Funny. I'd say the exact opposite about POTS long distance. Cell phones almost completely removed the notion of long distance being different from local calls. POTS still has you chained to a 100 year old business model where calling outside a small local area will cost you extra money. 10+ cents per minute to go 30 miles is absolutely ridiculous considering that I can do the same with a cell phone it won't likely impact my bill. AT&T used to charge a minimum monthly fee for the very option of being able to call long distance. There is a also a hefty tax attached to being able to make interstate phone calls. Cheap long distance is not what people remember about POTS. What people remember about POTS having a cost advantage on is unlimited local calling

Most people don't completely deplete their monthly minutes and AT&T + Verizon are pretty much forcing unlimited calling plans on every new contract anyways, so most people will not save money on long distance via POTS

Over what wiring, DSL? Those copper phone lines are going to be scrapped and DSL will be gone too. No, Fiber will not replace them because it isn't profitable enough. Verizon considers FIOS to be a mistake. This is all about AT&T and Verizon completely abandoning wireline and replacing it with wireless. Unlike wireline POTS, wireless is completely regulated and comes with zero quality of service guarantees. There are zero requirements that a cell phone site stay up during a power outage. The government tried to require that each cell site have 8 hours worth of backup power available, but the wireless industry fought it and won. There are zero guarantees about the signal strength being adequate in the entirety of the wireline markets being abandoned. When it is all said and done there are going to be many homes with zero telecommunications at all. Don't count on the FCC to provide consumer protections either. The FCC chairman is a former cable company lobbyist. Might as well ask a former CEO of BP to oversee offshore oil drilling safety and disaster mitigation.

Wireless is also more lucrative because they can charge many times more for data. Why provide 100s of gigabytes on a wireline when at the same price you can offer single digits worth of gigabytes and charge up the wazoo with overages. This reform is more about the Verizon and AT&T raping and pillaging of the consumer via overpriced wireless data in areas without cable internet and allowing cable companies to become the monopoly for all wireline based communications than it is about promoting technical innovation. Replacing wireline with wireless is much like the power company deciding that providing wired electricity is too expensive and selling batteries to their customers is a suitable replacement.

When it comes to buying TVs, there an insidious thing called the "panel lottery". That samsung TV you bought may have an el cheapo Chi mei LCD panel in it, or it could a genuine Samsung built LCD panel. The model number is the same, but a cryptic code on the serial number will let you tell the difference. The manufacturers believe that they can substitute a inferior panel within the same model number and nobody would be the wiser. In some cases the difference is as drastic as an IPS vs a VA panel.

Although nobody has gone through the statistics to prove it, I am willing to bet that the walmart/sams club production run is more likely to contain the lower grade panels.

Microsoft finds selling mice highly profitable, yet it is attempting to switch their customers to a desktop interface that is no longer designed for mice. Classic Ballmer move!

$LOSE_LUGGAGE -- When this flag is set, the luggage sorting machinery will automatically send the luggage to the wrong aircraft, airport, or baggage claim.
$MANGLE -- When this flag is set, the luggage sorting machinery is instructed to cut, gouge, or crush the luggage
$HAS_VALUABLES -- When this flag is set, airport baggage handlers will be automatically be alerted that there is a high value item in the luggage for them to steal.
$BOMBSCARE -- When this flag is set, the alarm clock and tube of toothpaste in the luggage will be interpreted by X Ray scanners as a bomb. Customer's luggage is to be detonated by the bomb squad.
$ADD_BOGUS_BAGGAGE_FEE -- This flag is to be always set to true.

First off, nobody is going to pull 60 amps at 120v. In north america, households are fed off a center tapped transformer, with 2 hot leads and a neutral. Between a hot lead and neutral the voltage is 120v, between the two hot leads the voltage is 240v. Most large loads such as central AC, electric water heaters, electric ranges, electric dryers and well pumps use 240v circuits. A rapid charge electric car will be no different and should be able use 240v as well.

At 240v, the circuit requirements will only be 30 amps. An electric dryer, central AC, or electric water heater requires roughly the same ampacity. Most houses built within the last 40 years where the service is adequately sized to the home should be able to handle this one extra circuit. It has been estimated that when it comes to sizing distribution transformers, that adding an electric car, would be the same as upsizing your house by 1/3rd. Not a critical increase. During nighttime hours this should not be a major problem.

If you are into dog breading, I'd say that your particular tax situation is more comparable to that of a typical Chinese Restaurant.

Government monitoring and storage of all communications of its citizenry has got to have a tremendous carbon footprint. As does all the extra electricity used by Facebook, Google, Double Click et all to track my every move on the internet. How much energy could be saved by simply serving web requests, and not data mining it for government and corporate interests?

The act of conception produces a baby that is considered to be unlicensed derivative work of companies in the biotech industry. The parents must either pay between $200 - $150,000 dollars for each infringement. If the parents cannot pay the fine, the corporations can gain legal guardianship of the child and either use the child for their own medical research purposes, or sell the child to a sweatshop and place a lien on the child's earnings for their lifetime until the debt is repaid.

The reason has something to do with the billions of x86 chips currently in operation in the server/desktop/laptop market and the massive amount legacy software written for x86. Intel tried to implement a new non backwards compatible CPU architecture before, IA-64, and it failed to catch and the backwards compatible AMD 64 bit x86 variation winning out.

Having a nuclear reactor in your basement is dangerous. Just think... A group of teenagers might break into your house, drain your source of cooling water (also doubles as a heated swimming pool), tamper with your fuse box, push a red button, and inadvertently cause a nuclear meltdown.

This is the same argument that IQ is tied to race. The IQ to race connection has been debunked as it is largely the availability of resources that effect learning and systemic racial biases in the tests that have been producing the effect. Also the IQ tests have been regularly readjusted as intelligence of the global population has risen to bring the middle of the bell curve back down to 100.

When China overtakes the USA as the world's largest economic power, does that mean that the White man is now the inferior group and Asians are the superior? What would happen if nuclear war breaks out and Africa escapes unscathed? Then they would have a chance of becoming the dominate world power. Economic success is more about about which countries happens to hold most of the world's wealth and resources.

The GoPhone does have data. It's 1 cent per 5 KB. In other words, it has data, but its completely uneconomical to use.

No, he only blamed the government, the Fed specifically.

Did you know that in many states your insurance rates are based on your credit score? You might feel like you are sticking it to the man by not paying that 200 dollars, but you are going to incur more than 200 dollars worth of losses due to higher rates on everything from insurance, credit cards, to new loans over the 7 years it will take for that item to roll off your credit report.