Regardless, most of us really don't need to stream HD from our homes.

True enough. But a lot of people do like to do that (or have to, for work), they sit around streaming themselves or their gaming sessions on Twitch or LiveStream, or conferencing via Skype and GotoMeeting all day long. Plenty of people have jumped onto the cloud backup bandwagon, and it shouldn't have to take several hours to upload today's differentials to Carbonite or Mozy. And like you mentioned, even digital photos these days can easily hit the 4MB range, so shipping the rugrats' birthday party gallery to grandma can take an hour all by itself.

Whether ISPs like it or not, the upstream is becoming just as important to residential consumers as the downstream. The days of an ack-traffic-only upstream are done.

So the government did not actually ban books and films that were seen as pro-Soviet? Or that just isn't viewed as censorship in Finland?

I, for one, welcome our new pecion overlords. I'd also welcome some better OCR software.

Hey, I don't like doing phone support either. Taking a phone call puts you on the spot, with no time to think through your response or prepare an answer. There's no proofreading on a phone call. Which is precisely why some people will always insist on calling, because they know it makes you uncomfortable and assume they can take advantage. It's poor form to say "no," so I learned a long time ago to use the "I'm not sure, but I can find that out for you, I'll shoot you an email" approach. Most folks catch on and initiate contact via email because they know I'll deliver the results they're after. I often need to tweak the machines and grease the firmenpolitik; I can't do that on demand over the phone.

That said, yes, there are the treasured users, the ones whose calls I will take by default and the rest of the department knows it. The really cool ones even have my cell number, and I'll answer that for them, too!

Indeed.

Users in remote offices are the best users! They can email, they can call, and they all get a ticket opened for their issue. But they can't come make a scene in your department (or worse, at your own desk) because "the data pull I asked for last week is clearly out of date, my customer from yesterday isn't listed" etc. I would much rather support users via email, via ticketing, and via phone if necessary, than support them in person.

Same person? Worse, those were both signed by the same font , nobody's signature is involved. The Eric Morgan "signature" uses a slightly larger point size. The lowercase a and n characters are a clear giveaway, I did a comparison of parts of the "Sundance Vacations" text which was all in one point size. The characters are a dead even match.

I wonder if the attempt to "sign" the document using a font was just dumb forgery, or a clever attempt to avoid culpability. After all, there's no actual handwriting on either of these supposed signatures, so QD can't compare the text to anyone's handwriting to prove who did this.

You mean my mom's basement??

WTF is the "hidden files" section of a computer? From their screenshot, it appears the guy just made a directory called "Videoooooo" and stuffed it full of New Folder, New Folder 2, Copy (3) of New Folder, etc. My cat can hide stuff better than that.

Most of the things they're describing are absolutely nothing to worry about. Instructions for stealing cars? How to use disguises? This is the kind of shit that was all over every BBS file door 20 years ago. You can download torrents chock full of gigs of this "extremist literature" or "terrorist training materials" now. ISIS are surely a bunch of cunts and I imagine they do pose some threat, but the value of this laptop and its contents is highly exaggerated.

So fork it and rename it to CorporateGoodwillProtector, then suggest that to your customer.

The best part of your comment is that TFA is regarding ATT's practices, and has nothing to do with Comcast. Yet even someone in Australia knows how fucked up Comcast is, and has mistaken another carrier for Comcast because the story is about ripping off a customer. If that doesn't show the incredibly awful nature and reputation of Comcast, I'm not sure what does. It's too bad the FCC won't see this thread.

Been there, done that; you could say that submitting a story is kind of a roll of the dice.

I thought they only collected tiny bits of metadata of little concern to the average citizen, only when foreigners are involved, and that it was only ever used for superduper terrorist investigations. Oh, the local sheriff has access, too? Drug enforcement and all that?

Quelle surprise.

Sure he does. You think people don't worship federal law enforcement? Look at the coverage of, say, the Boston bombing; the media and the general public were all lining up to praise any officer who was involved in that situation. Same with Sandy Hook, same with "sabu" and Anonymous, same with every story that gets publicized.

Police abuses are currently part of the national dialogue thanks to what happened in Ferguson, MO. But it took that event, a racially charged shooting, to get national attention and wake people up. Eric Garner being choked to death by NYPD didn't really get much press. The poor child who was disfigured by a SWAT flash-bang in Georgia didn't really get much press. It's just now coming out today that LAPD left an asthmatic man to die while he begged for help, that was almost a year ago and didn't get much press.

The population adores the federal government. The population thinks the NSA spying is all well and good and that Snowden is a traitor.

Congress has one of the lowest approval ratings in history, and yet incumbents continue to be re-elected over and over. Yes, the population is surely gullible and dumb, but to say that Uncle Sam hardly has credibility with them is a farce. The people love their Uncle.