry, let us know when you're done with that :-) I suspect most of the rest of us would prefer the perfect not be an enemy of the good.

When the announcement of this plan was made at last year's GenCon, they were very clear that more books would be added as time went on, likely in short order. It's a pretty big catalogue.

Well, he's dead now, which I'm pretty sure is what raldi was getting at :-)

The same way you can explain electromagnetism as a field throughout space-time, and then pretend that it's a force transmitted by photons. Feynman once famously claimed that no one really understood quantum mechanics, if that makes you feel any better; I'm not sure that's strictly true, but perhaps we've simply defined understanding down a bit :-)

Usual disclaimer about the pending detection of the graviton, etc, etc.

Your last sentence draws an arbitrary distinction between a "force" and a "phenomenon" which does not appear to be borne out in reality, and if I may say so, is at the heart of your trouble understanding why both 1) and 2) are correct.

I'll take you at your word regarding your examples of "thrills", although I would note that the horse is probably less impressed :-)

I'm not sure about your last point. Enormous strides have been made in designing road networks that are far more tolerant of heavy loads. But gridlock is also in some sense a social problem, and so a purely technological or algorithmic solution is perhaps unrealistic.

Having fun whilst driving is not actually incompatible with road safety, and I'm not entirely sure why you seem to be suggesting that it is. The cause of this horrible accident certainly wasn't an excess of (driving) enjoyment.

People drive for reasons other than commuting, of course. I happen to like driving (especially since I learned to drive a manual). I'm sorry if you don't.

Your last point is certainly true. I used to commute to work via a combination of bike and train; getting a car cut my commute in half, and I am decidedly happier for it.

That's true. You'll forgive me if I drive as though it wasn't ;-)

That's certainly a fair point. But you try explaining that to a person who lost a spouse or a child in a car crash resulting from a "glitch". Humans, for better or worse, like to have a sense of control over their own circumstances, even when that sense is almost completely illusory.

Because the guy driving a compact is under no illusions regarding his odds of surviving a crash :-)

Amazement, and a wistful longing for a simple freedom enjoyed in the distant, halcyon past. Before nervous, frightened people in denial of their own conspicuous mortality decided to remove yet another source of fun and excitement because of the irresponsible actions of a few.

I think the leading cause of death in "a few decades" will be profound boredom.

(Also, whilst a computer may indeed be well-suited to drive my car as a matter of principle, there is still the small matter of it being programmed by humans...)

Right, that was the part I did understand :-) What I didn't get was why the parent comment was disappointed that Google didn't choose SCTP over SPDY, since no either-or choice is required here. Couldn't SPDY be run over SCTP as well (leaving aside the problems with SCTP that you brought up in your previous comment), albeit with some redundant functionality?