JFPetersen

Or maybe you find a pipe bomb in a crowded area and decide to alert the police & help evacuate the area. Nothing could go wrong there, you're only trying to save lives. Much like the above posited scenario, how could anyone see you as anything other than a hero?

Look, I'll admit I'm biased (I'm a criminal defense attorney.) That said, you never know which good, wholesome, moral conversation that you have with the police will turn you from a heroic savior into a criminal suspect.

(For what it's worth, I'd speak to the police in your scenario. That said, I wouldn't fault anyone for not doing so.)

That's an appeal waiting to happen. Forget the $500,000.00 requirement, you can't use that evidence against me if you seized it illegally. I don't see how the contents of a cell phone can be seized legally.

(The only - horrible - exception is if a person doesn't have standing to contest the seizure. For example, if they extract the data from a user's phone & use that to bust the dealer, the dealer might not have a remedy because the dealer doesn't have any expectation of privacy in the user's cell phone.)

Not paying the tax is illegal, but it's a state crime, not a Federal crime. Trying to flaunt Federal tax law can be very, very risky (just ask Al Capone), but it isn't as big a risk to flaunt state tax laws. That doesn't make it right or risk free, but you won't be looking at Federal prison time because you didn't pay your state's use tax on your most recent Amazon purchase.

The amounts in question, though, are usually pretty low. Most people don't spend tens of thousands of dollars on internet purchases, so that lowers the incentive of the state tax agencies to pursue these transgressions with their limited resources. (Remember, they don't have easy access to your out-of-state spending records, so they really don't know whether you've spent $5.00 or $500,000.00 online.)

Also, there's the whole burden of proof issue involved here. You want to charge me with a crime? You need to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that I committed that crime. In practice, that means that you'll be flying in a record keeper from Amazon - and putting her up in a hotel - to testify at trial. Maybe someone from Paypal or my credit card company, too. (As a defense attorney, there's no way I'm going to stipulate to that information.) That makes prosecuting smaller violations more costly than it's worth.

(For the record, I declare and pay my state's use tax every year on my tax form; I put my internet purchase receipts in a particular email folder to make calculating my costs super easy. Not paying the miniscule tax simply isn't worth the potential hassle to me; lawsuits are a major pain in the rear whether you win or lose, especially when the charges are criminal.)

Very nice game. Do you mind if I make a few criticisms?

The icons on the opening page take up a lot of space - the bottom 1/4 of the page - and compete with the app for my focus. I would suggest separating them from the start button with some space & moving them a little closer to each other. Maybe even shrink the size of those buttons.

Since I'm mentioning focus, I think the tiles kind of get lost during the game, too. There isn't really anything that makes them stand out, and they are surrounded (crowded) by several large buttons. The visual focus should be on the tiles and the word line. The other buttons should be out of the way.

When playing the game, the shuffle button is too close to the bottom row of tiles. Maybe swap its position with the pause button & move them both down, away from the tiles. Also, I occasionally press "shuffle" rather than "submit", and I'm sure it has something to do with the buttons' positions.

I'm still unclear about the bonus & combo multipliers. What's the point of the combo multiplier? Does it effect my score at all? And how, exactly, is the bonus multiplier calculated? Since it affects my score, I'd like to know how it comes about. Maybe it's just me, but feel a need to know these details.

I don't think it's necessary, but I kept looking for a "last word" button similar to the one used in Word Warp. I often want to riff off of the last word, and I'd rather hit "last" & modify the word than type it in each time from scratch. Of course, adding yet another button isn't necessarily a good thing....

Most timed games that I've played will pause when you hit the countdown timer. You may be able to gain some more space by eliminating the "pause" button all together & implementing the "hit the timer to pause" feature. (I'd say it's common enough to be an expected feature of timed games.)

I really like the portrait view. Holding my iPod in landscape just doesn't feel as natural to me & I tend to use landscape games less and less. I know that's just a personal preference, but I think you got it right.

Overall, it's a fun game. I often test free games & then delete them, but I see this one staying on my iPod. Good job, and good luck.

I just want to give a plug here for a very underrated & unknown newspaper; the Saint Petersburg Times. They did tests like this about 5 years ago with similar results, and I believe they were the first investigative reporters who looked into this issue.

Your "I hope" sections are exactly how it happens. The amount of preparation that goes into a trial like this is ridiculous, and the cross-examiner will have a host of questions that the expert witness cannot answer with any certainty.

The book that's referenced in the article is "The Dangerous Summer." It's not one of Hemingway's best works, but it's certainly worth the read if you like his style & can get the book from the library.

(I have a single copy that I'll send (for free) via media-mail to whomever wants it, provided it's in the U.S. Just shoot me an email at my user name @gmail.com.)