While I agree with you that they (providers) usually only give us a little bit of bandwidth when they could easily provide more, I can not agree with your second paragraph. It might be true in a small percentage of countries, but the great majority have been putting in Fiber To The Home and giving their customers fantastic bandwidths (100Mb/100Mb or 1Gb/1GB) for less than what most cable internet providers charge their customers in America.

This was not true in 2007 and is not true today. Americans do NOT have it better with respects to Internet bandwidth. As of 2010, broadband penetration dropped to 25th place worldwide. We are not even on the chart any more, we have dropped that far, however we still pay more for less, no its not better in the US.

Wish it were not true, but it is.

In the year 2000, most Japanese had 100Mb/100Mb, symmetrical FTTH, for less than $52 per month. Most American Cable providers charge well over $50 per month for a promise of 20Mb/2Mb that is throttled (except during the speedtest) to less than 300Kbps/40Kpbs. So in reality Americans pay a heck of allot more for a heck of allot less.

Since most cable providers push customers to the $100 to $150 per month range, well it only is worse for Americans, not better. If you think its better, well their marketing works doesn't it.

If you can not get FTTH, only purchase DSL, do NOT purchase cable internet as they have always and will continue to always rip off consumers with higher prices for less service...its their business model, no matter what promises they have made over the years to provide Fiber. They will not unless forced to.

One day we may have it cheaper, but that day is not today...nor has it been for the last two decades. Here is a map that shows you were you can move to in order to get Fiber To The Home (FTTH). Well worth it if the bank took your home as those communities are creating better paying jobs faster than other communities in the US.

Excellent observation!

I want FTTH so bad, to have symmetrical bandwidth, the same upstream as downstream (10Mb/10Mb, 100Mb/100Mb, 1Gb/1Gb) and never bothered by the Cable Company poor scarcity myth laden throttling business models, now there is a thought worthy of every freedom loving American. Especially those that want to encourage small business economic activities and jobs.

For those lucky enough to be looking, here are almost 25 communities that have symmetrical FTTH!

The solution is to not to use the Cable company's last mile segments...in other words, don't purchase a house that does not have either DSL or FTTH.

Why DSL, glad you asked, the lower bandwidth of DSL (2Mb/756Kb) is way superior to a throttled (300Kb/40Kb) cable internet connection. That 300Kb/40Kb was what my dd-WRT firmware enabled router showed that the cable provider was allowing me to have. I was paying for 20Mb/2Mb, even paid $10 extra for additional burst bandwidth, you guessed it, they still throttled at 300Kb/40Kb or lower. I fully understand from first hand experience why most of us hate cable internet providers.

I love H.264. I do not love that its proprietary, nor do I believe it should be. x.264? I hope someone can create a free codec equivalent to or superior to H.264 so I give props to Google for giving it a go with VP8 and VP9.

The founders of Oblong Industries, Inc. were responsible for the visuals in the 2002 movie the Minority Report. Their company started shortly after that movie and has been in the black for more than 10 years.

These images show the technology as conveyed in the movie. The video in the next paragraph showcases it at oblong and is very much worth a watch, enjoy.

No I do not work for Oblong Industries, not that fortunate.

Oblong Industries, Inc. g-speak uses their internally developed software SDK, optical cameras (a bit more expensive right now, but cheaper every year and multiple optical inputs produce less interference than multiple infrared inputs when generating 3-D images and manipulating those images in real time. Thanks to optical, the quality is much better. Imagine 20+ optical cameras, mulitple screens and you can since the data requirements and why they had to develop it internally. They use data pools in memory in order to move massive amounts of data over the network from say your database to your tablet, to your laptop, to a desktop (some at the same time) without stutters, pausing or visible buffering...I am sure you get the idea.

Too bad their current video does not show the gloves as the input device instead of the wand, suppose they are a work in progress.

I wonder if a codec like VP9 could use the concept of data pools to not only compress more efficiently, but to play back using less bandwidth, memory and CPU more efficiently.

Regardless the end goal of an open source, proprietary free, video/audio codec is exactly what ffmpeg is all about. Smart and powerful, if it does not get there today, who knows about tomorrow! You guys rock.

Great post. All too true.

If those that say they support the troops, put their money (or ours, taxpayer, money) where their mouths are, than they would pre-fund the medical and psychiatric needs of our veterans BEFORE they put a boot on the ground overseas.

If they are unwilling to fund the clean-up, than what the heck are they sending are service men and women overseas in the first place.

Hey these HAWKS, required the US Postal Service to pre-fund retirement for 75 years in the future. (I don't agree with that, but they did it, didn't they! So what is their excuses...if they support our troops? Right? They just are trying to force it USPS to fail to get at that ever growing pile of cash. And they are miserly with the money when it comes to taking care of our returning veterans.

