TIL poor people are a race of their own.

Netflix should add a surcharge to it's subscribers on Comcast (or any other ISP that decides to put up a toll gate). $.75 - $1.00 a month should do the trick, just let the customer know why they're being charged extra, so they can take the issue up with Comcast.

You should be driving during your commute. If you're enjoying that audio book as much as you would reading, then you are driving on auto pilot. You are immersed in the story and absolutely zero percent of your attention is on the road and other drivers.

Which is exactly why you shouldn't be doing it while driving, or are you saying it's OK to read a book or newspaper while driving?

What would I prefer you do on long drives? Well, as a fellow driver, I'd rather you pay attention to driving while the kids and wife actually read or play games. If you're enjoying an audio book, there is no way you are paying attention to the road and other drivers. You're just as distracted as you would be if you were reading. Your mind needs to be on the road and other drivers, not off in whatever la-la land the story has you in.

I see no use for text to speech or audio books for the sighted. If you want to read a book, read a book. If you're advocating "reading" while doing something else, then forget it. Reading is an immersive process, and should not be done in tandem with anything else.

It means somehow, somewhere down the line, the consumer is going to get fucked just like with the FCC and net neutrality. Federal commissions, like the rest of the government, are owned and operated by the corporations. They have no real power anymore. The People in the phrase "We The People" in the constitution now includes corporations, and money is now speech. We the actual people - the middle and lower class people, are totally screwed. Our "voice" is drowned out by the voice of the wealthy, and we are only allowed to vote on the candidates they choose for us.

My guess would be laptops due to the limitation and expense of batteries.

This will move us back from the throw away mentality we're at now by making it more economical to repair than replace. It will also create jobs, as now we need the repair shops we once had. Maybe it'll bring back quality to the products as well, who knows? It'll be a good thing, at any rate, for both the environment and us.

First off, if he's not a business it's not a flight for commercial purposes (going non-profit kinda made it a business, however, even though he's not charging). Second, since when is it against the law to do something for which there is no law or regulation against?

Reading the remainder of the paragraph "It mutated in the chaotic environment of post-Conquest Mexico. In a series of outbreaks during the 1500s, the mega-plague wiped out 95% of the indigenous population of the Mexican Highlands. It is also the most likely culprit for a massive depopulation of the Southern Highlands around 1585-1600 that left most of its landscape uninhabited." This "home grown virus" spread post-Conquest, which means it was most likely something that came over with the Europeans and mutated here. This would still make the Europeans responsible.

Did you even read what you referenced? The whole article is about how the Europeans were responsible for the devastation you're trying to put off on a native plague. The very act of contact is what started the (most likely smallpox) plague that devastated the native populations. The American population was doing just fine until the Europeans showed up.

The sentence is talking about a group of people. Some in this group died from smallpox, some died from guns, some died from other unknown diseases. Thus the statement " they (sic) indigenous people die from smallpox and guns and other unknown diseases" is perfectly sound.

Why do you have him waiting until he was 17? This is way before the stigma against sex that came with the invention of a single god. I'd say he was active and able to father children around 13 or so. Being, at the time, the most powerful figure on the planet and in his sexual prime, he most likely had sex more than once a week from puberty on.

None of this crap needs to be directly connected to the internet with it's own IP address. None of it! Every house with internet access already has an address and all that's needed is a good router to route things where they need to go. Most homes with more than one device, be it multiple computers, DVD/Blu-Ray players, TV's, game systems or whatever, already use this system. My frigging refrigerator, whether it's intelligent or not, does not need it's own IP any more than each room in my house needs it's own street address.

We're trying to put too much crap on the internet directly. The only thing this is going to do is cause major security problems. Now, instead of one single point of entry to secure, we have to worry about each devise.