Piracy isn't a solution, though. The (exaggerated) point made by Cap'n DB Emmanuel is valid. If no one pays, no more (overly-hyped/produced/shitty) content.

The main problem is this idea that cord-cutter = pirate. I cut the cable cord because I didn't want to pay for a ton of ads and crappy channels I don't watch. But instead of piracy, I moved to the netflix+hulu+espn3 on my xbox. I pay a fair price to see the content I want, when I want. I'm not happy about the ads on hulu, but it's infinitely better than cable/sat where just under half of the "content" is advertising. And to get the equivalent functionality from cable would cost 3-4 times as much.

Soon, every "premium" channel will be selling it's own subscription available on whatever device we want. I'd pay for HBO Go right now, but not while it requires a cable package. HBO wants to get paid, and if they can cut out the middlemen, they will. The cable/sat providers won't give us à la carte, but the content providers eventually will.

Nutrition info is on everything, it hasn't helped. It's on bottled water. It's at the counter at burger king. We all know for a fact that drinking large amounts of sugar water is incredibly bad for us, yet we still do it. If education has failed, and the healthcare industry has failed (MDs are just pill dispensers now) then all we have left is legislation. And for those who scream "personal responsibility!", the unhealthier we all get, the higher the cost of health care for everyone. It's not about big scary government control of your life, it's about regulation of harmful substances.

Even if they do "open the lines", they still own the lines. They'll still fear accountability and still mandate throttling/packet inspection.

The only way to get around this is if these new players lay their own lines or come up with a wifi/sat service that actually works. But then those still need to connect to backbones owned by someone else. And eventually the media corporations will lobby hard enough to get all their dirty work done upstream.

As for competition and price gouging, just look at the current cell providers to see where it's all going. Contracts, high monthly rates, fees out the wazoo and being nickel and dimed to death for every little bit that traverses their network. Not concerned? Two words for you: "Canadian Data."

Or possibly more lobbying of the Democrats is required because Republicans are "Corporate Profits First" by nature...

My T-Mobile plan is $20/month less than it would have been if I had gone the subsidized phone contract route. As far as I know, they are the only ones doing it, and the last time I was in a store, they were pushing it heavily.

I feel the pain. Which is why I was one of the few people to elect to not telecommute when it was offered. Now I get to go to the office and enjoy the peace and quiet and actually get some stuff done without having to get in at 3am. Strangely all the annoying people chose to "work" from home...

Same here. I originally got a zune because at the time (2006) it was that or the ipod if you wanted a large capacity player. Yes I know there were other devices, but the device and interface design were crap on all of them. I didn't care for the ipod; it looked awful and the interface was primitive at best (at the time), so I got a black 30GB zune. Loved the hell out of it and genuinely missed it after it died in a fire. I tried the touch model and it was ok, but the HD was perfect in form and function. The all black 16GB still gets my top vote as sexiest hardware ever. I always found the software to be good and intuitive and pretty, without being a resource hog. Only issue I ever had was that it was Windows only.

But, sadly, my HD doesn't make calls. so it gathers dust mostly; while my android phone (thats not locked in to anything), is well used.

This is it exactly. Every time I hear a climate change debate raging, I look out the window and contemplate the ring of brown foulness circling the valley I live in and wonder why we're not talking about that. Forget what rainfall in the Sudan will be in 25 years, we need to get the mainstream focus on what burning fossil fuels is doing to us right now.

Unfortunately at this point, legalization would just move supply from an illegal gang of thugs, to a completely legal one. Drug companies would inflate prices and blame gov. regulation and red-tape (as they do now), meanwhile continuing to rake in billions on the profit line. We'd have a whole new round of Joe Camel, except it'd be Mickey Meth.

Prices would be much lower on the street, as criminals would just step up robberies of pharmacies and hijacking of shipments. And they would sell it for half the legal price and still make as much if not more than they do now (no more production costs).

But I still favor it over the current hypocrisy...

T-Mobile is the only one offering this. BYOD, get $20 off per month and no contract. Of course it's not advertised that way, and most consumers would balk at paying for their phone up front, and it'll be the first thing to go if T-Mobile is sold to anyone, but I'll love it while it lasts.

I was a little miffed when I got the notice about LJ going digital with 6 months left on my sub, but I have tried the Android app and have been pleasantly surprised.

"Son of a bitch," he cried. And so ends the saga of: "The Last Person On The Face Of The Earth To Be "Rick-Rolled"...

First and foremost, it has to account for budget, and the rationalization thereof. It's scary how often suits (and more and more "engineers") say things like "Come on really; how often does that kind of thing actually happen?" This is usually uttered after staring at a couple dozen slides of metrics that detail exactly how often it happens...

I agree with points 1 and 4, but point 3 just sounds like it would come off condescending (you know how we ugly, stupid Americans are). I am curious though on the actual number of French-Majoring drive-thru attendants... But yes, I agree it's our own fault for continuing to give money to corporations (you know, the Job Creators) that outsource and offshore everything. But hey, the invisible hand of the free market will correct all this soon, so I'm not worried (except for the fact that the invisible hand will have a gun or two in it). Oh, and when you tell others "Be nice or shut the fuck up," why not teach by example? I know plenty of Americans who have no issue with bedpans, and they worked their asses off to get the opportunity to change them.

Whether you call it capitalism or communism, it's all just plain Greed. Whether you spout BS and claim it all for the "Good of the Motherland" or "Good of the Shareholders" makes no difference. It's all about power and the abuse of it. Short-sighted decisions made by greedy people will be the end of us (western civilization as we know it), no matter what they choose to call it.