We Americans seem to forget the many lessons of history, two that come to mind are Maj Gen Smedley Butler and President Eisenhower. I know you know his famous quotes about the military industrial complex and he was certainly in a position to understand and know the facts.

You can't convince me that they are so inept that they can not create a budget, yet only the Dems have done that in recent history (ie. President Clinton). However not even the Democrats have balanced the budget since then.

We need a third party that is not bought and paid for. And an educated population to stop voting for the insane (those doing the same thing and expecting a different result) and work toward a positive change for the better!

We must remember that the Tea Party got co-opted within a month or two tops as that was when the paid shills in buses started rolling into events. Pathetic. So a third party can not be influenced or controlled by the 9% that own 90% of the wealth of this Country.

Pay your bills, lord knows we have too, or we lose everything.

The veterans in my family fought and died so their descendants could be free. It is unacceptable to their ultimate sacrifice that any members of our family settle for so much less that the Republicans, Tea Party, Libertarians and Democrats give us. Pathetic.

Lets see all politicians budget and govern successfully for a change! It would be refreshing.

Unfortunately those that send our men and women to war, do not really care about them, else they would fund the medical expenses for them before they came home. Yet war after war, they do not do this. Since they are being used, wrongly per Maj Gen Smedley Butler, perhaps those businesses that are the beneficiaries should put up as most of them don't pay taxes anyway. Not that I would be for this, but better to hold them responsible, and not get off scott free as they have for hundreds of years already.

Further it rings true based on what other Vietnam vets have told me about the VA...

Broadband is slow because they want it to be slow. The providers feel so threatened that they have passed laws in at least 14 states preventing competition. So much for the free market.

Lets discuss how it can be improved...read on, warning to others...long post.

The smart communities control their right of ways. They do not give any one or two companies privileged access. Nor do not sell their infrastructure to any private company, ever, for any reason. Funny how the reason most often given to sell, water, electrical, telephone and bandwidth to a private company is costs to consumers. Sure costs might be held down for some initial honeymoon period, often 4 years or less, however ultimately, in 100% of cases I have looked at, after that initial honeymoon period, prices to consumers always go up, usually much higher than they would have, had the community's infrastructure not been sold to the private entity in the first place.

Sadly I can not think of a single instance where selling a communities infrastructure to a private entity did not result in costing that community significantly more after the honeymoon period. In such areas, you also usually find businesses polluting the local environment as well. So in addition to ultimately higher costs of services, the local community ends up not being able to drink their own water. Why communities allow these businesses to re-distribute wealth out of the community is beyond reasoning. Even worse, laws are passed to prevent competition and locking the community into a customer no service environment that eventually becomes an econmical and environmental disaster for anyone living in the community.

Private enterprise, private companies only do one thing well, maximizing their own profit at all costs. No matter how much they give back to the community, they always take more away from it. Even more ironic when the same companies do not pay any taxes thanks to sweet heart deals with naïve local politicians. One telco that I worked for, got incentives to move to one community and than after the honeymoon period, got incentives from another community less than 50 miles away and moved all those jobs out of that community. Will the politicians never learn.

When you go through that Community Broadband map, you discover only a few (less than 30 US Communities) of those listed actually provide symmetrical Fiber To The Home, (FTTH)! Most throttle the upstream bandwidth, this is wrong and must be avoided if your community is to see an increase in economic development thanks to fiber. Having true FTTH, is what is honestly important as FTTH negates the scarcity myth for the citizens of that community. Increasing bandwidth, increases jobs, increases prosperity, increases economic activity and more. All the positives with none of the negatives.

The Scarcity Myth is a lie used to increase prices of commodities like fuel (oil), food and of course internet bandwidth.

The ONLY solution that will stop the broadband scarcity myth antics is symmetrical Fiber To The Home (FTTH). If a provider says they have FTTH, and their services are not symmetrical (10MB/10MB vs 10Mb/2Mb) especially the upstream bandwidth, that provider is planning to perpetuate the scarcity myth in their service to you. Avoid them if possible, if you lose your home, your job, don't make the same mistakes a second time, move to a community where they already have symmetrical FTTH. You will find more opportunity there thanks to the FTTH.

The FTTH, fiber, link should run from your property all the way to the switching station. Let the providers compete for business at that point. Ideally the community should control this resource, just as they should control the water, electrical, even the banking system if possible.

The point is only FTTH will set you free. Not FTTB, FTTC, FTTN or FTTP, they all stop short of the FTTH your community needs to spur economic development.

