If the police are outside your house waiting to take you to jail, you are not yet in jail. Your house does not count as jail just because the police are waiting outside to take you there. It's really not that hard of a concept to understand. If you walk outside, are arrested, and brought to jail, then you're in jail.
>You're free to repair it on your own... If you can.
You literally can't. It's proprietary software that you have a limited license to. This isn't like a deprecated Linux distro that you can always jump in and patch the security issues yourself.
Hell I'm sure if these tractors ran on free software, there'd be a business out there competing against the manufacturer by fixing old tractor software if it meant pulling in consulting fees from the farmers. But they can't, because we live in a world where you don't own software, you lease it.
That's like saying if I send an email via Gmail, Google should feel free to do whatever it wants with the headers, because it's supposed to be publicly viewable so the mail server knows where it should go. (See also the NSA phone call metadata scandal.)
In reality, when you send a letter, you are placing it into the care of the postal service. Your letter is only handled by postal employees, and mailbox privacy is codified in federal law. There's clearly an expectation that the postal service is not releasing your information to third parties without your consent. The information on the outside of the envelope is not meant for, nor is it needed by, anyone other than the postal service
You're just going to bad hotels. Every hotel I've stayed at in the US in the past quarter (around six of them) had ~16 Mbps free Wi-Fi, complimentary water bottles in my room each day, and free parking (with the exception of hotels in Manhattan or the likes).
I'll admit that gratuity is annoying, but that's a cultural problem with the US, not something specific to hotels. We just happen to live in a country where every person who serves you is expecting a tip. And to be fair, if I was staying at an AirBnB that for whatever reason had housecleaning or other service, I'd probably have to leave a tip there too.
Good hotel still have pools, can be located outside of downtown, and sometimes even in-room kitchens (if that's what you want). They also have maid service, room service, and a front desk.
The only advantage you get from an AirBnB is a unique facade, paired with having to clean up after yourself and possible fire and health code violations.
Don't fool yourself. Google isn't some sort of cult. It's just common decency. One of the big reasons listed is that employees wanted to hear more about the China project, but it was cut short because of the leaker.
This kind of thing absolutely flys in bureaucracy. I guarantee your local bodega either doesn't have a sidewalk license (if they have stuff on the sidewalk of course) or only got it when the city cited them and forced their hand.
And as I said before, she thought she had permission. The government was literally funding and endorsing the project. It's just that not the right part of the government was involved, which is the classic example of excessive red tape.
Did you read the article? She was working with the mayor's office, and even contacted the DOT to obtain licenses. They just refused and ordered them removed anyway, since the law literally doesn't allow for issuing of licenses for this type of product.
The problem, though is that there are allowances for many other uses of the public sidewalk (for example, a restaurant having outdoor seating, or a store having coin-operated kids rides). It's just that there's no specific process for this product, and they speculate that it would be impossible to allow doghouses without changing the law.