It can be even worse. When I was looking to upgrade the last time around, it worked out that I g=could get a cheaper plan if I also bought a phone from the provider.

I don't know about the USA, but the last time I was looking to buy a phone, my phone company was willing to give me an interest free loan for 2 years, and give me a cheaper plan than I would have gotten had I kept my old phone. It did surprise me a little, but I reckon they get to make a profit on the upfront sale, so they are happy to sell a phone to me at cost, and they probably can borrow very cheaply, so they weren't even bothered to charge interest on the upfront loan.

So it is not always as clear cut, but then again, I live in the UK where there is actual competition between the phone networks (Vodafone, O2, Orange/T-Mobile and Three).

What is clear is that it is not always the no-brainer that the article makes it out to be.

If you think buying a car and an institution buying a large number of shares in the markets are anything alike (asides from exchanging cash for an asset), then you are hopelessly misinformed.

This isn't predicting the markets. This is gaming them. If I know that a big pension fund want to buy Apple stock, having gleaned this information from unfulfilled orders on some exchanges, I can go out and quickly buy some Apple stock, and then almost immediately sell it to the fund. Why should we allow HFTers to have information before the rest of us. They should wait in line like everyone else. Why can't orders be queued so that the last to place and order is the last to have it filled. And why can't we impose a delay (even a random one) to ensure that one cannot jump ahead of the queue by going to other markets to find the same shares when they find out that someone else is looking for shares.

The fact that a service cannot be guaranteed does not give someone the right to sabotage it. Everything we depend on in society depends in part on society agreeing that we behave in certain ways, including not sabotaging services that we depend on as society. This is why we don't allow people to pollute rivers unnecessarily, we don't allow people to fly their aircraft without agreeing to obey the instructions of air traffic control etc.

There was a time when hard-line services would not have been considered essential - when just two people had telephones for example, and quite possibly for a long time after that. That changes when people began to depend on them, and one could argue that people now depend on wireless services in the same way.

Hardwires can also be cut (see recent tornadoes) and wireless service may be a lot easier an quicker to restore in emergency situations.

70% (and now possibly more) of emergency calls are now done using wireless devices, so the argument that we should not depend on them is incredibly silly and shortsighted at best.

You are not thinking far enough.

Smart meters and thermometers could allow smarter uses of electricity, e.g., at peak times, if your temperature is only marginally above the set temperature, your AC could be switched off automatically. If you are way above the set temperature, the utility would let you keep using your AC until it comes down to a comfortable temperature.

You could even have peak pricing, and maybe you could instruct your AC to only turn on when the price per unit of electricity is below a certain level, unless your house is too hot.

This could be preferable to building excess capacity which will hit your bills, even when you are not using it.

Don't know if you are serious...

A failing road car stops on the road. Not always ideal, but generally a controllable event. A failing flying car drops out of the sky. Therefore it has to be orders of magnitude more reliable than your typical car.

Countries around the world have systems in place to control the airspace. Can you imagine how difficult/impossible this task would be with a million cars potentially in the air at the same time.

A flying car belongs in the science fiction category for good reasons.

The use of the word "rights" really bugs me. There are universal rights which most people agree to, and which, for the most part, do not require third parties to recognise to give effect to them. Free speech is one such. You speak, and the state may not stop you. Freedom is another. The state may not take you and throw you in Guantanamo without due cause.

Everything else is a privilege bestowed by society.

A demotion can also be a constructive dismissal as well. Very few, CEOs accept demotions that they are pressured into. Even without taking away a cent in his salary, bonus and benefits, you may still have the conditions for constructive dismissal.

...No.

(What was the question again?)

I disagree completely with this. If we think we are anywhere near ready to colonise another planet, why don't we first colonise the ocean. Yes, the ocean!

If you think it is worthwhile to send someone off to Mars because it might help us establish a colony there, then maybe we should start by building colonies right on this planet in places that are inhospitable to humans now. Like at the bottom of the ocean. And make them self-sufficient too, i.e. able to function without any interaction with the outside world.

If we can't do it on this planet, we haven't a prayer of colonising a completely inhospitable environment like Mars.

That is sophistry.

The employees knowingly put their own company in a difficult position by demanding, on twitter, for the resignation of their CEO. Of course you can't just fire the CEO. But you can make his position untenable, which is what this employee did.

The ramifications could be even worse.

Many powerful people may now use this as a way to get rid of the rules around funding for political causes because there will now be evidence that people can be "persecuted" for possessing contrary views in a political debate. And I can see judges agreeing with it.

So the end result will be that in the future billionaires like the Koch brothers will be able to anonymously fund their pet political causes. And this WILL happen because someone took advantage of a rule that was intended to stop the wealthy from subverting the political process. Now we have evidence that those rules can now be used to suppress dissenting opinion and therefore they are fair game to be challenged.

If I was an ultra right-wing lawyer, I might just be going to the Supreme Court to demand that wealthy people be allowed to anonymously commit unlimited amounts of money to political causes of their choosing.

Reductio ad absurdum (yes I know what that means, and it applies here). You charged that Baidu choosing to "censor" (in quotes because the word doesn't really apply here) blocks access to information. I applied your reasoning to a situation in which another person might choose not to provide information (theoretical person being quizzed by a Nazi).

Both are refusing to provide information to fulfil the request (one using technical means, and the other by refusing to remember). In a free society, unless you have a very selective value system, you cannot call one censorship and the other, well, whatever you decide to call it.

Freedom of speech means exactly what if says. You are free to say what you want. You cannot be compelled to say what you don't want to say. You can't have "freedom of speech" if you are not free to not speak. Therefore Baidu can't be accused of censorship because they are not preventing any speech. They are just choosing not to provide a platform for certain "speeches" and those speakers are free to speak on any other platform of their choosing.

Baidu cannot be accused of censorship any more than Fox News or MSNBC could be accused of censorship.