With FTTH, there is no valid reason to throttle or limit the bandwidth as 100% of cable providers do today. Also don't pay an extra $10 for faster speeds or more bandwidth as I did and my bandwidth throttling did not change. I could see it in real time with dd-WRT. I will never make that mistake again, should I find myself in an area with no Fiber, no DSL, only Cable internet.

The point is that the FTTH link should be yours and your homes ONLY. It should not be shared as your cable trunk is. Anything less than FTTH is outdated, old technology. If they come out with a new technology, will you own the link to your home or not? Will your upstream bandwidth be less than the downstream bandwidth? They should be the same or they are NOT symmetrical.

Don't let them lie to you that FTTH is expensive either, another lie. The cost is not excessive for a couple of reasons, first when they run fiber to a community, they do not run them one at a time, they run a bundle of fiber large enough to reach all the homes (now and/or in the future) to your area. Thus they dig once.

We pay way to much for limited and throttled internet bandwidth today. I remember when cable providers pushed you to $50 per month, than $80 per month, than $100 per month, even as high as $150 per month. What a joke. I got fed up when they started pushing for $80 per month for internet access. And you should be fed up too! Hint 1: DSL, although its bandwidth is lower than cable, is in reality faster than cable internet because of the throttling and restrictions the cable company applies to all their cable customers. Hint 2: There is not anything on cable that you can not find on the Internet! Once you cut your cord, you will be happier! Once you have FTTH, you will not need to worry about these types of poor business practices.

Second, a fiber link costs between $1,500 to $3,000 per run and adds $5,000 to the price of the home. In a symmetrical FTTH community, your fiber link is sold with the property as part of the real estate transaction. This prevents any future business from re-introducing the scarcity myth to you, your family, whomever owns that property. Its actually very pro-American, pro-economic activity, pro-freedom. Any cabling system, less than FTTH, will not protect you, your family, your children, should they be lucky enough to inherit the family home.

Of course the Telcos (both wireline and wireless), cable companys, cellular companies, etc... have a vested interest in not allowing FTTH. They have already passed legislation in 14 states. And they lie to local and state politicians in order to prevent FTTH, competition and in order to continue these scarcity myth related shenanigans. They are very adept at confusing everyone in order to charge you more for less.

In 100% of the cases I am personally aware of, less than 30 todate, every community that asks their local provider to provide FTTH is told NO. When the local community begins the funding process to put in FTTH, that same local provider that refused to provide the service to the community, took the local government to court in a vain and failed effort to stop the FTTH initiative. In 100% of those cases the local provider lost the law suits and the community got their FTTH infrastructure. Economic activity with businesses locating to the area thanks to the FTTH followed. In at least two states, one of them being North Carolina, the incumbents passed legislation to prevent other cities from getting FTTH. (ie. Like Wilson N.C. did.) Shame on the Republican NC state legislators kow-towing to anti-free market businesses. It is small wonder that so much of North Carolina's drinking water is being tragically polluted by Duke Industries and not just by one location, but three separate locations in NC.

Japan's government had to de-regulate NTT before they got successful FTTH. Their FTTH links allowed for consumer to receive 100Mb/100Mb for $52 per month by the year 2000. A couple of years later, those same customers could get 1Gb/1Gb thanks to that same fiber. Thanks to Fiber To The Home, a provider can increase the bandwidth by simply replacing the hardware routers on each end of the fiber link to that home. Years ago, 2006 I believe, they proved that a single laser on a single strand of fiber could be multiplexed to provide for a 1024 X increase in bandwidth. Think about that, multiply your bandwidth over the same fiber link by 1024.

What few Americans remember is that Questions the press should ask; Where's that broadband fiber-optic access?”>the telcos were given over 900 million dollars for fiber in outright grants, taxes and fees in 1990, yet never produced the fiber.

Where's the Fiber?

Some of those telcos continued charging these for fiber taxes and fees years later, they just called them something else. In 1996 the industry put so many holes through the Telecommunications Act of 1996, making it all but useless as an enforcement tool. (It was designed to foster competition, however was so badly written that it was used to limit competition.)

Its clear that here in America, just as with NTT in Japan, to get symmetrical FTTH, will require consumer friendly legislation. At least this type of legislation is not anti-free market, anti-competition as the legislation the local duopolies push through the states. If the telcos were willing to provide this on their own as they promised, they would have already done so. That was 1990, its 2014, 24 years after their promise, 14 years after Japan did it in 2000.

Now with the courts allowing providers to shun net neutrality, it can only get worse. Sure some have not used net neutrality against consumers yet, but give them time. Its what they always do, get the business and legislate to limit the free market and competition. This is why broadband should be treated like water, electricity, roads, trash and other community services as companies are not interested in doing what is best for the community in which they profit, they are only interested in the money, most of which no longer stays local to that community. Most large companies simply redistribute the community wealth to other locations, sad really.

