As usual, the title makes the story out to be something it's not. They're not trying to shut these places down, they're trying to bring them into compliance with laws and regulations.

While I'm not in favor of excessive regulation, that doesn't mean I can just go out and start a business that ignores the rules. It sounds like the rules were in place well before any of these places existed, they started doing business and ignored the rules, now they're being told they can't do that and someone is annoyed that they're getting called out.

In other news, I've never much cared for speed limits so I'm just going to start ignoring them because I can get home faster that way. When I get arrested I'll post a story to Slashdot about how the police are trying to destroy my life by putting me in jail.

While I agree that fiber is probably the most future proof way to implement a new network, gigabit Internet access doesn't really get me super excited. The average household simply doesn't have a compelling use case for it. In my area I get 30Mbps down / 2Mbps upfor about $60/mo and it works fine. My wife and I each have a smartphone and tablet, we have a computer, two Netflix-connected TVs (we don't have cable TV) and a Chromecast. It all works "good enough". The only time I really find I want more bandwidth is the rare occassion I upload a video to Youtube.

So yes gigabit Internet is great, and I wouldn't turn it down, but the problem is getting enough people excited about it. I think if you took 100 people from all over the USA and gave each of them a choice between 1) upgrading their Internet go gigabit for the same monthly price 2) filling up their gas tank or 3) dinner and a movie you wouldn't get more than a third of the folks taking the Internet offer.

In theory. You're assuming the shooter was the only one present.

Adderall.

Honestly, Boxee Box is probably one of the best STBs. It'll play just about anything and has an app for Netflix.

I had one and got rid of it because it was a bit flaky, but in terms of your requirements it's the only thing I've found that does everything you're looking for.

It seems like it ought to be simple enough to devise some sort of password safe. The purpose of this safe would be to contain your "master password". To determine the password to the safe, you would have to combine information many of your friends know. For instance, you might leave instructions for finding the password that say something like "what was the name of John's first pet", or "what was Mary's 3rd grade teacher's name". They would be questions for which only that person or people close to them would know the answer, and something that isn't available by Googling.

Assuming you spread your questions out over a large enough group of people (so there isn't overlap, i.e. not everyone the questions are targeted at know each other) you should be able to come up with a relatively secure password mechanism. The problem is that you'd either need to tell everyone the question's you're using and instruct them not to answer those questions for someone other than you, or you'd have to deal with the possibility of a 3rd party finding your instructions and going on a scavenger hunt to find the answers to unlock the password.

But in general, I think this idea is fairly solid. One down side is you'd have to keep your instructions up to date, if one of your friends dies and they're the only person that could answer a given question then you might end up locked out.

You realize that these two statements directly contradict each other, right?

So go work in retail and mail-order. What am I missing here? If all of these Amazon workers could go get these other jobs that supposedly pay more, why are they still working for Amazon? A company can only get away with what people are willing to work for. If nobody was willing to work for what they're paying then nobody would. The whole point of unions is to try and artificially force companies to pay more than what the market dictates.

Great, that's basically what I thought. That's why I would never trust bluray (or any other type of DRM'ed media) to house content that's important to me.

My bluray player is a "gen 1", i.e. purchased when bluray first came out 5 years ago or whenever it was. Perhaps that's why mine needed an update to play newer titles and yours haven't.

Your point about "always connected" defeating the point of physical media is apparently lost on many industries, for instance the "ultra violet" digital movies that you get on physical media but can't play without an Internet connection. An Internet connection doesn't defeat the point of physical media, it just makes it a lot easier for companies to retain control over content. It would be unacceptably slow to download the content of a Xbox or Playstation game but put that content on a disc and then require online validation in order to access it and problem solved. At least that's how the other side sees it.

The answer, then, is somewhere in between my assumption and your response because I've definitely had to connect my blu-ray player to the Internet for a firmware update in order to play a movie I rented from red box. So it would appear that the answer is they don't need to be connected to the Internet to function, but they do need to be connected periodically in order to receive updates that allow newer movies to be played. In that case the end result is nearly the same, if you have to allow the player to receive updates for continued functionality then one of those updates could just as easily remove functionality as well.

Compute isn't even really slang, it has a well established meaning related to cloud. Just like storage, network, cache, db are defined, compute is just another category of services.

Doesn't blu-ray require Internet access to "authenticate" newer discs? If so, it seems reasonable to assume the manufacturers could just as easily push out an update that makes discs no longer playable. I dislike any type of media which cannot be played in an airgapped medium, it gives everyone else too much control.

Personally, I think the newer Dell Latitudes look pretty nice. They work well too. I have an E6520 that is going to get upgraded to a Precision next year. I like the Latitude but I can't get the memory I want in it (maxes out at 16gb). Battery life, keyboard, etc aren't hugely important to me because mine spends 95% of its time in a dock so take that for what you will. Hardware wise, I don't have any complaints. Where Dell really shines is their warranty service, usually next business day onsite to fix any problems and you talk to someone in the USA when you call for help (assuming you pay for it, of course). My company did a brief stint with Lenovo and we couldn't get rid of them fast enough. We had T400s and of the 20 or so we bought I think we had about a 20% rate of them needing system boards replaced over the 2 years we used them. They also had a problem where the USB ports would break if you weren't careful when inserting/removing devices, and when you call Lenovo support all they want to do is argue with you about sending someone out to fix your system, even when you paid extra for accidental damage protection and onsite service. Plus there's always the benefit for some people of supporting an American company.