Scammers, by definition, do not follow the law. What makes you think they'd concern themselves with something as petty as a Do No call law?

And yes, you should consider yourself lucky. These kinds of calls are becoming more frequent and MUCH more aggressive. I had one scammer call me back over a hundred times in one day when I hung up on him. I eventually just routed all incoming calls to my fax machine.

HIPAA, PCI, Sarbanes Oxley, Et. al. I'm seeing more and more call to implement ways to control data in the age of bring-your-own-device and mobile workforces. If a company can let a user work from the coffee shop but still keep the actual data inside the datacenter, then a thin-client solution becomes more and more attractive.

When pay TV was first launched, it was with the promise of commercial-free content. That didn't last long. When satellite radio was launched, it was with the promise of commercial-free content. That didn't last long. Subscription-based streaming TV shows (like Hulu Plus)? That didn't last long.

Once you're used to paying extra for the service, the money grubbers will be back. It's inevitable.

I will sacrifice storage for RAM any day of the week and twice on Sunday. I cannot fathom why portables continue to be shafted with an anaemic 2GB (4 if you're very lucky) of RAM. Memory isn't that expensive these days, but holy crap does the OS run better with 6 or 8GB.

My last one was an 11.1" netbook with 8GB. I bought it because it was the only netbook with 8GB, which meant I could run Windows 7 and also one or more applications AT THE SAME TIME!. It has served me far better than any 15" laptop I ever had. It's going to suck trying to find an adequate replacement when this one croaks.

But that wasn't the question. The question was "Would you pay for a website without trolls?" and my response was that it's not possible.

Go back and re-read the whole conversation. People are astonishingly good at trolling. If you can't definitively identify them, they will ALWAYS find that rule loophole that enables them to troll. It's practically axiomatic.

Yes, that was exactly my point. When you are trying to define and identify trolls, you have to be 100% or the entire exercise is pointless. If you don't believe me, try moderating a message board sometime.

Ok, so a troll always presents an argument? They never just "ask an innocent question"? And, by your definition, all posters must post at least twice since they must "follow up" or they're automatically a troll. Do you see why it's so hard to create a 100% black-and-white set of rules that is always effective in identifying a troll? You've presented one possible identifier of a troll but there are dozens or even thousands of ways that someone can troll.

If they asked you to CC them or if they're in a position where they're likely to need those CC's, then perhaps they'll opt not to use the optional system being discussed.

And that's exactly my point. How do you prove "intent" on a message board? You have to be able to have black-and-white rules that say "This guy is posting a different and unpopular opinion but that guy is trying to stir up trouble." Those rules have to apply one hundred percent of the time because people are REALLY REALLY good at hiding intent and playing innocent when they're serious about trolling. In fact, the internet generally applauds the "masterful troll" who can hook as many people as possible. For all you know, I'm trolling you right now by leading you down a conversational path to an as-yet undisclosed end-game. There's just no way to know and that's why it's so hard to put a stop to it.

How is that solution any different than giving them the option to hand off their work to someone else while they're away? If you "give them the time..." then someone else still has to do their work while they sort through their vacation e-mail.

Until you can quantitatively define what a troll is, you can't do anything about it. Web forum moderators have been struggling with this question for as long as there have been online discussions.

FTFA: issues a reply to the sender that the person is out of the office and that the email will be deleted, while also offering the contact information of another employee for pressing matters.

and

the program — which is optional — has gone down well with the company’s German employees

Seriously, the idea is that you get to actually take a vacation and let someone else handle the load while you're away. That way, you're not coming back to work with twice the workload as when you left. For many companies, if you take a vacation, no one covers you. The work just piles up. It makes it hard to relax knowing that you've got a mountain of work to return to. No one is taking away "Out of Office" messages or breaking them for people who want to use them.

I've seen several comments here saying "Well, I'm just CC'ing people who need to be kept in the loop!" Ok, I get that. If it's that important, why don't you just wait until they get back and give them a short briefing? If it's not that important, why did you bother sending it in the first place?

  I, for one, applaud the effort to push back against the anti-vacation, anti-personal time culture.

That's been my exact experience. IPv6 is supposed to be dead simple (compared to IPv4) for home users. I am definitely not a home user and I still can't get it working with my ISP.

"Metadata" is a media buzzword designed to make you feel good about having your data monitored. They're still monitoring your conversations. Stop buying into their talking points. The headers of your e-mail are as much your data as the body of the e-mail.