The best option, the smart option is to not wait for your providers (or local politicians to do the right thing) in your area to wake up (they do NOT want too) and provide FTTH, but to move to a community that has already fought that good fight and has symmetrical Fiber To The Home in place today. Its where the smart money, jobs and businesses are headed. So why waste your time and money by investing in a business or real estate in a less economically viable (non FTTH) community?

Fires can of course spread it. Significantly high radiation measurements were made in Tokyo (well over 150 miles away from Fukushima). Imagine what happens in the spring when the pollens get released from the grasses, shrubs and trees. All the pine cones are Cesium-137 laden, probably from the excessively high (more than Chernobyl) levels in the ground water.

Wind, evaporation, percipitation make this a world event.

No Technology to stop the leaks now or for the next 10 years means that every spring will bring more of the radiation out of the ground.

There is so much bad info here its ironic. I will comment on a couple of points for those that are seriously interested, please ignore the trolls

Some facts worth noting first:

• ~ Cesium-137 has a half life of 30 years, it takes over 10 half lifes for the levels to approach not equal levels before the event. (30 years (1 half life) X 10 = 300 years or 3 centuries, approx 4 generations)
• ~ Cesium-137 impacts the heart tissue. There was an up-tick of heart problems in infants and children after the event in the Ohio Valley through Pennsylvania. Most likely because the jet stream reaches us in 24 - 48 hours from that part of the world.
• ~ A regular Geiger counter does not detect Cesium-137 specifically. Those detect isotopes with much lower half lifes. (It makes the industry look better to talk about isotopes like Iodine that has a much shorter half life of only hours.)
• ~ Approx 29 years (or was it 25 years) after Chernobyl, the levels of Cesium-137 in the environment had not dropped to 1/2 the levels reported after the event. Indicating one of three things factually:
  • ~ ~ The powers that be lied about the levels of Cesium-137 released in their reports. (If they lied than, why would you believe them now?)
  • ~ ~ Cesium-137 breaks down in the environment at a different rate than in the laboratory (this one would not be my choice, but is interesting to ponder in a horrifying way as this would imply a much longer half life than 30 years)
  • ~ ~ Much more Cesium-137 was released than was reported. (my bet would be on this one.)
  • ~ ~ More Cesium-137 was released, and continues to be released at Fukushima, than at Chernobyl.
• ~ Massive amounts of Cesium-137 is in the ground water, being soaked up by grasses, bushes and trees. The levels in the pollen of pine trees (pollen to be release every spring over the next 300 years will spread this to areas now considered somewhat safe, as if there are any) has been measured and is massive. Because of the uplifts around the mountains containing these Cesium-137 pollen laden foliage, some of this will be in the jet stream, no explosion required to get it there. Not to mention what happens with evaporation into storm clouds to precipitate down on the world.
• ~ This is not just a local Japan event, as the radiation spread to the USA, after the explosions and the many steam ventings that were reported on. The entity in charge of the US radiation detectors started changing the filters more quickly (to report lower levels than reality), when even that failed them, they simply turned those detectors off, stating they were down for maintenance. (As soon as the event happened many of us started monitoring both the US detectors and the jet stream radiation maps as we expected to see this data manipulated, we were sadly not disappointed, the data was manipulated.) While the data related to radiation filter monitoring happened within 10 days to a week, it took them approx 30 days to tamper with the jet stream data, in a 24 hour period, the colors indicating concentrates faded noticeably for the same jet stream, it was laughable, very sad and predicatable.
• ~ There are many other radioactive isotopes that have a much longer half life than only 30 years. It is beyond reasoning that any one other than a very unformed naïve person could ever believe that Nuclear Power is safe. Can you say 250,000 half lifes * 10 and explain to me how that will ever be safe? Who is going to re-cask it every 50/100 years to keep it safe?
  • ~ ~ Concrete Casks (almost every Nuclear Power plant in the USA has well over 30 of these, some have hundreds of concrete casks) are rated to last only 100 years. In reality they start developing cracks around year 50. Meaning you must re-cask to keep safe every 100 years minimum, however in reality it should happen every 50 years. At what cost per casking? (No wonder they want to use a spot like Yucca Mtn to put it out of site, out of mind as they never planned to re-cask as necessary. Any news organization that misses this is beyond poor due diligence, they are misleading...the reasons why are as obvious as they are un-important. Stop trusting those news sources for honest reporting.)
  • ~ ~ For Cesium-137, 30 year half life, you would need to re-cask every 50/100 years for a minimum of 300 years. At what cost per casking?
  • ~ ~ For Plutonium, 250,000 year half life, Who is going to be around for 10 of those half lifes to do it and at what cost? (10 X 250,000 years = too long a period of time to consider this stuff either safe or cheap)
• ~ About Fukushima, No one on the planet has the technology to make the core safe and stop the Fukushima radiation leaks. This was reported in the first two weeks of the accident just not by any US news sources. You don't have to like it, but its still a simple fact.
• ~ All radiation leaves a signature, like a finger print, can be detected and measured against know signatures in a radiation database, so that the world Nuclear powers can determine which processing facility created that radiation signature.
• ~ a single shell with a uranium enriched tip can cost millions of dollars per shell. Big money, big business.
• ~ Nuclear Power is not safe, its not cheap, its only viable use is weapons, ie. Depleted Uranium shells and worse. While I have not seen a video of this yet, I have heard reports of a shoulder held weapon that literally disintegrates a tank when hit. The person that reported on this had to fly in radiation equipment to the middle east where all he could report is that a radiation signature was found that is unknown, to him and his database, at this time. It should be noted that its use on the battle field is illegal in the world per the United Nations. Which all the Nuclear powers belong to.

