Probably because it's that or close to literally nothing. Which is the problem with media empires.

Actually, at first, I'd thought it was meant that their business was hit by a drunk driver, which would certainly fuck up a business for quite a while. Then I considered that it was a vehicle-to-vehicle accident. And you know what? I'm still not sure, and both are likely. I'd say knowing which is pretty fucking relevant. If your business is taken out, well, that's shitty, and excusable. If you're the one injured, I actually find it less excusable, since you should be getting employees who can take over at least short-term, to give you enough time to recover. Otherwise what do you do when you need time off? Shut down the business?

Man, if that's true, he's a fucking moron. One of the most basic human responses is to ignore big tragedies and go straight for the scandals because they don't want to be reminded of bad stuff, but of how they're better than everyone else. I'd almost think it's more likely that everyone else sat on this until now and are using it in an attempt to distract from all the other big news.

Any claim of user numbers on the internet, I divide by 3, and consider that a healthy overestimation still. They all keep dormant accounts/deactivated accounts/one-time-used accounts/parachute accounts as worth 1, despite not being a useful measure, and if they go by log-ins, rather than accounts, then that's usually faulty due to people accessing from multiple locations: home, work, phone, friend's, family's, etc. Unfortunately, I can't think of a great way to measure it that would actually account for everything, so I stick to my divide by 3, and don't bitch about the numbers' accuracy.

Most companies are slightly less obvious about it though. Even Facebook has several ways to contact help in case of problems. And sometimes they even answer! If fucking Facebook can answer once in a blue moon, Google should be able to shit out a couple hundred grand for five or six "customer" support personnel.

Five to ten years from now? /rimshot

Yes, very much so. Some of their stuff has been interesting, but I don't think it's worth it in the long run, if Google keeps on how it's keeping on.

Damn fucking right I have the right to do so. I don't give a fuck what you think, because those quacks peddling death in a pill ARE using coercion and violence. It's called "Take my pill or you are going to die. I guarantee this pill will let you live. Nothing else can save you." And that's what their sales pitches boil down to. They're using coercion, and don't want to give people the opportunity to test those claims, because those claims will be proven false. And ratings agencies won't help that for shit, because people are going to delude themselves in to thinking it works RIGHT UP UNTIL THE DAY THEY DIE. And then anyone who does read the ratings are going to go "Well, that person must have been an outlier," or "They were more advanced than me," or any other lie that lets them tell themselves "This cure may not have worked for them, but it's going to work for me."

If you think otherwise, you're a fucking moron, and you don't understand how desperate people can get when they have a terminal illness; you should be shot and buried out behind the woodshed for wanting to enable bottom-feeding shitheads that prey on the terminally ill. You make me fucking sick. I hope you fucking die from cancer, so you know exactly what it feels like to be that desperate.

No, no it's not. I know there's no chance in hell of convincing you of that, but I'm going to try any way. When people profess "beware of terrorists," they themselves are giving in to fear. When people say "think of the children," they're giving in to fear. When people say "we're protecting the stupid," finally, they're fighting fear. Why? Because fear makes EVERYONE stupid. You, me, the guy down the block, Stephen Hawking, EVERYONE. When you're afraid, you'll do anything that might almost sort of work to help even if you need to squint a little, fudge the word "help," and sacrifice something you value. Health issues make everyone afraid, therefore they make everyone stupid. Why does it make everyone afraid? Because when you're gravely ill, you're facing death, and that's scary, either because you don't know what's on the other side, or because you don't like being weak, or relying on others, or some other reason. So, you're afraid, and desperately grasping for anything that will quell your fear. That's where the medical industry comes in, and why it's so important that there is impartial regulation on it. You are literally dealing with people at their most vulnerable and desperate time in their life. A governmental body is much more likely to be impartial than any industry-funded effort, and an impartial regulatory body with no appreciable means of enforcement of rules is worse than useless, so an outside private company with no mandate from the industry is also unable to perform the task.

Not sure where your off-topic rant about money comes from, but it's completely inconsequential, since cost of oversight is substantial, and for things like health, it's cheaper to manage a larger group where risks are defrayed over the largest group possible, and everyone knows Social Security is fucked because of an aging population that's not paying in as much as it's drawing out, and is too entitled to take a reduction in payments in order to save the system, thus proving the greed of people and their eagerness to screw over others to their own enrichment.

