My phone's 1 year past contract expiration and still gets updates. I predicted this would happen when I was shopping for a phone, paying the extra $100 for something in the Samsung Galaxy line versus the cheaper options (including one with a hardware keyboard which I desparately wanted).

If you want 3 years of OS updates it seems you have to stick with the "herd" and pick the manufacturer's flagship device, not their experiments.
And once out of support there's always the option of rooting and installing your own updated Android or something else like Cyanogen.

I know 3 people who dropped out of college (4 year state school) due to finances, looked for a job, and by the time their graduating class year occurred had a higher salary than the average fresh out of college graduates were getting.

Turns out, the "some college" checkbox really is all you need.

I really don't understand why an ereader app needs to check phone call status, read text messages or activate the camera, but whatever, it's free!

In all seriousness before we worry about future smart gadgets, let's focus on the ones we already have. Android needs the functionality of "permissions denied" or similar apps built into the OS. Smart TVs should not be allowed to "anonymously" send information like the filenames of network files viewed on the tv...

If you think about it, "renting" is a pretty good deal if you count your deposit as lost. You don't have to clean when you leave, you can make as many holes as you damn well please, and if you stay there for a good number of years the additional "per month" cost of that deposit versus the "improvements" you've made, you come out ahead compared to home ownership.

If/when civilization collapses life is going to suck. Being one of the first to catch a stray bullet is probably preferable.

Whether or not "they" can be used with a singular antecedent is up for debate. Unfortunately, the imaginary PC police keep trying to promote he/she and other awkwardisms for a problem that's been solved for over 200 years. Sourced blog entry on the subject.

Either way, I'll continue using "they" as a singular gender neutral pronoun, and if anyone has a problem with that they can go to heck.

There is a middle ground; the best class on a domestic airline is far from luxury, but better than cattle car.

Source: economy premium on ANA has the same legroom and amenities as domestic first class... *sigh*.

After some Googling it appears the term "gate check" is used to refer to both practices, checking through to final destination from the gate as well as "leaving the bag in the jetway". Locally we've called the latter a "gate check" because that option is available on pretty much all planes leaving our smallish airport, and uses less words than "leaving the bag in the jetway", but it appears that is a technically incorrect usage.

Gate check your large bag, you'll get it back at the arriving gate.
Besides, the cost of checking a bag undoes most of the savings to be had with this method anyway.

I don't see this working with round trip tickets; many airlines cancel the rest of your itinerary with no refund if you no-show for a leg...

Sprint has the option where you can actually disable the generic part of the voicemail, and it only plays your recorded greeting. For a while I did that until I realized I didn't actually want people to leave messages, and a short greeting seemed to encourage message leaving.

Actually having it spelled out is useful, since they might have just called someone else after not getting you instead of leaving a message. If you're on a call list for example. Or if someone you know is just trying to reach *anyone* inside a house/office where any of 6 people could let them in / handle their problem. In those situations, a missed call with no corresponding message simply means "disregard, I've tried someone else".

I worked with these systems (not Cisco but another enterprise wireless mfgr). Spoofing is not easy; the APs "know" whether they are talking to "one of their own" because they communicate with the controller via the wired network. If they are in close proximity the AP you are spoofing will immediately alert the controller, since it shouldn't be seeing anyone else with that mac address. They'll most likely jam the interfering AP along with the legitimate one. If they are not in close proximity then jamming will work entirely as intended, regardless of Mac / SSID choice.

Two year old cars could be coming off a lease, or former rentals. If anything the lemons will have had a lot of kinks worked out by then under the original warranty. If you live in a state with used car lemon laws, you'll just get a lot of free service in the event of any "surprises". And perhaps that's why those used cars are only 90% MSRP at the dealer - they are accounting for the need to service a used car with a like new warranty.

Unless both are large enough cities for decent public transit options, flying is more expensive than just the cost of the ticket.
You forgot:
Cost of long term parking at home airport (or taxi)
Cost of car rental at destination airport (or surrender your freedom to travel at will upon arrival)

Either way, there's also the stress of the entire flying process. Unless it's around a major holiday, a 2 day road trip can actually be relaxing.

That said, what this country could benefit from is either high speed rail, or more slow speed auto carrying rail like Amtrak's Auto Train. I'm surprised that idea hasn't taken off for coast to coast travel, the only reason we even have that route is because it was a novel idea a legacy railroad had long before Amtrak was formed...

Memorial Day and Labor day are major shopping days though - a triple overtime requirement would pretty much kill that. The retail employees working that day are often students who want the extra pay, and those shopping are people who appreciate the extra day off to go shopping. Neither of those are particularly "family days".

And for those who are unable (or unwilling) to spend time with family, it's nice that some places are open on Thanksgiving and Christmas.

At *most*, require holiday work give a 25% bonus or an equivalent amount of time off to be used on any arbitrary day in the future. It's enough that there is incentive to let people have the day off, but not so much that entire towns become ghost towns, with only a handful of places being open but so swamped that shopping is a miserable experience.

Walmart would *love* a 3x overtime rule, they'd have no problem staffing stores to the bare minimum knowing full well that they would have to beat customers away with a stick vying for the "privilege" of waiting 3 hours in line to check out... since they'd be the only ones open.