About this article. . .

Was covered on Rachel Maddow's show last night (Tuesday, 2/11/14, A disastrous toxic spill broke NC interference for governor’s former firm) and was shocking.

In N.C. for state residents (citizens) to sue, they have to give a 60 days written notice.

• ~ On day 58 of the 60 day notice, for the first spill, the DENR, Department of Environment and Natural Resources, stepped in and said we will handle it.
• ~ The group discovered a second Duke Energy plant was polluting and gave their 60 day notice that they intended to sue, on day 60 the DENR stepped in and said we will handle it.
• ~ The same NC Citizens group discovered a 3rd Duke site polluting and put in their 60 day notice to sue, you guessed it, on day 60 the DENR stepped in and said we will handle it (basically voiding the lawsuit).
• ~ All three sites continue to pollute the ground water (NC. citizen's drinking water) today with no attempts to clean anything up.
• ~ They Duke Energy were fined less than $100,000.00. I wonder how much the clean up will be and as with the oil companies if they will be paid twice. Usually these companies have another shell company to do the clean up and hide the extent of the damage. For the oil companies in the gulf research 'corexit', 'oil' and 'dispersants', you will see the similarity.

You see the new head of the DENR use to work for Duke Energy, when he took over the organization, he changed their charter to one of protecting corporate industry and changing regulations so that the industries would not run afoul of the legislation. And yes he is a Republican. And N.C. Governor is a Republican.

Amy Adams, resigned in November 2013, saying she was dissuaded from levying sanctions against companies like Duke since McCrory took office in 2010. Amy was interviewed by Rachel and it was extremely informative.

I would be very concerned for my health, the health of my children due to the state of my drinking water if I lived in North Carolina. Another fail of the Tea Party / Republican Governor/Legislature in North Carolina was the passing of anti-FTTH legislation after two cities (Wilson and Raleigh) in N.C., in spite of lawsuits from the incumbent providers, put in FTTH to their towns peoples homes. We see this in every state controlled by a Republican Governor and Republican legislature, they uniformly pass Alec legislation that prevents free market competition and re-distribute citizens wealth to the wealthy 9%. In a true free market, responsible politicians (all parties), state legislatures, governors and the US Court system up to and including the Supreme Court, would NOT allow themselves to be used by the 9% in this manner to throw up road blocks to freedom, the free market, competition and the ability of an average American to start a business and create wealth for his family and community.

Someone in another comment above tried to say its non partisan, are you kidding, of course it is partisan, simply because a couple of parties are consistently creating legislation that allows these Oil companies to keep polluting. Being Republican is important because 100% of republicans protect business at all costs, ALL COSTs and approx 60% of Democrats do likewise. Do the wealthiest 9% honestly need any protection? Seriously, are you kidding me! BTW, the Tea Party candidates are worse than the Republicans as 99.99% of their funding comes from these industries polluting ground water (drinking water) around the world. The Funders of the Tea Party are exceptionally successful at re-distributing wealth to themselves, can't call this socialism, but its true. If they put the police and/or army in play to defend them, by definition they have become Fascists.

Full Disclosure, I am no longer a Republican (approx 9% of US population are truly conservative) nor no longer a Democrat (19% are liberal) as neither organization takes the high road and does it right in my opinion. Nor am I a Libertarian any longer and after a month of its existence, as the bus loads were driven in, it was obvious that the Tea Party had been totally co-opted by the 9% that control almost everything. Who is not sick of these pathetic people redistributing wealth to themselves, while wrongly using terms like socialism, communism and other isms. The rest of us, you reading this, yes you are probably in this bucket as well whether you realize it or not, are somewhere in the middle and we need to form a third party to take our country back via the voting box.

