It is hard to see what the supposed purpose of TVShack was if it wasn't to encourage its users to download copyright TV shows from the external links without the appropriate license.

The same could be said about all hyperlinks, save the TV part. Never have I obtained a license to provide or follow a link, despite the majority of all links being to copyrighted material.

I understand that great sports players are paid more because only they can do what they do, and you need the absolute best talent.

Not really. Sports players, actors, musicians, and so on are paid well because many people are willing to pay a small amount for their service. Those small amounts add up to large sums.

CEOs are in the same boat as they earn a profit from the income of each and every employee. If you had a small business with one employee, it is not unreasonable to keep, say, 10% of their income for yourself to compensate for the risk of employing them. Now multiply the same logic in a major business for the CEO, and you have yourself a huge income.

If you were the worlds worst programmer just managing to keep a job at $10/hr., but also managed to sell your changes to 10 other companies at the same rate, suddenly you are making $100/hr. That still doesn't make you a good programmer.

I don't think there is any distortion. Some people sell their services to one entity, and others sell their services to multiple entities. The latter group make lots of money, the former group do not simple due to basic multiplication.

Not much of a newsflash, and also obviously not what I was referring to. Thanks for trying though.

I don't need a phone. All important communication happens over IP. Unfortunately, that means having an expensive mobile device.

Sounds like the secret is to get far away from the city, I guess. The farmers nearly 100 years ago co-oped the installation of the copper. That's been our saving grace as Bell has no intention of every doing anything with their lines. It is interesting that some of those communities haven't opted to do the same for internet access though.

I'm not talking about remote here, either, I'm talking about a farm just outside city limits.

That's rather shocking. Here in Ontario, we have had DSL on the farm, hours away from any city, for well over a decade and the telco is working on rolling out fibre to the farms now. The government also paid for rollout of microwave service for those unfortunate enough to have Bell copper. Also, the mobile carriers have HSPA+ rolled out here too. I spent some time on a remote farm in Saskatchewan this past summer and they even had microwave access. Granted, the topology works in their favour there.

Android has a larger market share than the iPhone, no question. The data for Android vs. iOS (iPhone, iPod touch, iPad, Apple TV) is not as well understood. I have yet to come across the data you are referring to.

That is not strictly true. I'm in Ontario and it is neither Bell or Rogers that own the last mile. It is the local independent co-op telephone company that does. While they do have a monopoly on local service, since the customers own the company, they have to look out for the customer first. I don't think anyone could really complain about internet service here.

The RTK receivers used to power much larger lawn bots (i.e. farm equipment) claim 1-2cm accuracy. They are quite expensive and require correction data from an external source; either a base station or a subscription with someone who will provide the base station date, typically over IP. With a decent budget, it's definitely possible though.

I demand nothing. If kids end up in school, fine. It is the glorification of the institution that is the problem.

I'm saying that school is a poor place to become educated.

Either way, the point is that no school at all would make them pretty much useless to modern society.

Where does this come from? Education is important, but schooling is a completely different concept, of which the benefits are questionable (compared to the alternatives).

I just turned 30, so it may be too soon to see the effects. However, I feel I'm in a better cognitive state now than ever before. I try to pick at least one day a week to learn something new, and that learning seems to get easier and easier. ...or maybe that is just distortion caused by cognitive decline.

It's why people go to school when they're young and malleable

If we lived in a world where the brain had no such limitations, would we send the kids to work as soon as they are able to and then worry about schooling later in their adult life?

I've written about this before. There is no incentive for companies to hire anyone except the very best. If the best are too busy, the companies can just wait it out until they become available. Unlike sectors that have been major employers in the past, like agriculture and manufacturing, where the is a physical demand to get the job done now, information-based jobs have no such limitations.