So far in this thread, you are the only one who - I think - has hit the nail on the head. It's all about employee lock-in.

The "free" shuttle buses, laundry, meals, etc etc etc has one goal: KEEP YOU WORKING. If you don't need to maneuver your own transport? You can work more. If you don't need to cook? You can work more. If you don't need to wash your own clothes? You can work more.

A colleague of mine has a daughter hired by a Bay tech company right out of college. He was humble-bragging that she gets all of these "benefits" plus a low six figure salary at 22 years old. But to me, it's a bit of a sucker bet because the goal of these "benefits" is to have you work as much as possible.

Spot on. My prices were on the generous side!!

Well if it was still within the .gov domain it would still fall under all NARA and other legal requirements to archive. It's when Gov officials use commercial services, like DickyC@evilempire.com to control the Bush Administration that I have a problem!

**facepalm** My above post should have read minister@"domain".com and "ministersname"@"domain".com

Setting aside the ridiculous $1M issue, the accounts are called secret, but aren't they simply PRIVATE? That is, they aren't publicly distributed and shared widely, but they aren't "secret" since multiple parties obviously know that they exist. Even my low-budget church has a "Minister@.com" address for the public and a private @.com.

My per page prices figure bulk shipping. With enough lead time, shipping is cheap! With overseas production, shipping is MORE than the printing!!

Printing Geek here: Paperback book would be roughly $0.01 or LESS per text page (depending on the run length of total copies) and $0.04 per cover. All of this includes binding and shipping. So, let's look at a 300 page paperback: about $3.10 per printed copy. Now, think of a large run book with text page cost at $0.005 or $0.0025 per page: ~$1.54 or ~$0.79 per copy. I think the lower range of prices is even more likely considering the junk paper stock and black ink only for paperbacks.

Keep in mind these cost are assuming domestic US production of books! I don't think I can pick up one of my kids books and not see "PRINTED IN CHINA" on the back.

I fully agree that it makes fiscal sense to send robots and such. Manned exploration, to me, isn't about fiscal sense. I think it's innate to the human experience to go there ourselves. To see with our own eyes what the robots tell us. Example: I found James Cameron's dive in the ocean trench last year far more interesting than what submersibles have already told us. To hear the excitement in an explorer's voice and get that feeling of what it was like... you can't get that from a probe.

It doesn't make financial sense, but to have "boots on the ground" puts the awe of it in perspective for all of humanity, IMHO.

It's a shame so much of NASA's human exploration has been cut back. It's awesome scientific challenges like protecting astronauts on such a mission that would create untold breakthroughs in shielding tech and other fields. We need these challenges to advance our society! We need to reap the benefits. We need 21st Century TANG!!!!

Remember kids: Government regulation is bad. Unless, of course, that regulation is to protect a cartel. Then, by golly, it's A-OK.

Oh, and I get 8 - 10 MBps up and 2 down, AT&T LTE on iPhone 5.

My wife and I use just our phone's hotspot feature for internet as we live in an area with no DSL or cable service. I work at home one day a week and then we do "normal" web browsing and such. We try to limit video watching because, obviously, the 5GB/month cap. We've been doing this for 6 months and don't "usually" go over the cap. In March both she and I did because we had a friend visit for a week who worked from our home during that time, so I incurred 2 extra GB and my wife 1. So, overall it works but you really cannot have a Netflix sub or watch a lot of YouTube.

Amen! I've actually been thinking of, at the end of my contract of course, ditching my iPhone for a "burner" and then getting an iPad for the screen real estate. I find it wasteful to have an iPhone and a tablet, but just a tablet with a cheapola phone makes sense.

"D’Aloisio and the Summly team will be joining Yahoo as part of the transaction..."

Well there goes working from home, kid!

One of my favorite columnists, Gregg Easterbrook, summed it up nicely:

"Therefore I plan to make my fortune by marketing the incredible new drug Placebon. A patented, proprietary formula consisting entirely of sugar, Placebon will revolutionize medicine. Elaborately packaged in individual foil doses, Placebon will be obtained only with a doctor's prescription. Placebon will be the subject of a multimillion-dollar marketing campaign consisting of costly television advertising and full-page magazine ads with hundreds of words in disclaimers. In the TV ads, smiling multicultural people will run through fields of wild flowers laughing and embracing, but the announcer will never give the slightest hint what the drug is for."

"Placebon will be extremely expensive, thus increasing demand. Pharmaceutical companies will treat doctors to lavish dinners, send them on all-expense-paid cruises and hand out handsome 'consulting' fees to get them to prescribe Placebon. Controlled clinical studies will fail to show that Placebon is any more effective than breathing, but the manufacturer will lobby the Food and Drug Administration not to report this. Celebrities will be hired to have public breakdowns, then make spectacular recoveries by taking Placebon. A saccharine version, Diet Placebon, will be marketed. Initially, many insurers will refuse to pay for Placebon. But as senior citizens stream across the Canadian border to buy low-cost government-subsidized Placebon, politicians will demand that insurers pay, and the health care share of the GDP will rise again. Eventually a generic will be available at discount, while the patent holder makes a tiny molecular change in order to maintain proprietary pricing of advanced Placebon 24", a longer-lasting version. By converting the placebo from cheap to extremely expensive, Placebon will expand the benefits of the placebo effect from a tiny few who participate in clinical trials to millions of Americans."

Warning: Do not take Placebon if you are pregnant or not pregnant. Product not suitable for anyone who is tall or short or not tall or not short. Side effects may include pneumonia, cancer, bubonic plague and amputation. If you had trouble getting dates in high school, Placebon may not be right for you. Do not operate tunnel-boring machinery or artillery after taking Placebon. Never take Placebon or any prescription drug without first paying a large sum to a doctor.