It's not people making generalizations, it's scientific evidence; years of study show that people under the age of 25 largely do not fully grasp the consequences of their actions. Congratulations on being a statistical outlier... it doesn't change the point made.

No, just your average person... the description of the crime fits that narrative. Perhaps you were a genius who understood there were consequences to your actions - science has shown us that's not typical of the under-25 crowd.

So... congratulations on taking the comment completely the wrong way.

No, that's not what I said, but thanks for trying. Arrested and executed are functions of government, the government cannot limit your freedom of speech. Getting fired from a private corporation (which is not even what happened, but I'll play along) is not a violation of free speech.

I'm only saying that the complaint is about hypocrisy; the public outcry against someone "defending traditional marriage" dwarfs the public outcry against someone supporting same sex marriage (despite popular support in the U.S. being roughly equal), when the fact of the matter is people should just shrug and move on. For the record, I'm not arguing on this guy's behalf because I'm against same sex marriage - I'm not, I really don't care (and as such you could put me in the "supports" category), I just agree with the opinion that the public outcry is hypocritical.

I agree... he did not lose his freedom of speech at all; freedom of speech != freedom from any and all ramifications. However, I think the point Anonymous Coward was making is that if it were reversed, and someone lost their job for supporting same sex marriage, you'd never hear the end of it.

and, and, and... and the cell companies have to build in rural areas, the cost of which gets subsidized by customers in more densely populated areas. One reason the U.S. will never have the fastest/best/cheapest internet or cell phone service (on average).

We do. So what? Ubuntu has a server distribution... it works great, is easy to maintain, and we use it for internal (behind firewall) use. And?

Yes, but his was the first first post, which for first posts was a first.

1) Exact string matching. As an example, if I search for " 'x.25' " don't give me hits for something with dimensions of 45mm x 25mm.
2) Allow more complex search constructs . For example I'd like to be able to specify the search term " 'x.25' near protocol -handbook ". You can sort of do that with Google's Advanced Search, but it's extra steps and you still don't get terms like 'near' or exact match.
3) Bonus points for boolean constructs such as " (lions or tigers or bears) near woods ".

In short, provide a robust search engine that will support meaningful search terms that can be used for more than shopping for a new TV or figuring out who stars in your favorite reality tv show.

Once we get things moving through the intertubes the sustained speed closely matches what we pay for. Notice my qualification "Once we get things moving". We have high latency and frequent dropped packets. So while our speed matches our plan, the over all quality sucks. I should also add that speed is a relative term. We get 3mb/s for $50/month and we're glad to be able to get it. Our neighbor not to far down the road only has old fashion dial-up.

But then again we live in a rural area with CenturyLink as our only option so it isn't surprising that our connectivity is so poor. CenturyLink has a proven track record for not investing in new infrastructure, never mind maintaining what they already have in place. CenturyLink epitomizes all that is wrong with intrenched monopolies.

The biggest problem with banning anything, especially weapons, is that only the people who feel morally obligated to follow the ban will do so - leaving them unprotected from those who don't.

Not really my point.

My point is that if a large company establishes "standard" pricing there will be areas where it works well, and areas where it doesn't. The big problem, which I guess I didn't touch on, is that the sheeple will just spout whatever price they are fed by a big company without thinking about the realities of the areas in which they live. "What do you mean that you won't install my bathtub for the Amazon price just because I live up a 100' flight of beautiful artistic rock stairs and the house has the original lead plumbing in it."

But like so many other things, the service is tailored to densely packed cookie cutter regions and will be force fit to areas that are outside the norms.

What caught my eye in the fine summary was "One of Amazon's goals is to help standardize the price for various services, so there aren't any surprises when the bill comes due." We live on a rural ferry served island. It is considered a destination for tourists and rich retires alike. The result is that the cost of living is significantly higher than on the other end of the ferry. The ferry consumes several hours for a round trip and is $40-$50 depending on the season so even if you commute from the mainland it is still quite expensive. So is Amazon going to tell a service person who registers here that they must charge the same amount as somebody on the mainland?

I can understand trying to normalized rates at a macro level like a greater metropolitan area or a large region, say "southern California", but to break it down detailed enough to take care of micro regions is going to be pretty tough, or expensive.

My biggest fear of this technology is that people may be investigated for no reason other than that their car was seen in close proximity to where a crime was committed. Police and district attorneys have been found to fit the evidence to match an individual. This has lead to, at a minimum an extended "interview" at the police station, and at a maximum being put to death. Was your car parked at the entrance to an alley while you picked up a pizza at the same time somebody was raped in the alley? How much money do you have for an attorney?