Or Tor and the refresh button.

Except, you know, they aren't monopolies.
But none of that will matter soon. After the disastrous Rural broadband initiative from 2009, the FCC realized just how expensive it is to provide service outside the cable footprint. So they've reverse course and it now seems they are about a 20yr plan to completely eliminate the universal service fund. At that point, there will be no teleco for most of these communities and they'll have to have municipal broadband or nothing at all. With the changes in FCC rulings, Telcos have started charging different rates base on how expensive it is to serve you. Previously this was a big no-no but I've now see the FCC rules changes, and it's kosher with them as long as it isn't for the phoneline itself. But DSL is fair game. Soon I bet it will be phone service to.

If a new wireless tech doesn't come along soon, rural internet will be dead and gone. And by rural I mean outside the cable footprint, if you don't have Cable access now and have to rely on DSL like most of the country, you're who I'm talking about. It's a sad thing but Urban users refuse to subsidize the poor anymore I guess.

This is complete BS, they come out with nonsense studies like this all the time.
My father works in manufacturing, they don't like going over seas, you have a hard time controlling quality, ensuring design specs, etc...
But there is no way they can stay in business without it.
According to my father, when doing analysis of where to send work The total cost of labor (including benefits an such) are roughly as follows:
US: $15/hr
Mexico: $1/hr
China: 10cents/hr
The minimum wage is mexico is $5/day, so yea...
China has the benefit of the manufacturer paying no benefits at all and the government keeping the employees healthy.
There are added costs like shipping, bribing government officals etc...
But the costs would have to be huge to make up the difference between $15/hr and 10 cents per hour.
Where US workers come into the picture is to save money on shipping. If you can send the product over in pieces, save a ton on shipping and then have the final product assembled here, you can get the best of both worlds.

It was before, but in recent years employers have been ending the company provided phone programs. We went through it recently and I lost my work phone. To be honest, I don't mind. I rooted my phone and can do with it what I want. Also, I don't feel obligated to answer just because it's a work call now. But yea, my employer wont like this ruling. Getting rid of the phones was painful but it saved them money. If they have to pay the money anyway, the entire painful mess is going to be a finger in their eye.

CCL4 has the industry name of R10
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C...

And was most certainly used in air conditioners for decades. It's banned for that use now, but anyone with an older system that's being replaced could definitely have R10.

I've seen a halon system go off in person before. It most certainly was a gas.

Where would you code the kernel without the desktop? On your tablet?

Please, God, Tell me it's tinfoil... plz plz plz plz

I used to work in a department that handled DMCA notices on the consumer side. (They were complaining that our customers were hosting the content) The vast majority of these complaints were fraudulent. The problem is that the media companies hire other companies to monitor for infringement and send take-down notices. I suspect they pay per notice sent and they are getting swindled. Some were so bad, we literally blacklisted their domain so they'd stop sending us complaints. They'd send take down notices for people that weren't even in our IP block. They were just sending nonsense and collecting money from the content provider. This likely also where the content providers get their insane numbers about the amount of money they are losing.

Right... this isn't even the first time this has been done either. It's just a machine that mixes cement with filler and pours it into a shape. They then move the shapes into place and kind of prop them up against each other. It's slower, wasteful, not as strong and more expensive than the old fashion way. But he got his name in the paper, and that's all that really matters.

Did I ever say there was? You're not trying to get a supervisor, you're trying to waste their time. I am fully aware that you get transferred to the guy in the next cube in a lot of cases. But, you refuse to be transferred, nearly all call centers have a policy on "Warm transfers" meaning, they have to first get your permission and then transfer you in person (i.e. this is frank, he has x problem, etc...) But you refuse to give permission. I guarantee their policy doesn't govern that.

The end result in the call center is the agent can't transfer you or put you on hold per policy, so they have to mute you and walk over and ask what to do. They will either give up on the spot, send a real manager over or have an agent get up from his cube and take over the call to pretend to be supervisor. You'll then ask for another, and they'll switch, and another agent walks over. Soon there's a crowd around this cube, no ones getting anything done, you've created total chaos on the sales managers floor. Keep in mind, the manager (the real one) has stats to. His are for the entire team. You're not just hurting those agents stats, you're hurting HIS stats now. Weather he gets on the phone or not, he knows who you are, what you want and he wants you off the phone.

I know this happens, I've been that manager and I've had that done to me a few times. As soon as I would hear someone was pulling that on one of my agents my reply would be "Give him what he wants, get him off the phone asap" With the caveat that what the person wants is possible. I had one guy try that and want a years refund. I ended up getting on the phone and being frank with that guy "Listen, I want this to be over as much as you do. But there are limits to what I can do. I have no '1 year refund' button on my screen. No amount of arguing can change that. If you want that kind of restitution you're calling the wrong place, you need a lawyer or something." He seemed to accept that I'd done what I could and went on his way.

If your breaks were failing, you didn't do anything about it, and then another car ran a red light and you plowed into them it would be all their fault? No, The person that ran the light, the break manufacturer, and more importantly you, would all be at fault. The healthcare company is just as much at fault as the attackers, there's no excuse for not having patched that equipment.

Not to get in the way of everyones back patting circle jerk here but windmills and skyscrapers are required by California law to take mitigating steps to help prevent deaths. Even where I live in the midwest, they forced a local cell tower to replace its aircraft warning light because it was confusing migratory birds into thinking it was the moon so they'd end up flying in circles around it until they crashed into the wires. Large buildings are required to have those bird shaped stickers on the windows so the birds don't try to fly it and whack themselves on the glass. This is nothing new, the solar tower will have to take similar steps.

That right there is some fantastic Moral equivalence if I've ever seen it.