Seriously, having been stuck with rackspace email for as long as I have been, I can only expect things to get better. They could hardly get worse.

One of the beneficial side effects of places like Kaiser ( all in one insurance/provider ) is that they can communicate and enforce such policies as "No antibiotics for viral infections", often in spite of well meaning but ultimately clueless parents.

Smaller practices may still prescribe antibiotics for everything from a sniffle to a stubbed toe, but the bigger places are finally getting it. It's one of the few benefits of consolidating our health care as we are.

Seriously; in light of all the violations of our "privacy" by the government, what "rights" can we humans be said to retain?

Viewed in that light, however, the answer is probably a depressing "Yes".

So they *shouldn't* aggressively pursue profits?

Strange.

Side note: How fast do you suppose Verizon wireless makes 7.4 million? 3 hours? 4?

Thank you; yes, you are describing exactly what we saw, and continue to see. The business name is an amalgam of the owners, but one of the owners is never out at one of our remote locations, and never has been. Never the less, we have multiple bad reviews bad mouthing that provider, talking about treatment that we don't handle at any of our locations.

It's a shady operation, pure and simple. The more people that I can make aware of that, the better.

I support a business who has been targeted by yelp, and it's not pleasant. I can't prove anything, but shortly after turning the abusive sales troll down, we started getting negative reviews. Look up the users making the reviews, and it seems they have a history of making negative reviews. What's more, most reviews were factually and demonstrably inaccurate. We couldn't find any of these users in our system, so we knew they weren't customers.

Now sure, they could have been normal trolls out to do what trolls do, but it just seemed too coincidental that they started popping up after we turned down a business relationship with yelp. Meanwhile, our customers' positive reviews would often never show up on yelp due to their algorithm.

The obvious solution to this entire headache is to dissuade family and friends from using yelp, spread the word far and wide that they are dishonest in their policies and that companies can pay for reviews. As "family IT", we have far more authority than yelp could ever hope for.

I can't tell you how comfortable I would be feeling, right this instant, were Palin vice president.

Obama didn't win; the GOP lost, both in 2008 and 2012. If you want to be angry at anyone, be angry at the GOP for giving us shit choices.

"Well no, but I can see MS making the same mistake "...never post before coffee.

Well no, but I can see MS making. Chromebooks are sold as a browser-based solution, that's the expectation. An MS laptop will have a different set of expectations placed on it, right or wrong. If they aim to "just" provide a browser experience, they'll fail.

You're right about he insurance, but I can't help but wonder if the reasons the data is valuable are far more mundane: in order to target specific product and services for sale. If you know a patient has a specific condition, you can target them with ads for specific therapies.

The scope of the problem isn't clear, the goal is ill-defined. What, exactly, are trolls winning?

I think the only one "winning" anything here is the author trying to sell her book by engaging in much the same inflammatory business as the trolls she purported to study.

And more relevantly, did her answer involve lye?

Decent advice, but it's been my experience that you don't get valuable information from conferences, just more sales contacts.

Guess it depends on the tech in question.

If you're a former grunt, then you've seen the after effect of these conferences. At best, it gets your bosses out of your hair for a few days. At worse, they come back revved up to implement the newest buzz work...for a week, until they see the cost, then it's like it never happened.

Take my advice; choose based on location and work up your justification from there. Myself, Vegas is always an attractive option, but by no means should you limit yourself. Be imaginative. /jaded and tarnished.