On the topic of pirated content, I was an early contributor to the Veronica Mars movie Kickstarter, and I received my "digital download" today.

It consisted of a link to sign up to two separate websites to download a specific player that would stream the video for me on supported platforms only. Also, the HD version might not be available right away.

I checked and the torrent of the HD version had been online for 30 minutes already.

Why do they bother with this bullshit? It makes no logical sense and all it does is hurt them.

> An even bigger conflict of interest with auto dealers is that they make most of their profit from service, but electric cars require much less service than gasoline cars. There are no oil, spark plug or fuel filter changes, no tune-ups and no smog checks needed for an electric car. Also, all Tesla Model S vehicles are capable of over-the-air updates to upgrade the software, just like your phone or computer, so no visit to the service center is required for that either.

Gotta hand it to Musk - that's some smooth salestalk in what is supposed to be just voicing a public opinion against shady politics. I was halfway through the third sentence when I caught myself thinking - "indeed, that does sound like such a better dea--- Hey wait a minute!". Musk, you sneaky bastard! Never missing a chance to remind me why I want a dang tesla.

He is right and it's a terrific salespitch. That's the best kind of right.

Paternalistic meddling with free consumer choices is always fraught with peril.

Sometimes it is necessary to protect important principles in society. You can't discriminate based on race - that limits choice but who would support the contrary? You can't defraud people in selling products - ditto. You can't buy land to build a smokestack plant in a quiet residential neighborhood - ditto. Many other examples might be cited. In all such cases, the law intervenes to limit private choices. And there are few who would not applaud most such limits. Private choice is not the end all and be all of a society.

Yet, in a free society, private choice should be the overwhelming norm and it should require surmounting very large barriers before legal meddling can limit the choices people can make to serve their own best interests.

Unfortunately, in old-line industries, this idea got flipped and, for years, private choice succumbed to whatever a combination of big government, big corporations, and big unions dictated to the public. Back in the day, writers such as John Kenneth Galbraith even used to celebrate the idea of a "new industrial state" in which the old private competition would yield to ever increasing concentrations of power among government, industry, and labor, who would in turn find ways to "cooperate" with one another in ushering in a more enlightened form of carving up markets and their benefits than mere freedom and competition might provide.

Well, the bureaucratic edict in New Jersey is a relic of that old thinking, perhaps perversely and cynically applied to buy off lobbyists and influencers but rationalized nonetheless by the old paternalistic thinking that the consumer is ultimately best served by having his betters making his buying choices for him rather than being allowed to make them for himself.

Other than in this cynical sense, there is no possible way in which this outrage can possibly be characterized as "protecting" the consumer.

Perhaps the main contribution made by the tech revolution since the 1970s is that it ushered in an era of huge freedom in how people managed their private lives. The internet in particular has been a huge liberating force and so young people especially have come to take it for granted that they can freely make all sorts of choices without having to feel burdened or restricted by the heavy hand of the law. Of course, exceptions can and do remain because abuses can pop up in all sorts of ways without any legal restraints. But, that said, the overwhelming presumption today is that, yes, I can do pretty much what I feel is best for me unless there is a very good reason why I should be restricted from doing so.

And that means, if I live in New Jersey, I should be able to find a local Tesla outlet in which I can buy my electric car if I want. The thought that some politician or bureaucrat should be able to dictate serious limits on that choice is repugnant to anyone who thinks that way. And, in my view, rightly so.

Unfortunately, where the old political pull persists, the law can be abused to protect old-line market players under some guise or other that is a mere pretext for guarding them from competitors who might offer something better and wind up dislodging them in a free market. Legal regulation is not to be rejected out of hand, of course. Maybe the old-line taxi services ought not to have their business cherry-picked by new market entrants who do things differently. Maybe there ought to be some limits in an urban context on absolute free space-letting if this creates nuisances or the like. The line can sometimes be tricky to draw and can require careful and fair-minded judgments given the interests at stake. But how often do we have situations where nothing of the kind happens and instead the issues are decided, in essence, by who pays off whom and who has what degree of political or bureaucratic pull that can be used to protect systems and structures that are far inferior to what the new competition might offer.

I believe that, in these sorts of cases, the tech impetus will ultimately prevail and push things toward broader and freer areas of choice for consumers. Even with this rear-guard action in New Jersey, Teslas can be bought direct from the manufacturer just a short distance away or via remote ordering. And tech-inspired sales and distribution methods in this and a broad swath of other fields will mean that those seeking to limit consumer choice by protecting local turf through bureaucratic pull will be fighting what will ultimately prove to be a losing battle. As consumers, we are not bottled up anymore. If we don't like something that is really stupid, we can more and more work around it using other solutions.

And so we can, I think, basically see that what the local commission is trying to do in New Jersey is much more a last gasp for the old ways as opposed to being a harbinger that will limit Tesla (or any similar new-wave competitor) from accomplishing its goals. Tesla is right to oppose and fight it (and presents a compelling argument for its view). But the action stands out as so bizarre precisely because it is so out of step with the tech impetus that rules our day. It will stand legally (courts are loathe to intervene in such matters). But the longer-term political winds are against it, in my view, and it will prove a temporary obstacle at most as the modern tech impetus advances.

His best line:

> The rationale given for the regulation change that requires auto companies to sell through dealers is that it ensures 'consumer protection'. If you believe this, Gov. Christie has a bridge closure he wants to sell you! Unless they are referring to the mafia version of 'protection', this is obviously untrue.

Nicely done, Elon. Nicely done.

> One theory is that Mt. Gox became fractional reserve some time in the past, either by losing bitcoins or by spending them.

Maybe pedantic, but many people have been using fractional reserve wrt Mt Gox lately. The usual meaning of that term: A bank will loan out deposits, reserving a fraction for withdrawals. However, a key point is that the bank holds collateral against the loan, and that collateral has a fair-market value, so the balance sheet is still positive. (A major problem in the housing meltdown was that the value of the collateral dropped, making many banks technically insolvent.)

What Mt Gox did is take money from depositors and either lose or spend them. That's just either bad business (if they lost them) or fraud (if they spent them). Calling it "fractional reserve" gives it an air of legitimacy that they really do not deserve.

Edit: I did not intend to start a discussion on the finer points of bank accounting. The major point is: To my knowledge, Gox wasn't trying to make loans with money that deposited with them, which is what a fractional reserve business is.