dodedo

Absolutely. I should make it clear: I am not defending Yahoo's behavior here. Just trying to keep the facts factual.

No, they didn't. Your memory of history is incorrect.

Overture, a completely different company, sued Google in 2002, two years before their IPO.

Yahoo purchased Overture in 2003. After this, Google settled.

Google's IPO wasn't until 2004.

No, this is not accurate.

Overture sued Google in 2002. Yahoo bought Overture in 2003, at which point Google settled. Google's IPO was in 2004.

Yahoo did not initiate the lawsuit against Google, and it was two years prior to their IPO.

VISA merchant rules generally guarantee that the plastic price will match the cash price. It's true that the merchant raises prices to compensate, but paying cash doesn't avoid that charge -- everyone pays the CC tax regardless of payment method. So you might as well get some of it back.

With 1% cash back, no less. I try to funnel all my expenses through a card -- and pay in full each billing cycle naturally.

And a difference of opinion:

I want to see the exchange as work for time, because I work much more effectively than many other people. An hourly-rate job is simply not attractive to me, because the hourly-rate will not effectively capture my value.

As explained by grellas above, overtime in the US is typically applied to replaceable workers who's hourly value is a more or less quantifiable resource. If I'm flipping burgers, painting a house, or banging out simple webapps based on someone else's design then it's fairly easy to quantify the value of my time.

However, if I'm working in an industry where force multipliers abound, for example software engineering, or any sufficiently advanced executive/management position, I would much rather capture the value of what I produce -- there simply cannot be a good fit with shoehorning me into an hourly value rate. It simply isn't an accurate way to represent my value.

This is best exemplified by jobs which supply equity stakes. If you give me a chunk of your company I'm no longer working for free, when I work overtime.

"That's a bad deal for Tesla. It could mean financial ruin if there are too many irresponsible owners."

On the contrary, if there are too many irresponsible owners then Tesla is ruined if they DON'T cover it. Imagine what "too many Tesla bricked cars" would do to their product image.

Look, this is very simple. Warranty systems are underwritten like insurance policies. It's little risk to Tesla -- the question is the underwriter's risk assessment. If the underwriter won't cover it on affordable terms, it suggests the risk is too high and the product is poorly designed. At that point, the path of failure is chosen (expensive underwriting policy vs expensive PR debacle) is irrelevant. The only issue is whether the risk assessment is accurate -- it becomes a gamble.

Yes, I mentioned the gas/rust/coagulation issue in the post you replied to. I should mention that I have been through this process myself and I am well aware of the steps necessary to restore a long-sitting gas vehicle to service.

If a car is left to sit for a year the gas will be bad, but there will likely be no further repair necessary other than flushing the fuel system. This is relatively cheap. Even if one mistakenly tries to start it and gets water in the engine, the repairs are far less costly than the $40,000 battery price tag on the tesla.

I had mentioned a decade specifically in regard to engine seizure -- you will not have this problem over a shorter time period such as one year. Nor will you have dry-rot of your hosing or any other major mechanical malfunction. Ruined gas and a dead battery are about the limits of damage in the one year period -- possibly a tire may go flat.

The big deal is that if I leave my $80k gasoline car in a garage for a year it will take very little to get it running again. Probably a few hundred bucks. Perhaps up to several thousand dollars if I foolishly try to start it and get very unlucky. But you can't reasonably construct a scenario where a garaged gasoline car is likely to sustain $40,000 in damages just from safely sitting out of the elements. It's just not possible, period.

You said: "Actively impeding the prosecution, in the form of refusing to decrypt a drive known to contain inculpatory evidence, is in many ways tantamount to destroying that evidence."

But it isn't /actively/ impeding, it's passive. One is refraining from taking an action.

Yes, it isn't recommended as it may cause the tires to fail. But, this is very, very rare. The manual recommends all manner of preventative measures and while they're all good ideas they're also not at all necessary.

My personal experience says otherwise.

I've run down the battery on my car, motorcycle, mower, or other vehicles I don't often use. It is not an expensive ($40,000) fix -- often it just takes a recharge because lead-acid batteries are not as easily damaged as lithium-ion. Replacement is relatively cheap too.

When you talk about tire deformation, this is rare and would not happen before many years of disuse. And engine seizure? Again, unlikely to happen even if left to sit for a decade. You're more likely to have issues with rust in the gas tank and bad, coagulated gas, than a seized engine.

The point is that it is relatively safe to leave a vehicle unattended in a garage for long periods of time. The vast majority of its value will remain undamaged. Contrast to the Tesla, where if left for a year with a low charge it is alleged that it's likely to lose fully half of the car's value ($40,000).

This is a big deal.