I would believe it, but at the same time, I can't help but note that there's tons of design decisions in products that serve absolutely no purpose but to make it more difficult to repair. Using special screws, spot-welding cases, inner cases that can't be opened without cutting, and more. I also have to note that replacement part costs haven't fallen at anything close to resembling the rate that total replacement has. Replacing a laptop screen assembly costs in excess of $200 on most models, but they only cost about $400 to purchase new. So really, it's both cost of repair has remained roughly constant while replacement has gotten cheaper, but the cost of repair has been at least partly inflated purposefully.

And that's the problem, isn't it? It's not that we're in a throw-away society, it's that companies realized that if they designed products to fail on a shorter timeline, and could incrementally improve products in small enough amounts to always be able to take advantages in lowering production costs on older models with slight alterations, they could make a lot more money. Except if you kept fixing it. That was the monkey wrench in the cake. They can't make you buy a new one if it's a simple fix to repair the old one, so they make everything as hard-wired together as possible, ensuring maximum cost to repair any defects, and suddenly it's roughly the same cost to fix as buy new, only with a lot less hassle. After all, you get the new one right now, and fixing the old one can take a week. The new one has more features, and should last about as long as the old one. The old one could have a different part fail the week after you get it back. You'd have to be pretty dedicated to keep the old unit instead of trashing it for a new one.

Er, I'm not 100% positive, but I am fairly certain that's not how it works. When a product is supplied to you, you are generally indemnified against all legal issues stemming purely from the provider. It's like how you're not charged with crimes if it turns out your car's engine exploded due to a manufacturing error, rather than you just didn't maintain it for the past five years. Generally, the worst that can happen is you're deprived of the right to use that product, but even that's pretty rare, and usually ends in reimbursement (manufacturer sends out recall notice, you're forced to send your car in due to the hideous defect that endangers everyone around you).

This wouldn't apply in cases where Android had an update pushed out to remove the infringing parts, and you rooted your phone to get it back, since they attempted to make good, and now you're the one infringing.

Of course, I could be wrong, and if so, someone let me know. After all, I'm neither American nor a lawyer, so I'm far from an expert.

Unless the robot tries to murder me, it's the one with the least consequences of failure. Vehicles could kill all occupants, chefs could poison anyone who eats its produce, and all without a hint of malice or purpose to the act. A robotic spouse wouldn't be likely to poison you since you control access to ingredients, or can at least easily check, rampaging around the house localizes damage, etc.

Of course, I'm differentiating between "spouse" and "Sex-bot," because I wouldn't trust a fully-AI sex-bot any time soon.

I feel it's unreasonable to expect me to check my computer multiple times a day to see if there's an unexpected plan come up for that night. I have less than 100 people friended on Facebook, and maybe a half-dozen fan pages liked, and my feed still moves too quickly for me to note everything that happens over the course of a day unless someone direct messages me. Since my friends all have cell phones, and texting plans, sending out a mass text is easier and more reliable. If you friends are all on facebook, I'm assuming they also all possess phones, so you may want to consider this as something you could suggest?

Two parts: 1. The manager would probably get in fairly deep shit if he gave you a $35 cable for $10, because even they have to answer to a district manager, and discounts like that are looked at pretty heavily.

2. If Best Buy is anything like Staples (where I currently work), then the workers fall in to one of three categories: a)kid trying to work through school. b) guy who just wants a job, and will do absolutely nothing to improve at the job beyond what is demanded by management. c) those who enjoy the job, want to stick with it, and would like to move up the company. Now, training falls in to two sections. The online product knowledge modules that talk very generally about things, and are often a couple years out of date, and practical training on the job by co-workers. Types a and b are unlikely to remember much about the online training, and tend to get things wrong, and c isnt' a terribly common type, so most co-worker training is done by a and b types as well. Hell, I had a customer in looking for digital projectors, which I knew shit-all about, and he was kind of pissed when he figured that out, but then we ended up spending about 10-15 minutes chatting so I could learn more and not be such a dumbass.

The problem is that places like Best Buy and Staples have a fairly high product turnover rate for things like TVs, computers, etc. so learning the specifics of every product would be a huge resource investment, most manufacturers don't care enough to provide companies with training modules or materials, and don't pay enough to motivate most employees to do independent investigation.