Odds are that's already the case. In the county I live in we used to have 2 different city papers and a county-wide paper, all independently owned and managed. But that hasn't been the case now for probably two decades. They all got bought up by the same company, and were being printed by the same company and even shared staff. There was no independence between them, the only difference was that the paper for city A would run more stories about stuff that happened only in city A and the paper for city B would do the same for city B. Meanwhile the county-wide paper would run the most important articles that affected city A and B in it (repeating them) along with stuff that happened in other parts of the county. Of course the new managing company ran this into the ground so badly that at some point they started only running a weekly supplement for the two city papers and converted all the city paper subscribers to the county paper. Last year they killed the supplements. Not that it changed anything really, just a few less local news stories for city A & B.

This isn't a unique situation, it's been happening all over the country. If you want actual multiple sources for your news, you have to look to bloggers nowadays. And everyone knows the news here is biased, they hate the paper, but it isn't improving. If anything it's getting worse, including locking their online news behind a paywall that Murdoch would be proud of. (You can get headlines, nothing else, unless you subscribe to the paper. Yes, not even blurbs about the articles, only headlines. The site's completely useless.) Mainly people buy a copy if they're wanting to check the classifieds (but those have declined with the newspaper declining so even that's becoming uncommon). I figure the paper will completely fold within 5 years and it's unlikely to be missed.

For some reason, most of the newspaper industry seems to think dying revenues = need to double down and do more of the same. They're killing themselves off, it's less dying due to technological changes and more suicide.

What law? There's an ongoing court dispute that neither side has won or lost yet, and PRC did not ask the court for an injunction to order the app removed. That's notable, Apple didn't receive any order to remove the app, and the complaining company didn't even try to get one. That doesn't say "PRC has an airtight case and Apple could be liable" at all. It says "PRC isn't sure they can get an order and is worried it'll hurt their case if they try and fail, so they're doing an end-run around the judge in the hope that Apple will give them a victory."

This would still be a story if PRC had gotten an injunction, but it would be all about how big a jerk PRC is, not how big a jerk Apple's being.

On a side note, the judge very well may not react to this kindly, as it is an end-run around their authority. Judges tend to react poorly to that, this may backfire on PRC badly. Pissing off the judge is always a bad move.

Also Tennessee, they managed to get some kind of arrangement with the previous governor that allows them to not collect sales tax (yet anyway, I don't know if it's only for a specific time period or indefinite). The current idiot of a governor was making a lot of noise about this last year trying to have the state renege on the agreement. Even if you disagree with the previous governor giving Amazon a waiver on collecting sales tax to get them to build a distribution center in the state it's insane stupidity to announce to the business world at large that Tennessee doesn't honor its agreements. He didn't get his way (beyond making noise and being an idiot), but I suspect we still won't be seeing any more large businesses consider building anything here in the future either. At least not until our current governor's out of office.

Tennessee's working hard on passing the so-called "Don't Say Gay" bill that would make it illegal for schoolteachers to discuss the fact that non-reproductive sex exists. They've successfully passed a law that allows teachers to attack scientific theories like evolution & global warming (but it's been obvious as hell it was all about the evolution, they just tossed others in there to try to prevent it failing a constitutional challenge). Missouri's also working on a "Don't Say Gay" bill. Mississippi's trying their damnedest to make abortion illegal and/or unavailable anywhere within the state for any reason. That sure looks like discrimination of 1. homosexuals, 2. non-Christians and/or scientists and 3. women to me. All pushed by state governments. I could find you more examples if I tried, but that should be enough. States can, and do, push discrimination all the time.

The article gives Kinect as an example of Microsoft's innovation. If it was bought, then it's not innovative from within MS. It may be innovative for the company they bought, but not for MS themselves. The same would (and does) go for Android, the iPhone, etc. (And the person you replied to didn't suggest otherwise, or even mention those products, that was your own suggestion.) Pointing this out is not "pick[ing] on MS", it's simply pointing out a problem with the facts of the article.

On the other hand, holding Kinect out as an example of "innovation" shows a pro-MS bias because the Kinect wasn't actually invented internally at the company. MS may, or may not, be unfairly bashed. They may, or may not, be innovative. But this article's got issues and I don't think it proves anything other than the author's very pro-MS. The article should be taken with one very large grain of salt, as it's probably just shilling for ad views.

I don't think people would object so much if RV cameras were simply mandated as required in all new models. What's bothering people is the suggested mandate to require them in all vehicles, including existing ones. I can't think of any safety feature mandated in the past that was done this way. Headlights, seat-belts, airbags, etc. were all added as requirements going forward. When the cost is hidden in the price of a new vehicle, it's not a big deal to most people (and the cost is generally tiny compared to the actual vehicle cost anyway). When you tell someone driving a car that bought for $500 because that's all the can afford they have to add something costing $159-$203 to it, what do you expect them to do? Jump for joy?

I also don't want to see it mandated this way because ultimately, after numerous people raise hell about it, congress will decide to do a program to cover all or part of the costs for the retrofits, costing taxpayers more money than this will actually save. Require it going forward on all new models, but screw requiring it to be retrofit to every car on the road today.

Probably because that has all the hallmarks of a software PHP vulnerability web-hack of a site, NOT an FTP compromise. I've seen plenty of those, they use some vulnerability to gain access, then upload a file (through the web software) that gives them what's basically a PHP web-based shell. There's no need for the FTP account password to be compromised (and it usually isn't).