I consider myself a Capitalist, to be successful, I need workers who are healthy (single payer plan that does not force them into insolvency with use, even my father Navy Flight Surgeon and MD agreed with that before he passed last year, though he hated Obamacare), have a roof over their heads, food on their tables, a livable wage that allows for investments after purchases of businesses goods and services and most importantly (though many seem to be unaware of it) is a source of clean drinking water...also for health reasons.

I am not insane, thus would not continue the failed trickle down economic policies that have devastated the middle class and left us capitalist with fewer customers. If it worked we would be awash in jobs. Nor would I lie and say that we are better off when we are not. My parents could live on 1 income, my wife and I need two incomes to have a lessor lifestyle, our children will need three or more incomes to approach our lifestyle...so much for the nuclear family. How many so-called religious people seem not to understand this. Look what your politicians are doing to all of us economically.

I would not try to remove anything (ie. Obamacare), without a concrete plan in writing, made into a bill and passed into law before removing something that is successful. Just saying. Its not as good as what I would like in a single payer system, but its a far cry better than anything that has been put forth in the last 40 years. I was taught that if you could not recommend a better solution, perhaps you should not complain...hint, hint.

Insanity says to do what was done in the past, proven a failure, that it will magically be better in the future...no I am not insane, though those against Obamacare seem to be. Since I used that example, even Obamacare, with all the warts put in by the group (equal number of Republicans and Democrats in committee, behind closed doors before the vote, you reading this need to understand that both parties are responsible for this farce that is Obamacare, that does not approach great single payer IMO). Both political parties put holes in the law in committee that a semi-truck could drive through into the act before it passed into law...catering to their 9% donors. To remove Obamacare without passing a better law is the definition of insanity. (The Tea Party, Libertarians and Republicans are on a double fail here as thanks to Obamacare, Insurance rates will be cheaper over the next decade than they would have been, in spite of the insurance companies, pharmaceutical companies, hospitals baking in fees increases before Obamacare passed...you see the Republicans and Tea Party candidates still have never put forth a viable plan.) The one or two alternative plans, I have seen are insane as they want to continue the past and expect a different outcome...insanity. Those that lost their doctors, would have lost them eventually anyway as fees increased and doctor reimbursements decreased...as has been happening for over 30 years.

So for those who say, its wrong, to put a political slant on the news of Oil companies getting paid twice and Duke Energy, I say WAKE UP. Get real, I simply respond with a few of the many historical examples where politics most certainly played a negative, anti-freedom, anti-American role and ask you to research and learn which political party was behind it...the truth will set you free. I simply respond with history, Exxon Valdez, Deepwater spill lies, The Business Plot, Major General Smedley Butler. I could go on, but that is more than enough to wake up anyone naive not to see the political connections to these spills and travesties.

Exxon still has not paid out the majority of the claims from the Valdez spill, that was well over 20 years ago.

As for Deepwater spill in the Gulf, there was an identical spill just like it off the Norwegian coast, similar or deeper depths that all the oil companies knew about. Yet in the news they said that nothing like this had every happened before...that was a bald faced lie. Again you will never hear about this on Fox or most US network news outlets as they are almost fully controlled by the 9%. Hey it started with the Newspapers in the early 1900s, continued with radio stations, broadcast networks and now Television News Networks like Fox, learn our (American / US) history.

As to the little gas station tanks referred to in the article, just look at the chemical spill (3 so far) polluting drinking waters of multiple states (its flowing into the Ohio River with the chemical mCHM and another toxic, ground water polluting chemical that will destroy a person's health....what did that Coal company do, why it declared bankruptcy and opened a shell company (probably all ready had it set up and ready to go, only way it could have happened so fast, to pre-pare the shell company) and transferred the assets (land, and polluting tanks) to the new company and fully expect this to protect them from any and all lawsuits. Thanks to the wealthy 9% protecting their interests, most government policing agencies can not and in the few cases where they might, the agency's budget has been devastated to make it impossible to enforce their mandate. Again, learn our history. (US news outlets will not teach you history that forces polluting corporations to stop polluting.)

It, bankruptcy, should not work, the liability should flow with 1) the people in the company and 2) the new company. But as history teaches us, it will not. Research Major General Smedley Butler and how we scoffed at Al Capone, stating he did what Capone did no no less than 3 continents protecting US Corporate interests...so this BS is a very old story. Perhaps if the multiple families treason, those wealthy industrialists and their Business Plot, had resulted in the patriarchs going to jail instead of Roosevelt (considered a traitor by the 9% of his day as he came from wealth also) getting his new Deal passed, things might be different.

