While I do think there is a some truth to your basic argument, we become vassals by our own free choice. We can be with one today, and choose to walk away tomorrow.

Granted, it could be difficult. I still know people that can't give up AOL.

she carries a cell phone w/ GPS.

...and Ombudsman, assuming your state has one. I think most states have a utility regulatory agency as well. I think these would be the best places to start with the type of billing issues you're speaking of.

The FCC might not be bad as well, but I don't think they get involved unless there is something about the licensing that was tied to the billing as in that recent issue with 4G spectrum and some companies inability to charge extra for the higher speed as it was a condition of the license to start with.

I do seem to recall something as well about ISPs charging for packets the attempted to deliver, whether they were delivered or not. As the packets never showed up at your end, they wouldn't show in your logs. I'm not saying I agree with it, I am just aware that this is one of the ways they count data to keep your bill as high as possible.

For all I know, they have a method for charging for packets they were expecting from you, but didn't receive. This way they can get you NOT coming or going ;)

defining "fair and reasonable"?

I suspect that, much in the way the Samsung/Apple case started out, the 2.5% is something intended to start negotiations with. They likely expect Microsof to come back with something just as unreasonably low. Reality is expected to come out somewhere in between.

It took a few seconds on my setup before it started working, but pretty funny once it did...

When I go there... I not only have to scroll down past the iPad ad, I have to click a link to another page.

I don't see anything particularly apologetic either. It is just a statement that the findings of the lawsuit were in Samsung's favor, not Apple's.

We are all teachers. Even when we give a kid a tablet. We give them direction by the choice of tablet we give them and what it contains.

If you read the article, it says the FCC has gotten the major carriers to agree to start one. I haven't heard of actual implementation as yet. It seems like if it had started yet, theft should be decreasing and there would be no reason for the article.,

Too funny. The page that the artice you linked to is on has a link to a more recent article on the same subject. The database is scheduled to be up and running in late 2013. We have a year to go yet.

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2012/10/20/thefts-cell-phones-on-rise-across-america/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+foxnews%2Fscitech+%28Internal+-+SciTech+-+Mixed%29

Facebook's stock will finish tanking and they just go away.

If they were emails left in my Inbox, they might have a case. Maybe. And if they are ones left in my Inbox, it's likely I haven't figured out what to do with them and really don't care about the privacy asspect of them. I just have a difficult time throwing stuff away.

Email that I consider important is also keep on Gmail, even after I've read it. I also have it sorted into separate folders similarly to how one would put them in a filing cabinet. They are there specifically for archival/documentation purposes.

But I'm not surprised to see Communist News Network put in those terms.

I would say it is a luxury for some, a needed business tool for many. In this country anyway.

When people feel safe, they tend to take risks not taken previously. When you learn to ride a bicycle without a helmet, as I did, it only takes a couple spills and you learn there are things and situations to be avoided. If you're wearing a helmet, it removes the consequences and you don't learn.

It is already known that since air-bags, people push the limits driving farther than they did before. Why? With the air bag, they are confident they won't die.

I have also noticed this with hikers and hunters and snowmachiners, etc.

They have their rescue beacons, or whatever, and go places and do things they would not have attempted before because they know that rescue is a 9-1-1 call away. I wouldn't mind so much (as a taxpayer funding these rescues), but they tend to leave common sense behind.

I believe we are considered mammals...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regeneration_%28biology%29#Humans

Redhat (6.1 - 9.0) -> SuSE Linux Professional -> Fedora -> Android, as daily drivers.

On the side, I tried Debian, Gentoo, Puppy, Slackware, Vector, Novell Linux Desktop, Centos, Linux Mint. Of these, the only ones I seriously considered changing to were Gentoo & Novell. Centos seemed like a good server, but I'm basically a desktop user.