All web hosting companies get a lot of that type of attack because their customers don't all update and/or secure their sites properly. WordPress is a particularly popular target.

That's because Google almost always finds the result they're looking for, and does it better than the competition. If Google's results start sucking people will go use another search engine that provides better results.

It's telling that nearly every company complaining about Google excluding them from search results are the type of things that people don't want. They're, to be polite, middlemen, trying to milk you for ad views before you get to the actual destination you were really wanting. Adding another step between search -> result doesn't benefit the people searching. If Google's forced to leave them in it it'll destroy the value of their search engine almost overnight.

But the truth of the matter is this is congress sending Google a warning message. The real message is "You're not donating enough money to our campaigns, fix that or we'll destroy your business.

It is, COPPA's requirements are beyond onerous, COPPA is entirely responsible for the whole 13+ or go away divide on the Internet. If someone's 13+ then you don't have to do anything special. Under 13 you need special parental permission with proof of the parent's age (that's the whole reason they have to have a scan of an ID to reinstate the account, along with the parent's statement that they're the actual account holder allowing their child to use it under their supervision) to collect any data on the child. The penalties for not complying are pretty steep too.

In short, this isn't a Google problem, this is a COPPA problem. COPPA is a bad law, it's just starting to actual impact more and more kids nowadays because of social networking. People need to stop bitching about Google and go bitch at Congress to change the law. Going elsewhere won't help, the law's the same for any US company, they're going to disable (or delete) your kid's account if they discover they're under 13 too.

If you really think that's in question, you should read the article more carefully. This guy didn't just create this blog, he then went on to: "Under pseudonyms, Arlotta then promoted the blog to Johnson's family, friends, contacts and employer as well as some unaffiliated parties, like the local media." It's rather abundantly clear he created the blog simply as a means to harass her. It was simply there so he had something to pseudonymously point friends/family/employers/coworkers/etc. to so he could humiliate and embarrass her. The fact he was doing this with pseudonyms is the real nail in the coffin, he obviously knew he'd get in serious trouble quickly if his used his real name to do so. He was quite willfully violating the restraining order against him. Frankly he sounds really, really obsessed, and potentially dangerous.

Did I expect them to suddenly agree? No. Did I expect them to disagree in a way that wouldn't antagonize the FCC? Yes. And it's gotten noticed already, as Ars Technica's article points out in an update:

This is likely to cause AT&T trouble down the line. Pissing off the officials who oversee your business is never a good move. Congress is unlikely to be impressed either.

On top of that, I dare say that if a potential student is stupid enough to think that schoolname.xxx is the school's official website when it's obviously a porn site that the university doesn't need that student. They'd just flunk out in short order.

It's not the immigrants, it's the businesses. Many (perhaps not all, but a rather large percentage of them) use the H1B system to basically legalize indentured servitude in the 21st century. Job requirements are deliberately written up so there's as close to zero chance of finding anyone qualified other than the immigrant the company wants to hire. When that fails they'll bring them in under an H1B visa, but then often abuse them by paying them less than they would have to pay a US citizen, and/or make them work obscenely long hours that are nearly inhumane. They don't worry about the immigrant complaining to anyone or quitting because then they'd have to go back to their home country. (There is a grace period to find another job I believe, but H1B visa holders tend to be overworked so badly that there's no chance they can job hunt while doing their current job, and the grace period's far too short to start a job hunt from scratch.)

So no, it's not about immigration, if the immigrants were being treated equally to US citizens then everyone would benefit, immigrants included. But that'd pad the pockets of the high level management less so they don't want it to happen. In the meanwhile, STEM fields are largely a waste of time for US citizens now.

And no, you largely can't get a job on merit any longer. A large percentage of jobs are posted with their requirements tailored to specific people. Of the others they generally want a combination of skills and/or experience that a very, very small percentage of people will have, if anyone. (And not for lack of people being skilled and working hard, but due to unreasonable demands by the business.)

I think the number of people willing to live at poverty levels for 20 years so they can get 4 years of partying at a university, and that will actually follow through on it willfully, are very, very low. 150% of poverty level isn't a lot of money, you can't live high on the hog with that kind of income, not even single. And the type of people who'd actually consider living it up on borrowed money and then reneging just aren't the type to then go 20 years of scraping by so they can do so. Yes, there probably will be a few idiots out there who'll try it, but I think most will end up tempted by life itself to change in ways that bump them up past the 150% of poverty income. (Deciding they're sick of living on so little money, falling in love and getting married and/or deciding to start a family, etc.)

Making it impossible for those who end up in bad situations through no fault of their own to get out from under their student loan debt just to prevent a few idiots from doing something like you suggested isn't a good solution. That's part of the reason we're having this mess now, we overreacted to the people who intentionally declared bankruptcy to get rid of student loans they never intended to pay and made it so people who were legitimately struggling could no longer get out from under them short of dying. Instead of being at either extreme, we need some middle ground.

How about the fact that any list they release is likely to contain innocents because no one is perfect. And everyone on that list will be the target of the rival drug gangs, most of them will probably end up dead. Does that help you understand why Anon's not the good guys yet? Personally I find it disgusting that even if that list somehow contains only non-innocents (people who are part of the Zetas cartel or work with them) that it will result in actual deaths in the real world. Getting people murdered isn't how the good guys act, that's how terrorists (and ironically, drug cartels) work.