As others have stated, paying a fine is not punishment, they really need to be put in jail for life. For the lives of all the families that their pollution has either killed or made ill. If that were the way the courts ruled, we would have none of our drinking water polluted. And as a Capitalist I would have healthy workers and healthy consumers, meaning more profit!

Its not rootable.

Its not open.

I can not install the software of my choosing on it.

Does it have a microSD card slot for sharing data between the handheld, your laptop and your desktop PC? (Granted many larger corporations irrationally lock the USB slots down, which would be the same for SD card slots. Those same irrational large corporations are either no longer funding staff to perform the Windows automated updates or are planning too. Thus they lock out use of USB, but stop providing security updates to Windows machines, the most afflicted infection vector in the IT world! I call this mentality insanity. Stop expecting a different result!)

Can I connect via WiFi with a BlackBerry?

I don't need Microsoft Office, love LibreOffice, so any advantage with MS Office is a non-issue for many of us.

I can run LibreOffice on my tablet / Linux handheld and love to not have to worry about the mindless data format upgrades by Microsoft that served no purpose and cost organizations significant dollars to convert their proprietary documents to the new format, only because Microsoft told them, they had too to run the latest version of MS Office.

I don't need Adobe anything (including Flash) on my device, though occasionally I have to update the .so file, thanks to Adobe no longer supporting Linux but putting out a new security update for Windows. Never mind that when you drill down into the security exploits, 98% of the time they require local access. Meaning its a non issue if you do not hand over you device to another or give a cracker the keys to your home/apt!

I could go on, but enough.

BTW, Blackberry is a sinking ship! Its just a fact. Been watching the stock (marketwatch), BBRY (Google Finance), not sure they will survive, such is life for any company stupid enough to get in bed with Microsoft and Microsoft only applications and development tool chains.

If a company's vertical market is lucrative, Microsoft will take it away from them or purchase the company within 4 to 5 years of the arrangement. There are many examples of this happening over the last 30 years. I wonder how many went out of business or saw their market share significantly eroded as Blackberry has? Had Blackberry catered to both Linux and Windows, they might still have a market and a business.

Only Hyper FEARful corporate/government entities are bothering with Blackberry today.

Yes FEAR is a motivator, however when a company acts out of fear primarily, without growing their company through new product offerings, its only a matter of time until they are diminished or gone.

We are finally getting to the point, economically, where companies that have cut their way to stock increases are up against walls created primarily due to their letting so many employees knowledable about their market and business go, they are discovering it very difficult to change their mindsets from one of offshoring/layoffs to one of growth. This too is a normal part of the business cycle. Their loss.

I loved my N800 when I bought it years ago. Loved using Skype and WiFi to make all my calls.

Than came the N880, the N900 and finally a Microsoft bonehead exec to Nokia that killed the toolset all those depended on. Even if Nokia were to apolgize and make amends for trashing that product line after realizing their Windows phone offerings are crapola, the same thing would probably just happen again in a year or two with the next bonehead executive that mistakenly thinks only Apple or Microsoft can make a good handheld. This was not true when I purchased my N800 in 2006/2007. So we must stop wasting time looking at anything other than a Linux root-able handheld. Even if they come with Android, if its root-able, you can put other Linux distros on it, just do your homework.

Google's Android is the ONLY root-able open source option in the cellular world. Sadly the cellular companies prefer to keep their product offerings locked down with no root access. Why they only offer Android in a restricted limited version. A non-rootable Android would most likely prevent you from adding what you want (a Linux distro other than Android) to add to your device.

Rather than focus on the software that is "Android", focus on the hardware. Is it root-able? Can you install a Linux with a very small footprint on it (there are plenty of options)? If you focus on the hardware, it will run Linux, as all other options (MS Windows or Apple primarily) will be closed to you. Closed as in you can not install Linux on them. Android would be preferrable to these non-rootable, non-admin options!

If it will run Linux, chances are it will run many small foot print distros in addition to Android. The hardware is the KEY!

Only one question to ask, "Will the hardware run Linux?

If you have the money to spend and do not want to build your own Linux media server (plan to do this with my older ZaReason Breeze 4220 PC), you could checkout ZaReason's product offerings. They build Linux boxes, you tell them what Linux distro you want on them.

ZaReason's small footprint media server, MediaBox 5440 (quad core power in a little bitty living space) or if you have room for a bigger box and are interested in 4 hot swappable sata bays, the Breeze Server 5880 looks like a very nice server.

