And, these days, there are more USB charging ports than expresso stands. You can charge your cell phone from your car, your laptop, any handy wall outlet, the sun and likely from the extra calories in your Big Mac in a few years. The use case for easily replaceable batteries is pretty weak.

SD expansion is only an issue if you don't get enough memory in the first place. Sure, there are edge cases and folks around here are edgier than most - but for the vast majority of cell phone users, these simply aren't very important issues.

Now, decent keyboards - that's another story...

That's the very best kind of conspiracy theory.

Look at the bottom edge. EXACT SAME placement of headphone, charging port, speaker grill...

Come on. Man up and at least admit that part alone is a direct copy.

Great link. I was thinking of nearer objects (like a plane) with a powerful $300 laser, but it's interesting to see how much further you'd have to go to have a visible effect on the moon.

It would be interesting to see what a stadium full of synchronized powerful laser pointers could do...

Turns out those green laser pointers you get in the mail are a lot more powerful than you would think.

I, for one, am concerned over the constant use of the words "legal content"

Exactly, none of us are going to be happy when we find out what that means - because it implies a whole set of other actions for anything deemed "illegal content".

Well except for me; I plan to laugh and laugh when the other thousand shoes drop and the internet lets forth a vast and pitiful wailing. So that will offset the sadness substantially. If I can't be free at least I can be proven right.

Well, bankruptcy is considered fraud in some places, but no bank has ever refused Donald Trump a checking account,

Whoosh. As in, you jetted past whatever point you may have been trying to make and went directly into the sun.

And Mega...

Did you just completely miss my whole point or what?

I said that what was happening to Mega WAS NOT THE BANKS CHOICE. It was government pressure; the mention of fraud was just generically is response to the notion that banks should be unable to refuse any business at all.

Banks should be able to choose who to business with - but that includes choosing to do business without any government pressure on who that may be. There's no reason why banks should not do business with Mega apart from the government disliking it.

As is true in real estate, the quality of life depends largely on your neighborhood.

why do banks get to pick and choose who to do business with?

Well first of all, they shouldn't be required to do business with someone who repeatedly commits fraud...

However what is happening here is not the choice of the business. It's the government saying "we can make life very unpleasant for you in terms of audits etc. unless you cease doing business with this list of people". The government has been going after many adult businesses in the same way for a while now, google Operation Chokepoint

I'm still dubious about the end effect of net neutrality regulations being passed (remember that none of us have seen the actual regulations to take effect, and none will until they are finalized).

That said, the real road to true Net Neutrality is and always will be in allowing real competition for your ISP provider, and that's the kind of thing that this allows for. If a community cannot be well served by a "real" networking company it makes no sense to block them from taking matters into their own hands.

So I applaud this action, I just wish they would be open in other regards rather than limiting.

Don't over think this one.

I don't know if it's in this article, but in an article I read before they planned to do exactly that - put three seismographs in the region, as currently whatever caused the holes did not register on the seismographs elsewhere in Russia (since it appears they are not really explosions but pressure caused ejections, the earth would not be as shaken).

What good is a Doomsday device if nobody knows about?

There is limited evidence of combustion. You can have an explosion from rapidly expanding gases without any sort of ignition. Some reindeer herders supposedly saw 'flashes' but it is certainly unclear if these were due to a methane ignition, the aurora borealis or just too much fermented lichen.