Those 'other reasons' are pretty simple: Liberal and wealthy societies become complacent due to the ease of their lives, and that makes them neglect the principles and practices that made them powerful and wealthy to begin with.

The default human condition is poverty, misery and violence. Escaping that is rare, and it takes a special society to make wealth, power and security seem normal. Once wealth, power and security are seen as birthrights and not hard-won prizes, the parts of a society that make it special are neglected (because, hey, they're 'mean' and 'hard work'), and rot sets in.

Don't forget that OPEC countries have been found financing anti-Keystone XL 'environmental' groups as a means to keep competition out of their oil markets and keep prices up. Then there's the railway owners, who would lose out if a pipeline was built. Much of the inland oil development is shipped by BSNF, a Berkshire-Hathaway company. Buffet is an Obama supporter who has publicly supported Keystone XL, but who knows what deals are going on behind closed doors? (my apologies if this is a repeat post, the last one didn't seem to take.)

There's more though. Arab oil-producing companies have been found backing environmental groups, to fight the introduction of new supply into their markets, which would depress prices. Then there's the owners of the railroads, who would lose out if the pipe network was expanded. If I remember correctly, BSNF railway ships much of the recent inland oil development, and it's owned by Warren Buffet, a notable supporter of Obama. Buffet (again IIRC) has come out in support of the Keystone XL pipeline, but who knows what deals are going on behind closed doors?.

I was just speaking to the "rights holders own the data" statement, that's all. Just pointing out that lumping Google in with others who don't provide a means to download or transfer ownership of your data is incorrect.

I can't speak for data ownership for the others but at least Google has its Inactive Account Manager which lets you "will" your data to someone else. You can also, at any time, download all your photos, video, and other content using Google Takeout.

Does Apple have anything like Google's Inactive Account Manager?

ElementaryOS runs surprisingly well on older machines. That's pretty much what I'm doing with all my dinosaurs.

What this article is totally glossing over is the fact that Google is making a lot of inroads, not just through Android devices that are tied into Google services and apps, but also through their iOS apps which have gained a lot of traction as well. Two of the top iOS apps of 2013 were Google Maps and YouTube, both huge ad revenue generators for Google. In the long run, this could be troubling for Apple as it boxes them in to remaining mostly a hardware company. Hardware gets commoditized much faster than software and services do.

As good as Apple was, it still had its share of Fart apps in the app store. It was kind of a running gag early on. It wasn't just Android that suffered from this.

I wouldn't be at all surprised to see that they could build NFC right into the packaging itself. Yes, it might make the pods a bit more expensive, but I could see where maybe Keurig could have cut a pretty good deal with an NFC wholesaler to bring it into play, especially if the cost is offset with some patent sharing. There's more than one way to offset cost.

Great, except for the fact that it is Starbucks coffee, which I find overpriced and unnecessarily bitter.

That does end after a while (the headaches, typical withdrawal symptoms). Maybe it's the age, but I found that my caffeine tolerance went down considerably after age 40. I found that it would keep me up at night and actually started having some anxiety issues as well - namely unexplained heart palpitations, shortness of breath. Cutting caffeine down by drinking only decaf coffee or herbal teas helped dramatically. Yes, I had some headaches as I started down the decaf path, but after a few weeks, those subsided. Yes, I know that decaf isn't necessarily good for me either, but I still love the taste of coffee and my brain still believes that it is waking up from the coffee. Go figure.

Her parents should have simply kept their mouths shut about the settlement entirely. They had one job to do in this settlement. They didn't do it.

Chrome, Notepad++ and Eclipse if I'm doing any development work.

I think what also matters is what stage of life you're at. If you're closer to the end of your career than the beginning, I think it matters alot. At this point, I have one in college, and the second one about to enter college. Our finances are such that neither kid should have to take out a loan to complete 4 years, assuming I work at something that can pull in at least 60% of what I'm making, so I figure that within 3 years, I'm going to downsize my career, start doing something I want to do rather than something I have to do. What's nice is that my company actually encourages bridging out to a new career, offering a kind of part-time work arrangement while you find your niche.