Of course any Linux server can be made into a media server and any Linux PC can be turned into your personal DVR and a Linux server. Once you start using a Linux box this way, you will not want to 'stream' content over the internet, especially if you are a cable internet subscriber. Especially with a new LG 60 inch LED TV 1080p 300hz (Monitor wall anyone?) costing under $800! Just plug into your Linux PC and enjoy watching what you download!

Remember that 100% of Cable Internet providers throttle their bandwidth, meaning DSL is usually faster than their throttled cable bandwidth promises. DSL is usually cheaper too! The cable company's marketing bandwidth claims are lies based on this throttling!

A promise of 20MB/4MB gets throttled to less than 101Kb/20Kb in my experience and I guestimate you need at least 230Kb upstream for the stuttering to stop and they throttle the upstream to less than 20Kbs if you have the means to see it, granted other factors apply) This is why most of us download something before we watch it, forget about streaming over the Internet!

And with the recent net neutrality loss in the DC courts (January 14, 2014), this is going to become more of a problem for those of us wishing to download and stream content. It's going to get ugly folks!

I highly recommend Firefox with the DownloadHelper Plugin in order to download content from the Internet. Don't worry about the proprietary Windows formatted content, there are always other options, usually on the same download site. My friends and I refuse to purchase music that can not be played on any of our Linux devices (mp3, handheld, tablet, laptop, PC, server). If everyone did this, proprietary formats would be useless. And I pay for some content, just not proprietary formatted content. Even in the days of VCRs, I did not want to own every movie that I watched, only the few that I really loved, thus using a PC like a VCR, as in DVR, simply is the way we have always been doing things. If a TV/Cable Series or Movie is that good, I go buy it, usually after multiple seasons our out. Got all 10 Seasons of Stargate for under $300 at Fry's Electronics in CA, think I paid under $199, but its been awhile. Bought DVR version of "Dave" too, wish all our presidents were like Dave! Love that movie.

You can pretty much download anything down to a Linux PC and then stream it from there 'locally' on your network. This basically uses your harddrive like your own personal DVR box, no bandwidth throttling by cable companies to cause your streaming to stutter or stop. And you simply erase it after you watch it, just like we did with VCR tape recorders back in the day.

Full Disclosure, I do not work for ZaReason, just met the owners at SCaLE in Los Angeles a few years back (SCaLE 7x in 2008 I believe) and was very impressed with them, their company and their products. Became a customer in 2010 and even more impressed. Just recently purchased my third and fourth (Verix 530 laptop running Debian and ZaTab ZT2 fully rootable Android tablet) opensource Linux products from them. I plan to re-purpose my old ZaReason Breeze 4220 into a Media/File Server, cabled to one of those LG 55 or 60 inch LED TVs too! My wife's ZaReason Mint box (2011) is going strong, though I see her eyeing my new Verix 530 laptop, not going to get it.... Being not as computer literate as you all reading this, it was important for her to have a Linux distro that made things simple, she loves Mint and thinks I made a mistake getting Debian on my new laptop.

If you have not been to SCaLE, 12x this year, you are missing a fantastic 3 day conference, for usually less than $99 for the three days. Many of us have attended conferences of this scale for well over $1,500.00 for a week! You meet the owners of many open source companies at the event, not to mention 3 days of conferences, most of which are excellent! You should check it out! If you are an open source business, buy a booth and support the event, you will be glad you did!

Also, say Hi to the LAPHP (they will have a booth) folks for me if you go, tell them CB said hello! They are great bunch of techies!

ZaReason ~ "They build Linux hardware so you don't have to" and everything (sound, video, wifi, bluetooth, etc...) just works out of the box.

Because of the reference to remote controlling airplanes. Yes its been done. Yes it is possible. Yes this reminds people of something that some would prefer not be thought of.

There is a patent on a box that is mounted on the bottom of a jet airliner (airplane, helicopter, etc..) that can 100% control it. I have seen it and if you dig through the conspiracy junk, get the patent number, you can search for it like I did.

Remote controlling airplanes causes anyone with a brain to question the official brain-dead story that was put forth by all American news outlets. Granted there is much better evidence for those willing to keep an open mind and search for themselves.

Any comment that hints at remote controlling airplanes will get modded down so that few if any will read it, heaven help us if people start using their brain to think and see the obvious.

Personally with all the conspiracy facts out there that were once thought to be conspiracy theories, you would think people would be more reasonable, give the benefit of the doubt and research for themselves.

To not use your brain, think, research and reason is insane. The truth always sets one free.

Of course the fearful and haters will continue to mod references like the one you commented on down. Its sad.

Only certain versions of Linux, Wayland breaks other distros (versions) of Linux unfortunately, thus its only a very limited solution at best.

Surprised that they think this type of twitter marketing actually works. Most people unfollow accounts that do this.