I had a 2006 VW Passat that cost more in maintenance than it cost to buy another car. I loved driving that car, when it was new it was a lot of fun. But I'm not in any hurry to get another VW anytime soon.

I really wish cities would run fiber like they do water and sewer pipes. It does make much more sense. I'm a bit uncomfortable having government manage the data though. I'd be worried about censorship issues and such. Having private companies compete to provide data over these lines may work though.

You are right. It is much worse now.

Back in the 80s and 90s lots of smaller cable companies lobbied local governments and were granted easement access to install their poles, wires, and equipment. Many poles belonged to various utility companies and Ma Bell and access was also negotiated with them. This is a very long process with lots and lots of red tape.

Bigger companies like Comcast bought these smaller companies primarily for these rights. Anywhere smaller companies overlapped the wires were pulled off of poles to prevent any chance of a competitor gaining easy access to these rights. Any new competitor would now need to start from the very beginning like the smaller companies did in the 80s and 90s in obtaining access.

In my city we had a choice of Dimension Cable and Cable America in the 80s and 90s. Both of these smaller companies did all of the busy work for Cox which gobbled both of them up and dismantled the redundant perfectly good infrastructure of Cable America.
Comcast did this on a much larger scale.

This and mobile versions of websites still loading despite requesting the more functional desktop version.
(I'm looking at you Slashdot.org)

I've done IT freelance for small businesses in my area for 15 years. I've learned over the years that I can tell which small businesses will succeed and which will fail. One thing that I find consistent about the successful companies is how they deal with careless users. If a user is consistently infecting their computer with malware they get fired. The SMB owner sees this as a personnel problem and deals with it. If this user can be so careless with a computer what's to say they won't be careless about their job? (Now, I don't know if it was the malware that got specifically got them fired, for all I know they were too careless about their work which got noticed by management) Multiple $250 repair invoices for one particular user in the span of three months gets probably gets noticed in a smaller company.

Another indicator is how much they invest in hardware and software. There is a sweet spot of sorts, investing too much is careless, investing too little is also careless. When a company won't invest in small things that pay for themselves over the long term, such as the right printer for the right job, they are in trouble. It is also a sign for me to negotiate a higher retainer amount or not add them to my clientele in the first place.

It is obvious that there is no leadership. It is all political posturing now. It is very disconcerting watching the head of the CDC be so careful about keeping political talking points while conveying real information about preventing the spread of this virus is secondary.

Any sane person still working for the CDC can't possibly enjoy it anymore. I'd guess the best and brightest have moved to better pastures long ago. It isn't just the CDC either. I'd bet every other 3-4 letter agency is experiencing something similar. This worries me more than the actual virus.

The Pentium 4 was intel's Windows Vista moment. Corners were cut, marketing overruled engineering and performance suffered.
When it came out there were still PIII's running noticeably faster.

This combined with the RDRAM fiasco allowed AMD to have a nice run with the Athlon series and break Dell's intel exclusive offerings. It was a big deal at the time. I'm certain that intel was thoroughly embarrassed and rightly so. I doubt it is a mistake they want to repeat anytime soon.

I suspect that this may be one of the real reasons there was a war in Afghanistan.

A good EV like the Tesla with a >500 mile range requires a Li-Unobtainium battery.

I'll take a >200 mile range EV over a gasoline powered car no matter the range and not complain one bit.

This is a normal trend for new technology.
The first computers, cell phones, CD players, even VHS players were priced out of reach of the average tight budgeted middle class family.
Over time these products were mass produced and made affordable.

Tesla is out to prove that EV's are a viable alternative to ICE cars. Which thus far every other auto maker has failed miserably to do.

Check back in 5 years, EV's like the Tesla will likely be much more affordable.

I'm not scared but a bit nervous when I learned about the 1.4 million predicted infections.
That tells me that it will have likely broken containment at that point and well on its way through US borders.

Once a single kid in some US school is found to be infected all hell is going to break loose. Everyone will pull their kids out of school and begin stocking up on food creating a demand surge that will overstress the supply chains of grocers further compounding panic. Price freezes, rationing, over militarized improperly trained police create a volatile mixture IMO.

I've been quite pleased with the quality of Monsanto products. I use RoundUP grass and weed killer to keep my landscaping tidy without fail.
I'm sure those in the agriculture industry also appreciate their service. I don't agree with some of their offerings but from a customer service standpoint I have no complaints.

There is zero financial reason for anyone in America to pursue STEM. They are better off getting into medical, legal, real estate or starting their own business.

All my life I wanted to be a programmer like my Dad was in the 70's. He made good money and it was a very respected career even through the 80's. I tinkered with computers, learned to program in BASIC, then C and went on to learn a lot of UNIX shell scripting.
I graduated high school in 1991 and entered college with a bit of excitement. Half way through I dropped out after learning that these jobs were mainly being sent overseas. My dream of working at someplace like Motorola or HP, etc were dashed to pieces as none of them would be hiring local talent anymore. What a joke it all was and still is today. Office Space summed it all up pretty well IMO.

Despite all the regulation in place dealing with USD fiat currency $60,000,000,000 has been lost to various ponzi schemes even after Bernie Madoff. Which goes to show that no amount of regulation will compensate for human greed.

Anybody that was serious about bitcoin likely educated themselves on how they work or should have. They understood that transferring them to Mt. Gox was the same as transferring them to someone else's wallet. Regulation was not necessary to know that Mt.Gox was a horrible company. They've had a track record of incompetence since the very beginning.