Personally, I choose to make that trade only with Google. One company has my profile, and in exchange I get many services.

You can't really be that naive are you? When Google has your data, Google's business partners have it too (part or parcel), the law can have it through subpoenas, the NSA... just about everybody.

Besides, I suspect Google uses the data in ways I don't want it to be used. So even if it was the sole guardian of it, I don't want to give it to them. Not willingly anyway, and as little as possible when I don't have the choice - and people have less and less choice as days go by in the matter.

The United States has abandoned its manned space exploration capabilities, relying on another semi-derelict cold-war era launch setup, provided by a country it's on the brink of war with (Russia), preferring to funnel almost unlimited funds to anti-terrorism and Orwellian surveillance programs instead...

I'm was born during the cold war. Tensions between the US and the USSR weren't ideal by any means, but at least when I was a kid, we looked forward to a bright future of scientific achievements and space exploration. Now all I look forward to is reaching retirement age with some money on the side that's still worth something despite the inflation, hoping that WW3 and the religious crazies don't overwhelm the world before I kick the bucket.

Sad, sad world...

With Comcast, you get some sort of boost... But they are rather correct on the service contract. You get internet access.
Here is the catch
The other side (in this case net flicks) has flooded the lines and won't pay to carry the transmission.
The consumer still gets the internet access and the transmission, but not at the fault of the Comcast.

Your UPS analogy is slightly off...
The better analogy is ... You buy a house near a bridge
The bridge has 2 lanes
When you see the bridge at 4am there is nobody
But at 7am it's packed with delays towards your office and the other lane empty (empty lane has a toll booth)
You bought the house based on thinking it was going to be a simple ride to the office and free 1 way
What you discovered is huge delays.

Now you're asked to build another bridge lane, but the town won't help foot the bill unless it get's to build a toll booth and raise
the rates. Taxpayers don't want to foot the bill.

What I meant was, you can train yourself to like healthy foods, to the point of craving them. Me, just eating one small burger from McDonald's makes me sick now.

As for exercising, it make you feel good. It really does. It's a real buzz after an mere half hour of cycling or swimming.

And then, in the grand scheme of things, when your health is good, you generally feel good too.

Staying healthy makes you feel good, but it does so in the medium to long run, and it takes a bit of effort to get going. Chocolate provides immediate, short-term and effortless pleasure. But it's not good for you. Don't you think it's worth investing a little effort for a few months to train yourself to enjoy a healthy lifestyle, so that you can feel good all the time afterward?

Too bad healthy food tastes and/or feels like shit and excercise is frustrating, wholly unpleasant and time-consuming :/

Yet those of use who exercise and eat healthy seem to lead a happier life. With so much frustration and time wasting, it's a strange thing isn't it?

Maybe you should give it a go some day. You might end up liking your veggies and feeling good exercising...

That says something about the state of train travel in the US. That ain't nothing to be proud of: there are trains in Europe and Japan that have been running regular services at higher speeds for a long time.

You Sir owe me a shirt, as I was sipping my coffee when I read that :)

I don't want to be tracked: I don't want my personal data stored and dissected in Google's servers, I don't want my fingerprints filed in some government agency's database, I don't want my DNA sequenced and recorded anywhere, and I don't want my microbiome analyzed.

I don't want to, but I have no choice apparently. Anonymity is going the way of the dodos. Fuck I hate this world...

This is an important point. Today, most screens are designed for only 2d in mind, meaning the light is being sent out omni-directional.

If pixel density increases past what can be seen by the human eye, they could develop 3d displays using polarized films that could allow for directional displays. This means they would be similar to today's planar holographs, where as you move your head you would see a different version of the image.

This would be a huge advancement in display technology and such science fiction concepts as holodecks could be possible for numerous people to walk around a boxed display and see accurate 3D.

FAA has no authority below the mandated altitudes for air travel. Property owners have air rights above their property up to the FAA's mandated altitudes or as locally mandated by code.

So, the FAA should kindly go fuck itself. It does not tell us what we can do in the immediate vicinity around our homes or property.

If I want to hire a drone to do a fly through of my home, or my realtor offers to do it themselves, I will do it and the feds can shove their rules as far up their ass as they please.

How much of the equipment was actually faulty?

If the news tells them there's a major solar storm that can destroy electronics, how much of these insurance claims are simply people seeking a free upgrade for a old, working piece of equipment?

You will notice that on the worst days, there were not significantly more claims; just that on significant solar days they were more claims probably because those days got into world news.

Or insurance companies themselves only allow such claims during certain periods around such reported days.

Only automate tasks on systems that can be quickly snapshotted and simply QC'd using scripts.

For instance, if you have a web server you want to update weekly, then setup a script on the virtual host that snapshots the virtual machine before the upgrades and then runs a series of checks on the web server after the upgrades. If the web server does not respond as expected to the post-upgrade checks, the virtual host can revert back to the pre-update snapshot and send a message to you notifying you of the upgrade failure. You could also snapshot the failed virtual machine, spin it up on another machine or instance without networking to check the logs for any errors that occurred during upgrades.

If the virtual machine is *nix based, you could mount the snapshot directly on the host and browse the logs as well, or even automate the collection of failed logs too.

Any upgrade procedure that cannot be easily scripted or delayed in such a fashion should be done manually and well attended by someone knowledgeable.

What...the high intensity youtube video with techno-music and flying text wasn't enough proof?

Man, what are they gonna have to do to get through to you... make it work or something?

I read somewhere that the heavens and the Earth came first.