Actually it was. What wasn't obvious was the technology to make it work reliably, but Apple didn't invent that, they waited for it.

On the other hand, with a green card they need not do anything special to change jobs and don't have to deal with any red tape.

The rest is trickery with numbers that assumes that as long as flatscreen TVs get cheaper it's harmless that food, clothing, shelter, and medical care skyrocketed.

But surely at a major demarcation like critical network and barely secured passenger entertainment, that measure is still warranted. There is simply no reason the engine controller will ever be interested in how many people are reading buzzfeed or what the in-flight movie is.

The best way to do that is using an opto-isolator connecting an RS-232 Tx from the avionics to an Rx on the entertainment system and push data across with no return path.

The FBI got an actual warrant. mere capability isn't enough to get one of those. They have to allege that an actual crime has actually happened or is in planning. That crime (naturally) has to be possible. Further, they must show good reason to believe that the subject of the search is involved.

Pie in the sky hypotheticals don't cut it.

That doesn't mean it is actually possible, but it means either the FBI sincerely believes it is or that they are knowingly abusing their authority harassing an innocent citizen for their own amusement.

LUS Fiber (Lafayette), S&P upgraded their bonds from A to A+ based on strong performance this year. They went cash positive in 2012.

Your second link indicates that MI-Connection is likewise cash positive and beginning to pay down debt.

3rd link is paywalled, had to get it via Google search. That one has real problems, but it appears to be a matter of political sabotage rather than being an intrinsically bad idea.

So what your links really say is that (SURPRISE), big projects sometimes take longer to pay off than expected and may not pay off if they are sabotaged by people who would rather see their city take a financial bath than have their sacred cow slaughtered.

Most of the municipal broadband out there now used a bond and are set up to operate and pay off the bonds from revenue. They still work out to be a much better deal for customers than the telcos offer and often provide broadband where the telcos had no intention of offering anything in the foreseeable future.

H1-B is NOT immigration. I don't oppose immigration, I oppose H1-B. The dynamic of abusing the employee's tenuous status is part of the problem. I'm guessing they will seem a lot less valuable to employers here if they have a green card such that they can change jobs without risk of being deported.

But beyond just IT, I'm pretty sure most Americans would find increase in income to match the last 30 years of inflation would be a real help. It would also stimulate the economy and boost profits of a lot of companies.

Your understanding of economics seems to consist mostly of talking points.

Impressive, but let's see smart engineers do all of that without capitalism (like in a country like North Korea).

Seriously, though, all those things you list are easy compared to trying to predict human behavior. I think most people fail at predicting human behavior (whether they are an engineer or economist seems irrelevant. . . ) and those that succeed become crazy rich and never reveal their secret (or, if they do reveal it, it no longer applies since human behavior constantly adopts new knowledge).

Are you including checkin, security, bag drop/pickup, and getting to and from the airports? Didn't think so.

Even a stopped (analogue) clock is right twice a day.

Why is parent modded Off-Topic? It's spot-on.

The problem is that you do not have perfect knowledge, and neither do I.

Translating a car chase or an explosion into a foreign language is cheap.

Well, gee, it seems there is a severe shortage of electricity, food, housing, pretty much everything. By God it's like Soviet Russia around here. Not one cheap food item on the shelves!

Shortage isn't binary, but it does show signs and symptoms. Those include rising prices (in this case salaries) broadening standards (that would mean more willingness to accept telecommute, more willingness to hire older workers, etc), more concessions to work/life balance, and other measures. In other words, there is an existing under-utilized pool of IT labor in the U.S.

It is the Government's job to protect the economy of the U.S. and that includes making sure the general population is able to maintain their standard of living.

I don't mind helping the farmers, but the bankers were the architects of their own problems got bailed out anyway and left everyone else holding the bag. Then in gratitude they began a crazy and often illegal campaign of mass foreclosures.