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Submission + - WSJ: Prepare to hang up the phone - forever (wsj.com) 1

retroworks writes: Telecom giants AT&T and Verizon Communications are lobbying states, one by one, to hang up the plain, old telephone system, what the industry now calls POTS--the copper-wired landline phone system whose reliability and reach made the U.S. a communications powerhouse for more than 100 years. Is landline obsolete, and should be immune from grandparents era social protection?

Comment Re: Guaranteed... (Score 1) 51

It's been a painfully helpful thing, like an ice bath for a fever (maybe?) to See my beloved Android system (software and hardware) lose its aura that you can trust stuff because it's free and open source. I still prefer it to alternatives. But I confess that I was naive and went along with the worship of open source. I just don't think I control my phone anymore

Comment They should have lowered the price (Score 1) 276

I have been a prime member since the start and I would pay even more than that for it. However, I think they are making a mistake by thinking about cases like mine. The increase in cost of shipping is a terrible excuse. No doubt that the cost has gone up but I suspect the prime membership cannot even come close to breaking even. Those who do NOT sign up for it are the ones who are making that exact calculation. I did too at first because I used to shop for books and other stuff almost on most major sites. Once you have prime, you just keep using Amazon because of free and FAST shipping. Sure other sites have sometimes free shipping but the cheapest and slowest ones. Everyone who has prime in my experience buys more from Amazon. The more you buy the more they "lose" on shipping but they win in the end. I would have lowered it to get more people hooked...

Comment The ones I would love to ditch but can't (Score 1) 531

In order of importance for my work 1. Adobe Acrobat Pro (repeat the above line eight more times) 10. MS Word I can almost do all MS Word stuff with freeware alternatives, but almost. Acrobat alternatives? For pdf power users there is no alternative. None. I don't do graphics much but I can see that GIMP is no photoshop. It *seems* to me that Acrobat vs alternatives' gap is even bigger. But may just be because I don't do graphic works. MS Word

Comment "no one forced you to" (Score 1) 259

I see this perspective - 'no one forced you to publish with them' etc - voiced in some comments here. I appreciate that many of us need such fantasies of individual sovereignty to even get out of bed in the morning, this doesn't apply to academia. Most people have no choice practically of where the top journals in their fields are. They could theoretically publish elsewhere, only not to be read the very few peers there are to begin with, or lose a chance at tenure, placement, etc.

Comment 'Things' haven't changed all that much (Score 1) 136

It's true that some carriers, in some countries allow you to port your number (though that's hardly everywhere, making the 'worldwide claim of this database the same be just an empty claim). So some 'things' have changed, just a little. But, most importantly, 'Things' such as phone numbers, are still, to my knowledge, incapable of autonomous intentionality and even of having enough singular qualities for this company's mission to make any sense. A phone number neither intends to do good or evil, nor does it have material components or specs to fail to carry out the user's intention and deserve a bad reputation. Without these, the concept of reputation is simply inapplicable. Until some number phone numbers started willingly or typically call the wrong place or person by intentional design or by poor design, this company shouldn't bother calling me. I suspect they should put their own number first on their own list of numbers being associated with *people* misusing numbers

Comment 'good' news (Score 1) 114

For our business, we have been using Square only because of that pricing model. Their customer service is one of the worst I have ever encountered (they think Twitter is a good place for businesses to discuss credit card processing publicly), they make a lot of decisions that are cute but either useless or in fact make things worse and less productive. I have been so frustrated with them for months but couldn't go elsewhere because of the rates. This change sucks but at least now I can walk away without any problems.

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