f.lux does a similar thing on Windows PCs, in case anyone was interested.

Desalinization is expensive. It's energy intensive, they're ugly as sin, it results in bad-tasting water, it pollutes the oceans with saline, the resulting water still needs to be pumped hundreds of miles to be used, etc. etc.

It's a raw deal and it's stupid to mention it. Please don't.

Already worked. Unlike FM radio, Amber alerts and storm warnings show up.

Only problem for broadcasters is I'm not listening to their sponsors all day. That is the beef, not a missed alert.

They are committed when it impacts large contracts.

Seen stuff in the news lately regarding the push for open document standards on the web? Governments are now specifying published government documents can not be propriety formatted. This forced Microsoft to support open formats or lose large contracts because Microsoft Office is not meeting specifications of the document requirements.

Compatibility with internet standards has forced open standards onto Microsoft for a long time from TCP/IP over NetBios, to NTP, Remember when Microsoft had Windows for Workgroups? The Internet put them at risk of a end run past them. They had to adapt or die.

There are numerous other examples where Microsoft does not own the standard in use where their solution was forced to the back to die.

Moves like this aren't philanthropic. It's a common tactic for a vested CEO to cut their salary to just $1. But because they are vested (EG: stock options, partial ownership, etc) they make out just fine.

As a company owner, I could cut my salary to just $1 and it probably wouldn't affect my true annual gross income at all, since unpaid salary just becomes profit.

Step 1: Offer a compelling product.

Step 2: Offer it in a cheaper *and* more open way that the competition.

Step 3: Repeat step 2 over and over while network effects kick in. As trust and network effects continue to escalate, you become the "default choice".

Step 4: Only go here when you want to be evil. Stop offering such a good price. Don't be as open as you used to be. Structure your prices around keeping competition out rather than simply being "better". Hire lobbyists and start offering regulatory officials vacations in order to provide "an environment conducive to product education".

Google is now just sticking its toe in the water for Step 4. Microsoft charged into Step 4 as early as they could.

Just consider that the "god" in question is the one you're reading at the time, and you'll feel better.

Without federal regulation, yes. Without local government involvement, no. Without easement access (which is granted by the municipal government), the company running the fiber to the house needs to negotiate a separate land usage deal with every property owner between the house and the connection point.

I think the radio stations should start charging labels for airplay advertising to recoup the increased cost of program material. Advertising is already starving radio stations as media is moving online. About the only ones listening to over the air radio anymore is commuters trying to wake up and catch the traffic report. Now that Google Maps has added the real time traffic overlay on maps, even that is going away as people use a cell GPS to avoid traffic gridlock.

How many homes no longer have a home stereo system with a radio turner? It's video at home or online streaming to cut the 10 song loop may stations play. Dilute that with an over stuffed advertising bundle and you see the problem. Even on weekends, many radio stations pretty much shut down operations and play infomercials to kill time normal advertisers wont support enough to keep the lights on.

If you are a radio station, your prime time audience is only from 6-9 AM and 3-6PM. Everything else is repeat programming.

And such classifications are at the discretion of the FCC.

This coming from the same schmucks who tried to pass off "payola" as a positive thing.

Are you still throwing that bullshit around? The last time you checked, it was an "Information Service" because the FCC reclassified it as an Information Service in 2003. It was under Title II before that, and moved OUT of that classification by the FCC.

Those two statements are contradictory. The last mile is a natural monopoly.

It's only libel/slander/defamation if it's false information about a person. There are plenty of lies one can spread that don't fall under that umbrella.

I agree with you that it's not "trolling" though, and it wouldn't be caught by this simplistic bot, anyway.

I went through the same thing growing up. Bullying was real, not bullshit "mean words on a screen," and deciding not to bow down and take that shit anymore was a major turning point for me.

I suspect a sort of emotional antibacterial soap effect - thirty years of well-intentioned idiots, coddling and sanitizing reality for their precious little snowflakes makes sure they can't deal with (and this is, in fact, a great term) "typical human dickishness."