why are we even building flammable houses?

I don't know, maybe to save a human life?

I kept with all the bloated Samsung crap on my S4 before I switched to a Google Edition-based rom and haven't looked back. I don't think there's a single feature that the Samsung software gave me that the Google Edition software doesn't do better, or that I just didn't care about the gimmicks of TouchWiz.

Email? Not sure about. How do you verify who you are with many people having unsecured email accounts on home computers, cell phones, etc.

My doctor has a secure portal where I can ask questions, read replies, see what my recent prescriptions were for and dosage, find out results of lab work if the doctor has released them, etc. Quite handy. More inconvenient than just email, but a lot better than nothing.

With modern tech, private toll roads would work even better than they have in the past.

Yeah. It's worked out really well for selling (actually leasing) the Indiana Toll Road. The current owners of the lease filed for bankruptcy last year after operating the road for 8 years. The tolls on the road hadn't increased for 20 years prior to the lease being signed in 2006, but nearly doubled coinciding the beginning of the lease, with yearly guaranteed rate increases every year since. The road's condition is horrible, and one major interchange near Chicago where I80/I-90/I94 intersect has been closed because they don't know what the hell to do with it since they don't have any money.

Privatization rules, since Indiana made $3.8b off of the deal. Except when the private company can't operate what they paid for and live up to their end of the bargain.

Raises hand. At least when I need a specific resistor NOW. Those resistors you speak of that cost .001 each only cost that amount when you buy a reel of 1000 of them.

I get most of my components through Digikey, and if I only needed five 10k ohm 1/4 watt resistors resistors, it'd cost me $.50, plus $3.22 for shipping and I'd have to wait 2-3 days. If I order on Thursday or Friday, there's probably an extra day or two for the weekend.

Or, I could go down to RadioShack and buy a 5-pack for $1.19, have it in about 10 minutes round trip, and work on my project.

RS sucks if you plan ahead, can order in a large enough quantity, and package a bunch of items together to spread out (or eliminate) the cost of shipping. It's convenient if you only need one or two of something, you need it NOW, or you otherwise can justify paying considerably more per-item, but still relatively a small amount.

and what MakerBot is doing to try to salvage its open-source cred

Yeah. Good luck with that salvage job.

Other than fire suppression, is there any other practical advantage to locating a datacenter underground?

Surface natural disasters wouldn't have an impact. So you don't need to worry about storms, wind, hurricanes, tornados, etc. Terrorism, explosions, etc also are minimized, at least from outside sources. Physical security is also improved. Cooling may be easier depending on how it's constructed to utilize more consistent temperatures...but that could also work against you if you don't have enough cooling as you can't just run another refrigerant line through a wall to outside.

Last I checked, cameras don't work from the adjacent office. Or floor above or below. Or any other place that would block optical spying but not from picking up EM radiation.

I was working at a defense contractor in the '80's when the whole "Tempest" program started.

Really it's amazing how easy it is for people to forget things like Van Eck phreaking have been around for going on three decades now

No, I don't thing people are forgetting things have been going on for three decades...

They're probably going to leave behind stained money, as it is of no use to them. The bank, on the other hand, of course will re-deposit their own stained money....

No, they'll do the same thing that banks in the US do when they have a dye pack that goes off. They ship it back to the fed reserve and it gets replaced.

But what if they would find out that there is MORE stained money found in the debris than there was inside?

In what way would that benefit a thief to leave money, stained or not, at a crime scene?

Sounds to me like either a source for lulz or a way to wash (somehow literally) dirty money. (with a little inside help of course)

Nevermind. I didn't realize you were the actors in Office Space that had to look up the dictionary definition of money laundering.

Money laundering only works if you get the "clean" money back after it's been "laundered". If you have a guy on the inside that would get the money after it's been replaced, whether it's extra or not, it's not money laundering. It's just plain theft. And you wouldn't even need to go through hassle of laundering it, they would just steal it to begin with.

"Thirty Minneapolis city buildings will get free basic cable for the next seven years"

I wonder why thirty Minneapolis city buildings need basic cable to begin with, let alone for 7 years. Maybe the city employees could, you know, do their jobs instead of watching basic cable?

No, there's no reason for them to withhold their number.

Medical privacy? Perhaps a patient doesn't want others to see "Midwest Cancer Services" on the caller id. Or "Planned Parenthood". Or any other possibly recognizable number/name.

You don't need Windows to play games or browse the web either.

... Windows 10 license [costs] eleventy bajillion dollars...

Thanks for the quote I'm using with my trade magazine article...

Well, presumably they need the account information to determine if the accusation is valid or not, although as many others have pointed out, why can't they use the alleged victim's account. Regardless, any action shouldn't come until the accused has had their due process. If all it took was an accusation and refusal to share their credentials to be "sentenced" to a year of no social media access and/or public service, the system would be guaranteed to be abused.