TFA links a company's security reputation to whether or not a breach occurred in the first place, not how the company responded to the breach.

There is a subtle difference between a reputation for having no security breaches and a reputation for responding well to security breaches.

I am claiming the former is not as important as the latter.

Remember, the company you see on the news regarding their first ever data breach had a sterling security reputation... until it didn't.

I expect companies I do business with to do everything possible (within reason) to prevent breaches, but I also accept the fact that breaches are inevitable.

Be upfront and honest with me about it. Make sure it doesn't happen again. Repair any damage that was done. Do those things, and you'll have my business.

So it's perfectly legal for customers to make their own backup copies of media...

That is not quite what the judge is saying. "it may well be legal" != "it is legal"

The volume of demand enables lower fuel prices.

Fuel taxes are dramatically higher in Europe. For example, in Norway, 63% of the price you pay at the pump is made up of taxes. In the Netherlands it's 68%. Those numbers seem pretty typical, according to Wikipedia at least.

Notwithstanding the foregoing, either party may bring an individual action in small claims court. YOU AGREE THAT, BY ENTERING INTO THIS AGREEMENT, YOU AND AT&T ARE EACH WAIVING THE RIGHT TO A TRIAL BY JURY AND TO PARTICIPATE IN A CLASS ACTION WITH RESPECT TO ARBITRATION CLAIMS.

This is a big win for the consumer. We can finally rest assured that AT&T cannot enter into a class action against its consumers.

You might laugh, but this is AT&T we're talking about. To quote Angels in the Outfield: "It could happen."

Lobotomies are a bit extreme.

Besides, that's what we have the Thought Police for. Or didn't the telescreen tell you?

That's one of the main problems with higher education, at least in the United States. I can't comment on the rest of the world.

As someone who graduated fairly recently with a degree in Computer Science, I can tell you that most of the CS students I graduated with were totally unprepared to do "real" development work. Why? Because CS courses tend to teach theoretical stuff you will rarely use, not practical stuff you will use every day. You need a balance of both, and for better or worse, many schools emphasize the theoretical side. And that's how it has to be in order to justify the high cost of an education. "You mean I spent all that money for something I could have learned online in a few weeks?" I realize that's an exaggeration, but all I know is that I will never use 90% of what I learned in my CS classes.

And really, it makes sense. As everyone reading this knows, Computer Science != Computer Programming. They are two wildly different fields, and the education for one does not imply success in the other. That brings me to my next point...

This might sound crazy, but I think the best approach for some people is a 2-year liberal arts school with an additional couple years of what amounts to vocational training as a computer programmer. You'll get the stuff you want from a university (core classes you will use every day, such as writing, critical reading, psych, etc.), and the practical experience you need to actually land a job. Oh yeah, and all for a fraction of the cost of a university. I realize this would not work for everyone, and there is something to be said for going the traditional CS route: If you want to do CS research, get a CS degree. Another fun experiment: Try getting a decent job (or even an interview) as a developer with anything short of a 4-year CS degree.

At least in the software industry, there is mismatch between the education route many programmers take (4-year college) and the education requirements of the job (the vocational route I mentioned). College has become a place to spend four years meeting people, making friends, going to parties, and attending classes you'd rather not be in. It always amazed me how many students paid through the nose for classes they never attended and had no interest in. It's babysitting for high school graduates.

Bottom Line: If you put in a lot of effort, you'll get an excellent return on your investment. The problem is, most students don't put any effort into doing "real" work while they are in school. The result is another fresh, unemployable crop of CS graduates who couldn't even use a version control system if their lives depended on it. And we wonder why jobs are moving off shore.

There, got my pessimism out for the day...

Whenever I read a headline like this I think to myself, "Alright, some jackass is trying to get a bunch of attention. Surely there must be more to this story."
 

Imagine my surprise when I realized that, no, the title is 100% accurate. Amazing.

How many "In Soviet Russia..." jokes will this generate? I'm taking bets...

From the summary:

Independent Record store customers are some of the most loyal music buyers around.

When faced with the shear numbers Wal-Mart brings to the table, does loyalty actually matter? That's the problem here. A thousand loyal indie store customers are trumped by a million disloyal Wal-Mart customers. This is a business about making money, not about keeping indie shops afloat.
 

Regardless of your answer to the above question, if I have 100 customers, and 90 of them buy my product through Wal-Mart and other large chains, I would concentrate on selling to the large chain stores. That number is just a guess, but I suspect it's fairly close. My guess is that EMI looked at their distribution costs versus the number of customers reached and decided, "These indie stores just aren't worth the distribution costs." I can't really blame them. It sucks, but I can't blame them. Distributing a physical product costs money, and what better way to cut down on distribution costs than to ship to your two or three largest customers and make the indie stores obtain your product from there, at their own expense.
 

From the article:

It's a odd turn of events for EMI, adding another blow to its physical CD sales while inversely arguing that illegal file-sharing is the real culprit behind declining revenues. If its concerned with losses then why get rid of customers? It just doesn't make any sense.

This is a rare case of the music industry--well, at least EMI--moving away from a business model we all know is outdated, and people are still complaining? And no, phasing out CD sales has nothing to do with illegal file sharing. There are better, cheaper, more convenient, DRM-free options out there, like iTunes and Amazon MP3. They aren't trying to push away their customers; they are trying to encourage people to either buy from stores with cheap distribution costs or buy from digital stores with even cheaper distribution costs.
 

I don't like the record industry, and I think the tactics they use are despicable. That said, it's stories like this that make me think they just can't win sometimes. The article makes it sound like EMI is a big mean company trying to crush indie competition, when in reality EMI is itself a business trying to keep costs down and phase out a wasteful distribution system. Give them a break.
 

Cue anti-RIAA downmods.... now.

...it doesn't change the fact that it will still end in tears for you...

I think some people are actually into that. Wait, you were talking about sex, right?

In that case, they're just lucky to be railroad workers instead of pencil factory workers. Actually, I'm not sure which is worse...

You make it sound like a crime for a company to do something that benefits itself.

That said, I think they should have come out and said it plainly: we are removing LAN support to prevent piracy, not to improve quality.

Blizzard, if piracy is what this whole thing is about (and it is), just tell me. Don't treat me like a five year old and tell me you're doing it for my own good.

Then what was I playing Diablo on in 1998?

I realize the service has surely been overhauled several times since then, but it's hardly a new service. Battle.net has been around for ages.

We looked at the Alan Shepards, Louis Armstrong, and Buzz Aldrins as supermen.

I also think of Louis Armstrong as a superman. He played that trumpet like a god! But getting back to the article, I think Neil Armstrong also qualifies as a superman.