Exactly. And it gets even more insidious because Monsanto and others have actively sought to use genetic modification to turn off unauthorized propagation.

So now Monsanto will no longer have to sue farmers into submission for having the misfortune of planting their public domain seed stock too close to IP protected seeded fields and picking up traits of protected plants; they just have to wait three or four seasons for the public domain seed to have its gene pool sufficiently cross-pollinated and they too will adhere to the programmed rules of unauthorized propagation. Watch as these companies slowly become the *only* source for dent/#2 corn, soybeans, red and winter wheat.

Equally concerning is that these bio-engineered crops, especially those with propagation control, put a limit to genetic diversity. We're really setting ourselves up for another potato-style famine.

TFA:

"The tracking system, called FootPath Technology, works through a series of antennas positioned throughout the shopping center that capture the unique identification number assigned to each phone (similar to a computer's IP address), and tracks its movement throughout the stores. ... And it doesn't collect any personal details associated with the ID, like the user's name or phone number. That information is fiercely protected by mobile carriers, and often can be legally obtained only through a court order. "

Yet. You can bet your sweet bippy that while the mall can't get the identifying information, the mall *will* sell it to the carriers who do have the information. This would be a marketing goldmine for the carriers, and one they could not help but to exploit for fun and most importantly, profit.

I would opt out by simply not shopping at that mall. My cellular phone is for my own convenience and one that I pay to maintain, it isn't so companies can figure out where I shop and give them incentive to try to get me to be a good little consumer and spend all my money.

My tolerance for this kind of thing is getting lower each time I read stories like this. More and more, companies seem to view the public as sheep to be shorn without any expectation of privacy, rights nor recourse.

Because the larger an enterprise, the greater likelihood that each department has its own attendance and time policies. Start adding in union contracts, and now you're really having fun. I'm sure the garbage collectors in NYC are paid much much differently than the teachers. Each of those examples probably are nightmares on their own with exceptions to rules, bonuses, overtime and penalties for missed lunches.

However, this is also a case of poor project management. I would not have assigned that job to anyone but the best PPMs.

Minimizing one's tax obligations through philanthropy or legitimate tax credits, breaks or deferments is one thing, funneling money earned outside the country to shield it from the IRS or hiding money under a complex web of fraudulent companies is completely another thing. And this is what that is about; rich people realizing gains through foreign transactions and failing to report it on their taxes.

People go to jail for that. As well they should, it's a crime and the rest of society doesn't play that game. Why should the wealthy?

As far as the other half of your question, it doesn't change the illegal behavior of those involved. Whether or not the government is entitled or feels entitled doesn't change the fact that not only are those wealthy that are involved are breaking the law, they're FREELOADERS enjoying the benefits of this society without paying the costs.

A mobile worker like a snow plow driver has zero reason to carry a cell phone. The trucks are equipped with radios.

In the context of wireless, it's not trivial. There are spectrum auctions, licensing, site acquisition and leasing, marketing and customer support. The fact that you call it trivial betrays a certain ignorance on the topic. It's not dial-up.

More importantly, the "entitlement-crowd" is also known as "the customer crowd". As it stands at this very moment, I have an entitlement with AT&T for data carriage services from my smart phone to any site I so desire. That entitlement remains as long as my check cashes. If AT&T decides that their network infrastructure provides a better return on investment by prioritizing or engaging in tiers of service, then I will indeed find another ISP. And if necessary, I will go without a smart phone if it no longer fits what deem as an acceptable level of service.

I'm not alone in this thinking. While I greatly enjoy all the benefits of a smart phone with internet connectivity, piss me off and I'll slide my SIM into my $40 dumb phone, cancel all my data plans and AT&T just lost $180 month while conniving to get an extra $20 a month out of me in incremental service charges.

Having worked in the wireless industry, I agree that wireless data is fundamentally different than cable or wire-line access due to the scarcity of spectrum. But that isn't an open invitation to fleece the customer, and that is what this is about more than anything. Wall Street wants an ever increasing amount of flesh, and managers are required to deliver in order to justify their own entitlements.

It's real simple; if the consumer doesn't want it, the consumer won't pay for it. As the previous posts have indicated, if this appears on any of the internet services for which I pay, they're gone. Period.

If it comes down to an internet that is tiered like cable TV channels, it's no longer the product I want to buy. And these companies that sell this stuff to telcos and MCOs can explain why the insertion of their very expensive equipment resulted in customer defections.

We're still in charge here; it may not be fun to have to give up the iPhone and the internet access at home, but if it proves a necessary point, I can certainly spend the money just as easy on something else.

There's two reasons for consumption based-billing:

1. Make Netflix a lot less inexpensive in order to keep the profit line strong on their own video offerings.

2. Raise prices. Consumption based billing won't be less expensive for people who are light users because broadband service will be $50 for the privilege of having the coax terminate at the house, and *then* you pay what the meter says. And it won't be cheap; I would not rule out several dollars per gigabyte. By doing so, the ISP has a nice fat recurring revenue stream for doing absolutely nothing, and a service pricing structure that encourages you not to use the service.

I don't have a problem with consumption based billing. I have a problem to the GOTHCA! capitalism of having Wall Street and its corporate minions finding yet another way to fleece the public.

I don't consider it a misunderstanding over their "right", but a complete lack of understanding of the platform for which they want to develop. There's a lost art of having to program devices with limited memory and energy budgets. Thanks to the desktop, the solution wasn't to code more efficiently and have the developer bear the pain, it was just far easier to push it to the user in the form of more memory and faster processors. And yes, more energy.

This can't be done on tiny devices, and the write-once run everywhere mantra comes at a hefty expense. I also agree with Jobs' point that high level abstractions and languages *do* reduce the application down to the lowest common denominator.

At some point, Adobe and their peers will want to start putting their libraries inside the iPhone OS. We've all seen how intrusive and bloated Adobe Reader has become, that's just the kind of behavior I hope to avoid on my phone. Sure, Flash would be nice, but am I willing to get it at the cost of allowing Adobe to modify files in the OS? The alternative is that these Flash applications carry the necessary libraries with them and these simply Flash games are now pushing tens of megabytes in girth.

Furthermore, where does it end? They permit Flash, then Java and hey what about .NET /CLR for applications? How about Visual Basic on the iPhone? Wait, that we've left out the Fortran programmers so we need to support them as well.

Here's an idea. Instead of being a "Flash Developer", how about you just be a developer and understand that a language is a tool and like all tools, there's a right one for the job. Tiny device programming is a different art form, one of where less really is more and it isn't necessarily an easy world in which to work.

Sorry to be a buzz kill.

The draw depends upon the person. Many hams are drawn to the hobby by building their own equipment and/or antennas. There's a lot of math and theory that goes into building transmitters and creating good antenna designs. Not to mention, the pride of breaking through a pile of amateurs wanting to talk to someone in a foreign country and mentioning that you are using only 100 watts into your antenna that is a "homebrew 7 element beam at 50 feet".

Some modes in amateur radio require above average skills that the test doesn't cover; things like moonbounce, long distance microwave or satellites (hams have their own low-earth orbit satellites).

There's also the computer aspect of it. Hams have developed their own digital modes that use very low power and require DSP techniques to use, as well as software defined radios.

The hobby has a lot of interesting facets other than just talking to your friends on the radio. These are what keeps it going in an age when it's easier to just fire up Yahoo IM or use a cell phone.