Make no mistake, there will be changes, but they will not be the result of “we the people” are incensed and enraged by the indiscretion and total disregard of laws and rights from our Government. This Government is owned and run by international corporations. In light of the Governments activities large companies are losing business. Cisco has complained that foreign customers no longer trust their product. Boeing lost a 4.5 billion dollar contract in Brazil because of the spying. When enough companies have lost revenue, the NSA will get immediately collared.

Very little is put to a 'vote of the people'. The US is not a Democracy - it is a Representative Republic. This is by function and Constitution. As such, you vote directly on very few percentages of local issues.

This is the ultimate example of the failure of capitalism. The wealthy and closed mided are able to push their agenda and beliefs, no matter how preposterous, to the masses because they buy the most while greedy publishers are willing to forgo fact over profit.

Data by definition and law requries security. Working out doesn't. Security and redundancy are expensive. Placing expensive equiptment and security measures in high traffic, high cost retail areas push up the price. Now it's not competitive.

Automotive repair is in itself a lucrative business. The problem with Sears is they have been caught cheating people too many times. They were caught charging people for lift time (1 mechanic, 8 lifts each with a car in the air, and all being charged for wrench time by the hour), selling returned batteries, even after being caught by 60 minutes a couple of times - and just horribly corrupt practices across many stores. These ultimately caused Sears to exit the automotive business after several class action law suits. Now we’re supposed to trust them with data? If you’ve got crappy management who look the other way when you’re screwing people, it really doesn’t matter what you sell - be it tires or teraflops - you’re going to fail.

They why bother with a cloud? Purchase your own servers. Store your own stuff on encrypted storage devices. BTW.... SSL has been cracked.

‘Encrypted Storage Provider’. What fantasy land are you from? The NSA has forced every single on line provider to hand over encryption keys. A few have refused (lookup lavabit) and have shut down / walked away from their businesses). Meaning there is no more encryption. Everything is copied, tracked, evaluated, and reviewed. Everything. The US government has effectively killed the notion of corporate AND personal ‘cloud’ storage for anyone concerned about security.

Remember that JFK challenged the US to put a man on the moon ‘before the end of the decade’. And it took almost that long. Constantly changing specs and a short deadline are not good bed fellows. Most large Govt projects fail.. I remember 10 or 15 years ago the IRS tried to rebuild its tax system. 5 years and 6 billion past the budget the IRS threw up its arms and gave up - Handing the project to EDS. What annoys me most is the post failure armchair programmers screaming this should have been and agile project. One size doesn’t fit all and often agile really means ‘too lazy to do your systems analysis’.

Much of the new technology, especially when discussing the internet, is no longer about the user - at least, it's not about doing something for our on line experience. Current technology trends are about user data, not the user. More precisely, how the company can harvest and profit from user data. As facebook changes its policies weekly to sell more and more of you there by reducing your privacy, Zuckerberg buys houses around his property to give himself more privacy. The browser in IOs7 removed the URL direct entry and everything is now a recorded search. By doing so attempting to track your intent (and sell it) rather than allow you to do it yourself. I believe in profit and capitalism. However, what happened to actually caring about someone else? gone. You think that paparazzi today would respect FDR and not take or publish pictures of him in a wheel chair or falling down? Nope. Those scum would be hiding in the bushing looking for the golden shot of the President falling. That's the core of push back.

Well at least we finaly see the true road map for MySQL. Kill it or close it. The only one happy about that deal was Monty... and his billion dollars.

Anyone owning a computer with enough ram can download linux and create their on cloud full of VMmachines. A commodity by definition implies rarity and value The ability of anyone - with the right skill set - to do this 'decommodifies' the end product. . Isn't that were most applications start? Some programmer is fed up with some companies extortion prices or it just misses the mark functionally, so it's developed in house. Every application starts as the need to 'scratch an itch'.

And then the Rich 1% realized they could redistrict and elect more people like themselves and get everything even faster. They realized that in a global economy, they weren't happy just making money off the idiots in Dallas, they wanted to rob the idiots in Dubai as well.... So the sent all the jobs to Shanghai.. where there there's no intellectual property, environmental, or labor laws and they can pay sub livable wages to sell their shit to the Indians who will pay just above nothing while the former Americans who had all those jobs 30 years ago have nothing but welfare... so the rich need to cut that too... Since they have their own security, private schools and doctors in tow, why the hell would they even dream of paying taxes to support the public versions of things they already have.... they wont.. welcome to the America 2.0.

Or the reason they break is because the children get on the internet and read about things like evolution and accurate history. North Carolina parents, in a fit of conservative rage are throwing the tables against the wall.

Studies have shown no increase in math and reading scores with the adoption of high technology - use of tables or laptops. The moral of the story being there's no magic bullet to replace old fashion reading, writing and arithmetic. Just because it's sexy, doesn't mean you need to spend the money.

True, Government was suppose to:. The infrastructure is simply too expensive to be supported by the existing tax base. This is from the recession, decreased workers(less taxes), diversion of public funds toward other ends (infrastructure / bridges) which have been ignored for decades increased public retirement needs, and added pressure on social programs. Municipalities are forced to reduce cop numbers for budgetary reasons. Hell, California is opening the doors to prisons and letting people out due to crowding problems. The haves, experiencing increased crime levels, begin funding secure zones. What we are seeing is the failure Democracy and early signs of collapse of the American Government - one municipality at a time. Look at Detroit. Look at the current standoff in Washington between R&D. Without continued economic growth to feed the republic, it is collapsing under its own weight from years of corruption. We're not electing the best candidates.. We're electing people who are most able to throw the greatest resources into the election process. Those resources get paid back in favors... laws benefiting 1 industry over the people. IE: Bushes energy act that exempts water and air polluters. Or Clinton repealing glass steagall act the turned banks into casinos with your money. (notice that even after the banks almost wrecked the world economy, Glass steagall isnt back!!). Or California still owning 8 billion after the PGE scandal of the '90's. These people are placing their pawns in office to raid our money. We're left with areas that can't even support basic security services. But what do the rich care... they hire their own security, their own teachers in private schools, their own medical staff...